Charcha Time: Is Mumbai Fixing Its Infrastructure Gaps Or Compounding Them?
· Free Press Journal
Mumbai is constantly being developed. With construction work everywhere, it disrupts the smooth functioning of the city. The government says the development will ease the travel experience whereas the citizens complain about already unrepaired infrastructures. Minal Sancheti asks a resident and an urban designer what they think Mumbai lacks as infrastructure and what is good about the ongoing development.
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Oormi Kapadia, Urban Designer, Mumbai
Coastal roads considerably reduced the commute time for the vehicle owners. However, mass transport like buses has not been using this infrastructure, so relatively, it has yet to benefit the masses. When we see the city through the lens of development, we realise that the development is not thought through. Mumbai is lacking in comprehensive planning and maintenance of its infrastructure. Projects are carried out piecemeal, without evaluation or feedback on what has and has not worked.
Political will towards maintenance has to be stronger than the initiation of new projects. This will is completely lacking. In this scenario, even the newly built coastal road will meet a similar downfall in a decade. Smooth roads without any encumbrances, which means zero potholes, zero digging up for laying of lines, and no multiple resurfacing. Construction and Maintenance of footpaths is as important.
Rs 15,000 crore for a 10.6 km coastal road could have maintained the 2000km of Mumbai city’s internal road network for almost 50 years at current maintenance budgets - so yes, numbers do not make sense.
City streets are not just a mode of commute but cultural spaces for the citizens, while the coastal road is just an extremely expensive smoke ring for the city.
The traffic jams are multi-pronged - easy access to vehicles, driver lifestyle where vehicles can be left to the driver without parking them in designated spaces, multiple road work before monsoons, and encumbered roads and footpaths are the reasons.
Yes, the coastal road is detrimental to the environment, and it is thousands of crores of rupees spent on a small percentage of the population.
Mumbai is developing - a bit too late and still not clear in its vision. So it’s taking 2 steps forward and 4 steps back. It is left to be seen whether its development is progress or regression.
Sandhya Lal, Communication and Holistic Wellness Coach
We always say we want to reduce the traffic jams, so that is why we are building these roads. But the traffic has not reduced even after the number of flyovers has increased. So you are not planning your infrastructure. The traffic jam remains the same.
You are building the flyovers, but the roads still have potholes because you dug them up for some repair work. The road still remains uneven. So that infrastructure is not helping.
Bad roads and repair work are not alone to blame for the traffic. However, sometimes I feel we should have bad roads in a city like Mumbai because of the speeding vehicles. You are safer on a bad road than on a good road. On a good road, people drive very fast. Many of them do not have good driving sense.
The amount of time it takes to reach the destination depends on traffic. Mumbai is the only city where we don’t say how many kilometres away, but how much time it will take.
How are you building the intercity mode? If you are making a metro, then how is the metro connected to the office area? Where are you placing them? Now, they are planning to build bullet trains. Where do we have space for a bullet train, and is it needed? We are having a bullet train just to say we have a bullet train.
Charcha Time: Is India Becoming Nepal 2.0 Amid Rising Youth Anger & Online Outrage?The development that comes at the cost of the environment is not development. Not just that. The coastal roads are also destroying the environment. Earlier, fish were available. Now, due to the coastal roads, fish are not available in the market. This is because to catch the fish, you have to go deeper into the sea, as that’s where all the fish used to be. So you are building an infrastructure, but destroying the environment. The new underground tunnel in Mumbai is beautiful, but we don’t know how harmful it is to the environment.
Coastal roads are no doubt beautiful, and one can go for a drive. But again, to drive on Worli Sea Link, you will have to pay a toll. And once you come out, you get into traffic again.