Bengaluru: The much awaited 4.8-km long underground stretch between Magadi Road and MG Road stations will be thrown open for commercial purpose by Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah at Vidhana Soudha metro station at 6 pm on Friday.
The opening of this stretch would link Byappanahalli with Mysore Road station. The underground stretch (UG-2) will have five stations — Cubbon Road, Dr Ambedkar Veedhi Vidhana Soudha, Sir M Visvesvaraya, Majestic and Krantivira Sangolli Rayanna. The time taken to reach Mysore Road from Byappanahalli would be 33 minutes and the ticket fare would be Rs 40.
The work for underground tunneling started in June 2011 and BMRCL missed many deadlines. As per the initial plan it was supposed to have been thrown open to public by December 2015.
Currently the east-west corridor is only partially open, from MG Road to Byappanahalli and from Magadi Road to Mysore Road. The opening of the entire stretch is expected to steeply increase ridership and experts believe it would ease road traffic by nearly 20 per cent in these areas.
