With the completion of metro projects in the following years, Mumbai, the capital city of India, is expected to see a significant improvement in its public transportation system. A 35-km metro line that will link the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) to the planned Navi Mumbai Airport is one of the upcoming projects. The first mass rapid transit (MRT) system linking these two airports will run along this Metro 8 line. An estimated Rs 15,000 crores would be spent on the construction of this metro line, which will carry 9 lakh people each day.
Prior to the development of the Navi Mumbai airport, which is scheduled to open in early 2025, the airport metro line was planned.
“From 2025 forward, commercial activities at the Navi Mumbai Airport are anticipated to start. A senior state government official told The Times of India, “We may put the Metro 8 corridor implementation plan in place now so that the line is ready when the airport traffic ramps up.
City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) and Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority will carry out the project (MMRDA).
The building of the metro line in the Navi Mumbai area will be handled by CIDCO, the Nodal Agency for the development of the Navi Mumbai Airport, while the project in the Mumbai area will be handled by MMRDA.
The metro line would be partly elevated and partially subterranean, according to the plan. The metro line between Andheri and the Eastern Expressway in Ghatkopar is probably going to go underground. The elevated route through the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road will thereafter be used to go till Mankhurd.
But, prior designs were not like this. MMRDA asked CIDCO to provide a thorough metro line from Mankhurd to Sagar Sangam in October 2022. The plan was to link the Metro 8 line from Belapur to the Navi Mumbai Airport and from Mankhurd to Sagar Sangam on Navi Mumbai Metro Line 1.
One metro line will be operated by MMRDA to Mankhurd, at which point it would join with the CSMT-Panvel high-speed route that Mumbai Railways Vikas Corporation has planned (MVRC).
The CSMT-Panvel high-speed line proposal had to be canceled, nevertheless, since the railway government chose to remove it from Mumbai Urban Transport Programme 3A for review.