Western Railway opens extra staircase at Prabhadevi station to ease crowding

Western Railway (WR) has opened an additional staircase at Prabhadevi railway station to reduce crowding. The staircase is on the western side of the southern foot overbridge, on the Churchgate side. It gives commuters one more way in and out of one of Mumbai's busiest suburban interchanges.

Crowding around the station has also grown because the Elphinstone Road overbridge is being rebuilt under the Sewri-Worli connector project. The old road bridge has been demolished and its pedestrian paths are closed. Commuters now have to use the railway's existing foot overbridge, which sees heavy crowding, especially in peak hours.

Western Railway's Prabhadevi station and the nearby Parel station of Central Railway together handle an estimated 3.5 lakh passengers a day. The densely populated commercial areas of Lower Parel and Prabhadevi add to the pressure of pedestrians.

Commuters had complained that climbing the foot overbridge stairs alone took seven to eight minutes. Western Railway had introduced one-way movement on the southern foot overbridge during peak hours and had also deployed additional Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel to manage the crowds.

The station was earlier known as Elphinstone Road, and crowding is a particularly sensitive issue here. On September 29, 2017, 23 people died in a stampede on the crowded foot overbridge linking the Western and Central Railway stations. The tragedy highlighted the shortage of pedestrian infrastructure at Mumbai's crowded suburban stations.

Vineet Abhishek, Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, said: "The new staircase was completed within 80 days of receiving the no-objection certificate from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). An existing block of a public toilet had to be demolished to make room for the structure. The work was not easy. Engineers had to work in a very tight space, with the road on one side and the railway tracks on the other. Because of the nearby residential buildings, construction could be done only during the daytime. Underground electric cables, utility lines and water pipelines hindered the excavation and foundation work. Despite all these obstacles, the railway engineers and the contracting agency built the staircase on schedule."

Western Railway had earlier widened the entrance of the southern foot overbridge from 2.1 metres to five metres. Even so, complaints of bottlenecks continued on the narrow staircases connecting the platforms. The additional staircase is expected to solve part of this problem by giving commuters another way to exit.

Railway and civic officials are also considering a proposal for a separate 12-metre-wide foot overbridge with a staircase and lifts. It is seen as a long-term measure to deal with the growing pedestrian load.

A new double-decker road bridge, which will also be part of the Sewri-Worli elevated connector, is being built to replace the demolished British-era Elphinstone Bridge. The reconstruction has temporarily changed pedestrian movement in the area and increased pressure on the station. With work on the Elphinstone Bridge still under way, the new staircase is expected to bring immediate relief, but managing crowds at the Prabhadevi-Parel interchange remains a major challenge.