My Blog

I am very happy to launch MESN website, providing a forum to discuss obvious, simple but apparently “out of box” solutions for traffic problems in Mumbai and other mega cities in India. We believe that city planners are spending much more time and funds for high visibility mega projects such as Sea Links and Flyovers, Metro and Mono Rail whose utility in short term is, at best, doubtful! The government authorities and international consultants, who talk in thousands of crores, don’t even have time for governance and discipline based solutions which offer bigger bang for the buck!.

Last six years, I have been following up with MCGM to provide marked boxes and rational tariff for parking. But in the name of (some oncoming elections) this subject is simply put aside. In the meanwhile, the number of cars has doubled in the city leading to anarchy in parking! We are building multi storied and underground parking where the construction cost alone runs anywhere between Rs. 5 lakhs to Rs. 25 lakhs per parking space. The first such parking lot at Inox in Nariman Point is barely half full! And we want to build such monsters heavily subsidized thru “free fsi “!

Since 2002 we have been discussing about Bus Rapid Transit System in Mumbai. The chief merit of this system is that it costs only one tenth that of metro or mono rail and can be implemented in few months in smaller segments. It allocates more and defined space for buses which transport more people per litre and per sq meter than the private car . Mumbai needs BRTS more than any other city but there is a problem. Only express highways have enough width for carving out at least 2 median lanes for buses without crimping other vehicles much. But these expressways – especially the WEH has got 15 flyovers in a length of 26 km. Virtually every junction is covered by a longitudinal flyover and if the buses have to run at proper speed they have to use the flyovers but that could mean some inconvenience to people who would prefer bus stops near the junctions ! Today, about 5% buses travel over the flyover and 95% below to pick up the passengers ( mostly short distance travelers ) Can we not increase usage of flyovers ( and now sea link) by buses much more than at present ?

We have given up on enforcing parking and zebra crossing and instead come out with an expensive (and not really used sufficiently) solution of skywalks.

• Can we not provide better painting, lighting and supervision to ensure proper use and sanctity of zebra crossing?
• Can we not provide dedicated right turn lane wherever possible?
• If we keep the major arteries free from parking at least during peak direction, it can make a radical difference to the speed and popularity of buses (and a significant reduction in congestion) within a period of few months.
• The cost of extra traffic wardens will be much much less than the costs of flyovers and sea link ( costing Rs. 45 lakhs per day in interest alone ) Why cant we spend Rs. 30 lakhs per month on 300 extra traffic wardens?
• If we mark lanes and provide cones at select junctions and key arteries.
• In fact, if we use IT based ticket fixing and fine collection system and double the fines for traffic and parking offences ( unchanged for last several decades !) we can more than recover cost for such disciplining measures ?

On the other hand, we should also know what we set out to achieve under various mega projects and at what cost and whether are we getting real benefits in controlling congestion, pollution and such as

• Sea Link,
• More than 35 flyovers- who pays and who benefits )
• Under ground road crossings and sky walks
• Metro and mono rail
• Area Traffic Control ( computerized signal co ordination system @ Rs. 70 cr for 200 signals )
• Whether we could have expedited east west links between Jogeshwari- Vkroli and Santa Cruz-Chembur?
• Could we have expedited another rail link between the eastern and western suburbs to facilitate transfer of more jobs to North from South Mumbai?

I am sure you have many questions and doubts in your mind. Please respond, add and contradict. We regularly collect a lot of information and develop this info into analytical statistics. You can find some elsewhere on the site.

For MESN
Ashok Datar