CHURCHGATE is one of the majorly crowded part of Mumbai.

It’s Railway station lying in the

Western Line serves as mumbai’s urban and suburban transit corridor for millions of people
daily. It has a great architectural legacy and a significantly developed urban community with
all amenities of attraction like improved markets, malls, and happening social hubs.
Churchgate station square is connected directly to the most crowded roads amongst the
Fort area. Apart from regulating traffic from V N Road, Jamshedji Tata Road, M Karve Road it
has well established bus and taxi access from AhilyaBai Holkar Chowk (Churchgate) to rest of
the city. Large amount of people walking from nearby schools, colleges, offices, markets,
shops to the Churchgate station or the areas nearby make it one of the most crowded
squares in the city.

The metro station on Jamshedji Tata Road, near Eros cinema that is under construction lies
in the Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ line, also called Line 3 of the Mumbai Metro, implemented by
the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL). When completed, the 33.5-km-long
line will be the first underground metro line in Mumbai, with 27 stations. It is an area of high
development density and hence will work as interchange station between metro service,
suburban service and proposed elevated corridor. Churchgate being the major hub for social
interaction and economical and commercial transactions any new intervention is highly
appreciated. Also as Churchgate and CSMT are going to get connected via railroad to each
other and to Colaba, the golden triangle of the trade and social interaction will be formed.
As a result, this area will flourish in both financial and cultural ways.

The proposed 4 entrance/exit chambers on the surface and 290m long and 30m wide
station right under the crowded Jamshedji Tata Road will evidently become the part of the
Churchgate as every other new intervention which has been done. The station could stand
out as another major attraction of the locality and have its own importance. But there is
another school of tought with as opinion that despite modernization and globalization, the
place still demands attention towards its heritage and legacy.

Various Late Gothic structures like High Court Building, Gothic revival structures like
Mumbai University Building, Indo Saracenic structures like Western Railway Headquarters,
Art Deco building architecture like Eros Cinema Building and Colonial Architecture like
Esplanade Mansion and contemporary architecture like Express Tower have a character of
evolution in timeline and styles of architecture.

As an event of experimentation although focusing on maintaining the contextual and

cultural settings of the site, we have a wide scope of recreating the location as a social
public plaza.

On the other hand, there has been a noted level of anguish against the establishment of this
Metro Line itself. Various public areas – approximately 423 sqm of Footpaths and 800 sqm
of Open spaces are suffered because of the station. The construction of Line 3 has been
mired by several environmental issues, including the felling of trees and noise pollution
complaints. On June 6, 2017, it was reported that over 5,000 trees were proposed to be cut
in various areas of south Mumbai. The high court had earlier imposed a stay on the cutting
of trees but on May 5, 2017, it vacated its stay and gave a go-ahead to the MMRCL to cut
the trees, after observing that a balance needed to be established between development
and environment. It is now reported that a total of 5,012 trees will be affected, of which
1,331 will be cut and the remaining 3,681 will re-planted in other parts of the city.

However, MMRCL says that once implemented, MML-3 would reduce traffic on the corridor
by about 35% or by 4.5 lakh vehicles leading to decongestion of roads. As commuters would
start to prefer the comforts of metro over other conventional transport options, there
would be significant drop in air and noise pollution which are outcomes of burgeoning
population in cities such as Mumbai. On account of reduction in approx. 4.5 lakhs vehicles
on road per day, there will be saving of approx. 2.5 lakhs liters of fuel per day i.e. about Rs.
550 cr. per year. This way, it is stated that the compensation will soon be effective. Hence,
there is a hope to discover all the effects only once the line is active.