After long wait, commuters happy to beat traffic delays with unbroken ride
Times of India | 23 August 2025
Kolkata: The city's long-awaited East-West Metro finally began its complete 16.6-km run between Sector V and Howrah Maidan on Friday evening, linking Salt Lake, Esplanade, and Howrah through one uninterrupted corridor. For thousands of commuters, the uninterrupted service is now a direct answer to years of battling traffic bottlenecks, delays, and diversions on road routes across the city.
For Sourav Dutta, a Bally resident working in Salt Lake, the Metro means he no longer needs to depend on a chain of transport modes — rickshaws, shared cars, and traffic-heavy roads like Belgharia Expressway and VIP Road. "I would often start early just to beat the jams yet reach late. Now, I can reach Howrah by train and then cut across the city without worrying about bottlenecks," he said after taking his first ride.
Howrah residents, long considered the worst-hit by the daily congestion on and around the bridge, seemed the most enthusiastic. Sandip Chatterjee, a Howrah Maidan resident employed in Sector V, said: "My commute always felt like a punishment. Two choke points on either end of Howrah bridge led to loss of nearly an hour daily. I tried taking the Metro, but it was of no point as much of the time used to go waste, climbing up and down Esplanade station and then taking a bus ride to Sealdah. This uninterrupted run changes everything.
" | Gold Rates Today in Kolkata | Silver Rates Today in KolkataFor commuters, who bank on suburban train travel to reach offices in Salt Lake, the full Metro run has become a dependable bridge. Soumen Mukherjee, who lives in Rishra and works at a Salt Lake MNC, said the Howrah connection would make his daily journeys more predictable. "Earlier, returning to Howrah station meant worrying about traffic snarls or diversions during rallies. Now, I can just step onto the Metro and reach on time," he said.
The impact is not confined to Howrah and Salt Lake alone. Chandrani Bhattacharya, an IT employee from New Alipore, said the complete stretch will open up new commuting choices. "From Monday, I plan to take a Metro from Rabindra Sarobar to Esplanade and then switch to the East-West Line. It looks far more reliable," she said.
Till Friday afternoon, the Green Line was functioning in two separate stretches — the 9.2-km Sector V-Sealdah and the 4.8-km Esplanade-Howrah Maidan via the Hooghly. The 2.6 km Esplanade-Sealdah link, flagged off in the evening, stitched the two into a single route.
Since 6 pm on Friday, Metro operated 12 integrated services between Howrah Maidan and Sector V and was an immediate hit. Around 7 pm, such was the commuter rush that Metro doors struggled to close, and RPF personnel and officials had to get down on the platform to either push passengers inside or ask them to take the next Metro. From Saturday, 186 services are being run daily between 6.30 am and 10.19 pm. Officials said trains will run every eight minutes in morning and evening peaks, every 10 minutes in afternoon and at 15-minute interval in non-rush hours. Services will be available seven days a week.