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Did You Know The Mulund Depot Had A Helipad?

I’ve mentioned before that Google Earth is fun. In fact, I’ve written an entire blogpost based on what I can see on the map, and I’ve even written a full fledged article based on similar observations. Defence experts too use Google Earth, along with other mapping software, for instance on the recent Galwan encounter and the bridge built across the river.

Now, one of my favourite features of Google Earth is the Timeline View. It lets you see a certain part of the map over a period of time. Most parts of Mumbai can see be seen from the year 2000, while other cities came in slightly later. Many cities in the United States can be seen from the 1970s as well.

Now, coming to the Mulund Depot. The Mulund Depot, located at Devidayal Road, just off Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg is the last depot in the central and eastern suburbs. It is also the easternmost depot among all of BEST’s depots.

Note: The northernmost depot is Gorai Depot, the westernmost depot is Malvani Depot and the southernmost depot is the Backbay Depot.

The Mulund Depot was among the first to get A/C buses along with Oshiwara and Dharavi. It was home to the red Ashok Lelyland Viking AC buses and later on the Purple (Faeries) Cerita fleet as well. You can take a look at both these buses from the Mulund Depot here: The curious case of BEST and its AC buses. Interestingly, Mulund depot hasn’t received any of the new AC buses, be it the Force Motors mini-bus, the Tata Marcopolo CNG midi-bus, the Tata Starbus Hybrid bus or the Olectra electric bus.

If go to the Mulund Depot 20 years ago, we see something very interesting. It had a helipad!

On this snapshot taken on 20 October 2000, you can see a circle marked with an H on it.

This helipad is also visible in a snapshot taken on 3 December 2000.

As you can see, the helipad’s location hasn’t changed, and it intersects with the parking area. Basically it couldn’t be used at night when all the buses returned to the depot.

Now, interestingly, when the next snapshot was taken, on 2 February 2003, the helipad had disappeared. As you can see in the image below, there is no trace of it visible.

Rather strange, isn’t it? If you continue looking at the timeline, you’ll notice that the helipad never does return. What does make numerous appearances, especially post 2009 is the famed Cerita fleet.

For instance, here is a snapshot from 8 February 2011. You can see them Purple Faeries in abundance inside the depot.

Interestingly, according to this 2010 Mumbai Mirror report titled Waiting for next bus? It could be a chopper, BEST had apparently decided to sign an agreement with a private agency called Global Flying Club to set up permanent helipads across several bus depots, Colaba, Worli, Dindoshi, Oshiwara, Dharavi, Kurla and Imax Wadala (presumably Anik or Pratiksha Nagar Depot since Wadala Depot is in the West). While Worli and Colaba depots are very close to defence areas (INS Trata and INS Shikra/INS Kunjal), Kurla would have been interesting ever since it was rebuilt by Kanakia as a multi-storeyed structure. Mulund is not mentioned anywhere in the list, although Backbay is.

An online search for Global Flying Club and Mumbai yielded no results except for an article on The Times of India that spoke about the same thing as the Mumbai Mirror report.

I bet none of you knew about the ‘Best-copter’.

Anyway, that is all from me for the time being. If you’re bored, do go thru the last three months of the blog. There are several satire articles, a few news reports, and plenty of aerial photographs of bus depots in Mumbai.

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Featured image: Mulund Depot on 12 September 2011 by Vishal890.

With Google Earth’s New Imagery, Catch Some Mini-Buses On The Map!

So, a lot of you might know that I love to spend a lot of time on Google Earth. In the past, I’ve also written an article (for Swarajya) based on my observations on Google Earth ( UPA-Era National Highways Created Quite A Mess, Nitin Gadkari Needs To Fix This First) I’m not the only one. Colonel (Retired) Vinayak Bhat too has written many articles (for The Print) based on revelations from satellite imagery to reveal the nefarious deeds of our not-so-friendly neighbours Pakistan and China. You can read them here.

Readers of this blog may be aware that I have in the past even used Google Earth screenshots for a part of an article here: Explained: Why There Is No Direct AC Bus From Versova-Yari Road To Andheri Station

This article is to merely show that Google Earth has updated its satellite imagery of Mumbai. You now have a splendid view of construction of various metro corridors in the city, the Mumbai Trans-harbour Link (MTHL), the Coastal Road, along with several projects in Navi Mumbai including the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor and Bharat Mala and Sagar Mala projects.

The updates, with imagery from 30 January and 27 February 2020 also shows a lot of updates featuring BEST’s new fleet of mini-buses and midi-buses.

So let us start at Andheri. Below is a map of Andheri Station (West) where BEST’s initial flurry of mini-buses were launched. You can see a large number of buses parked at the main Andheri (West) Bus Station and another, albeit smaller lot further south at the Kumkum Bus Stop.

No mini-buses were spotted at Agarkar Chowk, Andheri (East) because mini-buses there were launched in March.

Next up is Goregaon Station (East). As you can see from this image, there are many buses scattered all over Goregaon (East) Bus Station. Some are inside the bus station while some are outside. That’s because similar to Andheri, some buses have their bus stops outside the bus station.

While there is one mini-bus from Goregaon Bus Sation (West), that was launched in February and this image is from January. Also, do note, while Andheri and Goregaon stations may look similar, the elevated deck above the Harbour Line platforms at Andheri is much larger while the one at Goregaon is not continous.

And now, going a little to the East. Actually, much much to the east. This is Deonar Depot. As you can see from this image, these are not the Force Diesel mini-buses but the Tata CNG Midi-buses.

After Andheri (and Jogeshwari, both of which come under the Oshiwara Depot), Deonar seems to have got the largest lot of AC-buses. Deonar was earlier home to a huge lot of the Cerita fleet (Purple Faeries) along with Oshiwara, Magathane and Mulund.

Coming down south, we see Byculla Station (West) with a few midi-buses. These buses all belong to the Mumbai Central Depot.

After Byculla, we can also see some of the same buses at Mahalakshmi Station (West). These are the buses that start from Byculla Station (West) and terminate at Breach Candy Hospital.

Here is a snapshot from the Mumbai Central depot that is home to all the mini-buses in South Bombay. These buses ply in areas including Mumbai Central, Nagapada, Grant Road, Mahalakshmi, Breach Candy, Byculla, Sandhurst Road, Pandit Paluskar Chowk (Opera House), Vasantao Naik Chowk (Tardeo), Cumbala Hill, August Kranti Maidan, Haji Ali and Nana Chowk.

A little to the East, here is Wadala Station (West) and the Wadala Bridge monorail station.

And the last picture is from Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Chowk/ Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj VastuSangrahalaya (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum). These are buses coming from either Ahilyabai Holkar Chowk/Churchgate Station or Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and headed for Gateway of India or terminating at Dr. SPM Chowk.

Now, these are the only ones I’m posting here because there are the only ones where significant amount of red buses have been spotted. There are a few outside Dadar Station (East) but mostly on the road elsewhere. I can’t spot any outside Parel-Prabhadevi Station (West) or at Comrade P K Kurne Chowk (Doordarshan) due to the shadow from taller buildings in the vicinity.

So, till the next post. Have fun trawling through Google Earth.

Stuck in Traffic: How I Might Have Averted a Major Jam

Getting stuck in traffic is possibly the worst thing ever, especially in the morning. It simply ruins the rest of your day.

You wake up, get ready, and leave for a 9 hour job. You leave and end up stuck in traffic and your entire day goes for a toss. You are frustrated, irritated, and end up antagonizing others.

Now, where does the problem start? In today’s world, everybody relies on Google Maps. With Google advertising on Television about the awesomeness of it’s Navigation and Live Traffic relay, every Tom, Dick and Harry is busy using it to get to their destination. I’m not blaming the efficiency of Google Maps, but it did cause what I would call an Antagonising Disaster in Bengaluru.

To give a background, I need to travel to HSR Layout from Bannerghatta Road. There are two primary routes to reach this destination:

BTM Layout and Central Silk Board
Bommanahalli and Mangammapalya

The first route is perennially jammed because a vast majority of the traffic flows on this route, especially buses, and with bus stops placed precariously close to the signal, say goodbye to reaching office early.

The second route is less congested, faster and allows you to enter HSR Layout from the other end.

Now, the fastest way to reach HSR via the second route is: Vijaya Bank Layout – > Kodichikanahalli Road – > Devarachikanahalli Road – > Begur Road – > Mangammapalya Road and then turn into whichever main road of HSR Layout you would like to go to, starting from 5th Main.

Now, in order to get on to Mangammapalya Road [MR], one has to turn right onto Hosur Road, and take the immediate left. There is an opening on the Service Lane. This, is where the problem started.

BBMP had shut down the junction for a few days, in order to build a median on MR. Along with this, as part of traffic control, they barricaded part of the Service Lane. Thus anyone going from Silk Board towards Bommanahalli would have to get onto the main carriageway because the service lane is shut. Further, those coming out of HSR Layout via MR, would have to compulsorily take a left towards Garebhavi Palya because there was a Median that extended to the service lane barricades. Sounds complicated doesn’t it?

Once this was done, Google, which tracks every Android device, assumed that the junction was shut and thus stopped directing traffic on this route. It would direct all traffic towards Silk Board from the Bommanahhali signal, or worse, divert people onto a teeny-weeny, narrow, pothole ridden road parallel to Devarachikanahalli that went thru Virat Nagar, Vird Nagar and came out at Roopena Agrahara. Ultimately, all traffic ended up at Silk Board. Now, Uber drivers normally prefer following Google Maps. The situation is worse if you’re in an Uber Pool. The driver does not know the route, and even if some passenger wants to get off on MR, the map would direct them to Silk Board, then turn into HSR 5th Main, and then come back to MR. Very agonising, and antagonising.

I figured, let me try and fix this issue.Thus, I began shaking my phone. I shook it. Submitted feedback. No change. Repeat process. This went on for THREE WEEKS till Google finally removed the Road Closed Sign. I even tried to upload a pic of the junction in my feedback. It took a while, but in the end, it worked.

The reason why this affected me so much was, since all traffic going towards HSR Layout, or even beyond Agara, towards Marathahalli would end up going to Silk Board. Not just Uber and Ola drivers, but even regular folk who didn’t know the city ended up on this route. A major Pain in the Nether Regions, I say. This often resulted in nasty waiting times at Silk Board, sometimes lasting up to 25 minutes. This pileup also impacted traffic going toward BTM since all those waiting to turn right would hog up the left lanes. Further, the ripple effect caused by this caused pile-ups on all sides of the Silk Board flyover, creating a Royal Mess!

Now that the situation is back to normal, I for one am happy. Lesser traffic jams, faster traffic, but unfortunately, no reduction in people mindlessly following Google Maps.

Here is a screenshot of the junction in Question.

A Google Maps Screenshot of the Junction of Mangammapalya Main Road and Hosur Road at Bommanahalli.

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