Tenders for 10 metro stations - details

29 September 2008 - 6:47pm — silkboard

First of all, I have no idea what that Deccan Chronicle article meant when it talked numbers like Rs 1 to 10 Crore per station. We have been noticing Bangalore Metro tenders in newspapers, all are available on BMRC website as well. Here are the details, with links to the tender pdf files:

CMH Road + Byppanhalli stations - Rs 81 Crores (link)
RV Road Terminal + Jayanagar - Rs 61 Crores (link)
Tollgate + Hosahalli + Vijayanagar - Rs 98 Crores (link)
Yeswantpur + Soap Factory + Mahalaxmi Nagar - Rs 111 Crores (link)

So if you notice, the ball is set in motion for the last few stations on each of the four 'reaches' of Metro. Some things worth noticing:

Most important - no mention of Banashankari, or K R Puram or other stations that were supposed to be part of the extension of phase 1. (Remember, they had talked about extending the lines a bit to hit potential mobility hubs on Outer Ring Road)
No tenders yet for underground stations
- the mother of all stations - point where these four reaches intersect - Majestic. Tenders only talk of at grade or elevated stations
- Similarly, the interchange point between High Speed Airport Rail and Metro.

So, for above, the design work (or file-shifting!?) is still in progress. Not a problem.

I browsed through one of the documents in detail (Yeswantpur one). Not much technical details of station design, or station area footprint (no footprint, except the pillars?) are present, except that stations are 135 meters in length, plus transition span of 14 to 20 meters.

One interesting thing you would note (section 1.5) is that the builder is expected to coordinate with various agencies on temporary and permanent relocation and diversion of utilities, including Traffic Management on roads in the adjoining neighborhood. So, they will have to do the temporary constructions (say a temporary road, or drain), and get approvals etc from concerned bodies on their own. Language is interesting, but its not clear whether BMRC is washing its hands off this aspect (construction time coordination) or fixing responsibility on the builder.

Anyway. Read more. And make your notes, but not a lot to look forward in these tenders. What we need to see is the mobility aspect of station designs. I think we need to meet with BMRC to get the documents and understand their design process and philosophies.

Comments

Station pic gone from website?

silkboard - 2 Oct 2008 - 5:30pm

For some reason, the Jayanagar station picture is not there on Metro site now (as of today). Whatever the reason, just to be safe I have pulled all (12) station pics from BMRC site and Jayanagar one from cache and uploaded them all on flickr.

Station drawings

srkulhalli - 3 Oct 2008 - 12:28pm

Is the design of the station decided or to be done by the contractor? I did not see any design drawings in there

Suhas

Not clear from the tenders

silkboard - 3 Oct 2008 - 3:54pm

There is nothing in their that talks of design work, though it mentions "architectural finishes" as a work item. I am guessing that the builder just has to run with a design and run with it. We need to see detailed station designs, their footprint etc. Period. This is not to poke holes in whatever work BMRC has gotten done on design front, I am sure they will do a good job. But putting things in public domain early can avoid a lot of trouble later. In case I am jumping the gun here, and detailed station designs are already up somewhere on their website, do point out. [PS: BTW, Jayanagar station pic is back on BMRC site, and it looks to be the same pic as earlier, so it was probably some website thing and no big deal]

Metro - detailed land area plans

silkboard - 3 Oct 2008 - 4:33pm

On the subject of station land area design, not that they don't have anything public. 8 PDFs displaying land area plans for some sections of the routes, a few stations and approach ramps have been up on the website for more than an year now. Go to news section to BMTC website to find them. No detailed station plans, only land area plans - to show affected area and properties. Will cut one land area plan out in a separate post. BTW, we all know and understand that many of these plans may have pending litigations, like we heard that some private land owners at would-be Soap Factory station have issues. But still, whats the harm in making the plans and designs public with disclaimers that these may change based on result of some litigations!?

Metro station re-designed again..

blrsri - 11 Oct 2008 - 3:30pm

after all the comments that the 'gharib' stations received, BMRCL has gone ahead and redesigned the stations yet again, this report is in the Deccan Chronicle from yesterday.. Frankly, I do not see anything bad with these design..below is the trinity station. They also mention that they(construction ppl) will be out of MG road by one year!

station designs

narayan82 - 11 Oct 2008 - 5:13pm

From my little architectural experience I know stations cannot be designed over night.There is a lot of thought and effort that goes into it, which I am sure BMRCL is paying good money for. So...Why keep re designing stations? Why cant they set parameters/constraints, and give a clear brief so we can spend less time arguing about it and get down to actually building it faster?

Narayan Gopalan
User Interaction Designer
Bangalore

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