Seamless connectivity in Delhi and the national capital region (NCR) will soon no longer be a dream! If a plan by Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) goes through, then the Delhi Metro Phase-3 may be linked to the upcoming Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut rapid rail corridor. According to a ToI report, GDA has asked Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to prepare a revised detailed project report for Delhi Metro Phase III route between Noida Electronic City and the Mohan Nagar metro station. In the revised report, the GDA has sought that one of the stations on the metro route should be integrated with a station on the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor near Sahibabad. Sahibabad will be one of the elevated stations on the inaugural corridor of the RRTS project, that is the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut rapid rail transit corridor.
For the two networks to be integrated, the GDA has asked for them to be built closer to each other so that a skywalk can be created for the linking. The revised project report is expected to be submitted within a month. The idea of integrating the Vasundhara Sector 2 metro station, on the Phase III corridor with the proposed RRTS station at Sahibabad was discussed and the GDA wishes to connect the two for the seamless access of both services, the report said. This integration would also mean that both the nodal agencies, namely, the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC), which is implementing the RRTS corridor, and the DMRC will have to make changes to their existing plans.
According to the present outline, the distance between the Sahibabad RRTS station and Vasundhara Sector 2 is around 1.6 km and it would not be possible to construct a skywalk of that length to connect the two stations. So, NCRTC and DMRC will have to shift their RRTS and metro stations, respectively, closer to each other so that the distance between the two comes down to about 300-350 metres.
The RRTS network is a regional transit mass transporting system which will connect the nodes of the national capital region (NCR). The first corridor planned under this, which is the Delhi-Meerut corridor will reduce travel time between the two cities to just one hour, once operational. The other two corridors are Delhi-Gurugram-Alwar and Delhi-Sonipat-Panipat corridors.