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SPEAK UP: Decongesting Mumbai – Is it mission impossible?

While the megapolis remains a congested mess despite a string studies and proposals over the past decade, citizens offer solutions to arrest the nuisance

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Traffic in Mumbai came to a crawl with the Gokhale Bridge shut at Andheri following its partial collapse
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The city is crumbling, and this became evident twice in a matter of weeks. The first incident was Gokhale bridge collapse, and now closure of the Delisle bridge in Lower Parel has thrown the city out of whack. 

Chaos and congestion, both of people and motor vehicles on road, spiked exponentially. Over the years Mumbai has got quite a few Nariman Points across the city and suburbs. Several office spaces have shifted to Lower Parel, Elphinstone Road, BKC, Vikhroli, Goregaon, Malad, or Andheri owing to skyrocketing real estate prices. Fancy buildings were built, but the government forgot that these are not comprehensively transit-oriented areas and were poorly connected. The approach roads are narrow, the bridges connecting them are congested and parking spaces are negligible. People are ravaging the limited space available by parking their vehicles for free or pittance. The inclusion of more cars and motorbikes on road is an indication of the need to upgrade the public transport. So what next? We ask Mumbaikars how to decongest this city that is charmingly old and crafted new as well.

VOICES

We can decongest the city through proper planning and management and execute the right attitude or seriousness in resolving traffic problems. Development of commercial, educational and cultural centres throughout the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and better connectivity between the outer regions will certainly help to decongest the city. For instance, provisions should be made in such a way that people need not come to Dadar every time they have to go from east to west. Develop more facilities on the outskirts of Mumbai and other areas around the city by providing access to quality infrastructure and other amenities, such as good schools and hospitals in each district.
Ishika Tolani, from Bandra

I do not think there is any need to decongest the city. The problem is lack of planning. Stress on urban planning will address the congestion problem in the city and also reduce the burden on urban infrastructure. With proper planning implementation will be smooth and everyone can enjoy the facilities. There are so many departments and no one knows who does what. They keep blaming each other. Population residing is not an issue. There is an inflow and outflow of thousands of people every day. That is why people think it is getting suffocated.
Ravi Nair, Marol

World-class cities need world-class infrastructure. We need to understand that new infrastructure is required to make Mumbai a world class city and with a large number of infrastructure development going on, citizens will have to bear a little suffering. Once proper Infrastructure facilities are available, it would surely decongest the city. Living examples are JJ flyover, Eastern Freeway and Bandra-Worli Sea Link.
Ram Prakash, Santacruz

The state government should seriously think about staggering of work hours for offices in the private sector by giving incentives in some or other other way. The goal of staggering work hours is to force commuters to go to work at different times. Recently, I have read about offices in BKC being asked to stagger work hours for decongesting BKC roads. I guess if this is implemented pan-city, it will be of great help.
Shreya Thakur, Colaba

Congestion of Mumbai is the biggest challenge and for this purpose all main and arterial roads should be free of parking. Illegal parking in various areas is eating away road space, leading to frequent traffic jams in the city. Thus, illegal parking should not be allowed under any circumstances. Timings of schools, colleges, and other educational institutions should not clash with office timings. Mass transport should be heavily subsidized and private vehicles entering the city from MahimSion onwards should pay congestion tax during the daytime.
Godfrey Pimenta, Andheri

The government has to implement strict laws to curb incoming of migrants who come on tourist visas and settle in the city illegally. Also, numbers of illegal slums and high-rise are increasing day by day and everyone have turned a blind eye to it. Till a mishap happens, no one pays any heed. One has to come up with proper infrastructure policies as per our country's requirements and not at par with Shanghai or Singapore.
—Pankaj Bafna, Andheri

Its impossible or we can say a difficult task to decongest Mumbai. Earlier even after a string of consultancy studies, blueprints, and proposals over the past decade, the megapolis remains a congested mess. The past government & also present government came up with many ideas like building another small city to bring down the population of the Mumbai city but all went in vain.
Nir Singh, Andheri

EXPERT SPEAK

As bridges grow older, more incidents like the ones at Andheri and Lower Parel would occur. The answer doesn't lie in building more bridges and flyovers — like the way government plans on both WEH and EEH — which would only congest the roads with private cars and two-wheelers. If we reduce the number of private vehicles by 20 per cent then not only would the traffic on road will decrease by approximate 40 per cent but also the speed of vehicles will go up by 30 per cent.
Ashok Datar, Chairman, MESN and transport expert

To reduce congestion on roads, there is a need to rely more on public transport. Delisle Road is an exit to a railway station, however, an important one. Even the Elphinstone Road tragedy showed us the need for better entry/exit points at railway stations. The need of the hour is revival of SATIS project that is related to improving areas outside railway stations. Also, when number of two-wheelers are increasing on road, it's an indication that lesser people are opting for public transport. Right now, BEST needs to upgrade itself which is a vital last mile connectivity.
Pankaj Joshi, UDRI

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