The two planned cable car lines in the suburbs of Mumbai would form a connection over the little rivers of the two towns of Marve and Gorai. At the moment, residents of Marve in Malad and Gorai in Borivali have to take ferries from and to Mumbai.

The planned mobility projects would not only provide the towns with better links to the transport network; travel times forcommuters could also be reduced considerably. An officer from MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) said: “A detailed project report is being produced by Indian Port Rail and Ropeway Corporation Ltd and the final decision on construction of the cable car systems will be made in the coming months.”

MMRDA representative RA Rajeev confirmed: “Cable cars work very well for passenger transport in New York, Columbia and Turkey. In a city like Mumbai, which is repeatedly battling transport problems, they could also be a good option.

These two cable car systems are intended to be pilot projects and if they are successful, we will also implement projects like these elsewhere.” The project aims to connect Borivali and Malad and thus to provide an optimal link over the last mile. The route will run from the respective metro stations to the town centres.

As such, not only would a link to the suburbs be created from east to west; a complete transport network would be guaranteed from Mumbai to the western outskirts.

The cable car line is expected to be 4.5 kilometres long and a number of stations are planned along this route, for better availability. This should make the journey to work easier in future for the numerous commuters from the western outskirts. tm