"Underground Metro more prone to terror attacks: Sreedharan"

Says E Sreedharan.  Underground Metro more prone to terror attacks: Sreedharan

The terror card.  But how could that be?  The overground Metro stands exposed to all and sundry.  Just yesterday Namma Metro was stopped for 30 minutes because someone from one of the high-rise houses (three-storeyed I guess) right next to the elevated track seems to have thrown a bag of garbage on the track.  Underground stations have fewer access points, so should be easier to monitor.

That wasn't the reason for having it overground apparently.  Cost was the reason for that.

'An underground metro rail will have five times more security risks when compared to an elevated metro,' Sreedharan said at the Urban Mobility India (UMI) conference-cum-exhibition here. 

... 

Sreedharan said that it would be his dream to give Delhi an all underground metro but it would not be financially viable. 

'As an engineer and a planner, it would be my dream to give Delhi a metro which is all underground... it is just not affordable for a developing country like India. We have been able to leverage limited resources making the metro financially viable,' he said.

Yes, $5 billion is OK, anything more is a bit of a problem.

Why Not A Mostly Underground Metro?

Since the 'increase in cost' argument seems to be not quite correct?

The cost of construction came down to Rs 153 crore (Rs 1.53 billion) per km in phase-II, as compared to Rs 162 crore (Rs 1.62 billion) in phase-I, despite an increase in the share of the underground component from 20 per cent in the first phase to 27 per cent in the second.

Also, why are the per km estimates higher for Phase III? Shouldn't they factor in the fact that the cost has actually come down?

Rs 250 crore per year, or 45% of annual income of the Delhi Metro, go towards loan repayment to JICA. Good for the Japanese. They're getting more than they will in Japan.