Lucknow Metro - History

History

Initially the Lucknow Metro Rail Project was planned to include two corridors: North-South and East-West; and the Gomti Nagar link. The construction cost was estimated at Rs74.13 billion for North-South corridor, Rs48.79 billion for East-West corridor and Rs4.95 billion for Gomti Nagar link.

The North-South corridor was to connect connect Amausi airport to Munshipulia and cover a distance of 23 km, including 14.87 km elevated, 1 km ramp and 7.2 km underground. This corridor will have a total 21 stations including 15 overhead and six underground. The elevated stations would have included the airport terminal, Amausi, Transport Nagar, Krishna Nagar, Shringar Nagar, Alambagh, Alambagh ISBT. This shall be followed by an undergroung section that will include Durgapuri, Lucknow Railway Station (Charbagh), Hussainganj, Sachiwalay (Uttar Pradesh Secretariat), Hazratganj, KD Singh Babu Stadium. Here after, the track will be elevated again, stations in the sequence are Dalibagh crossing, Lucknow University, IT College, Mahanagar, Badshahnagar, Lekhraj Market, Ram Sagar Mishra Colony, Indira Nagar and a new terminus Munshi Pulia.

For the Gomti Nagar link, the train coming from the airport terminal was to be diverted towards Gomti Nagar at the Indira Nagar trisection Polytechnic crossing along an elevated route. The planned stations were Indira Nagar Trisection, West End Mall, Gomti Nagar & Patrakarpuram.

The East-West corridor was planned to connect the Lucknow railway station at Charbagh to Vasantkunj on Hardoi Road and have a total length of 11 km, including 4.29 km elevated, 0.5 km ramp and 6.3 km underground. This corridor was to have 12 stations including seven underground and five overhead. The stations at Lucknow Railway Station (Charbagh), Gautam Buddha Marg, Aminabad, Pandeyganj, Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University (King George Medical University) and Niwazganj were to be below ground level, and an elevated section for the Thakurganj, Balaganj, Sarfarazganj, Moosabagh and the Vasant Kunj terminal stations.

The designed speed of metro would be 80 km/hr while the scheduled speed would be 34 km/ hr for North-South corridor and 32 km/hr for East-West corridor. There would be only one depot at Vasant Kunj spread over a land measuring 20 hectares. The Amausi Depot has been done away because of its proximity to the Airport and the subsequent reasons of security and safety.

In 2013, the Department of Urban Planning did away with the two-corridor layout and recommended a dense network of metro connectivity in Lucknow. The entire route has been proposed to be built overhead. Due to this, the overall cost of the project will go up due to an expanded network, the operating cost per km will be reduced. This is because the cost of constructing one km of overhead track is 1.8 billion (US$31 million) as compared to 5.5 billion (US$95 million) for an underground track. Also, an underground track consumes much more energy and is less safe. There is also a proposal to start a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) as a feeder service to the metro.