Say traffic experts; MMRDA, BMC and traffic police indulge in blame game over your woes on the road
Say traffic experts; MMRDA, BMC and traffic police indulge in blame game over your woes on the road
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Sick of the city's perennial bumper-to-bumper traffic during rush hours? Blame the planning agencies as lack of coordination among them causes the chaos on the streets, say traffic experts.
On your way to and from work, you must have noticed that the roads, repaired one agency recently, are being dug up again by another agency either for laying cables or pipelines.
A senior traffic official on condition of anonymity said, "Some government agencies such as Public Work Department and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) don't even bother to approach us and seek our permission while carrying out the infrastructure development works.
This lack of communication leads to a chaos. There have been instances when we have even written letters to the PWD pointing out their mistakes, but they continue repeating the same mistakes."
Last year, a private agency had given a presentation to then MMRDA Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad for the Personal Rapid Transport System (PRTS) project of Pod cars between Bandra station and Bandra-Kurla- Complex that would help commuters in reaching the business hub faster. After going the presentation, Gaikwad had said, "It was a really good option."
When the same presentation was given to the newly appointed MMRDA commissioner Rahul Asthana last month, he said the Pod Car project was not a very interesting idea. "It is difficult to implement the project because of various aspects but its not impossible," said Asthana.
The Traffic police officials say the only way to get rid of perennial traffic jams is to appoint a single government agency.
"If there is a single agency preparing the plan and implementing it, the projects will complete faster as it won't have to waste time in getting necessary permissions from different agencies that is the main reason behind getting the projects delayed like the ongoing monorail and Metro rail projects," said the official.
An informal survey of various ongoing infrastructure projects flyovers, monorail, metro rail, freeways, link roads and sealink suggests that most of them overshot their deadlines as they were yet to get go-ahead from different agencies such as the traffic department, BMC, railways and environment.
An official from the BMC's roads, traffic and bridges department said, "There have been instances when MMRDA didn't even bother to seek our permission while digging the roads for the construction of skywalks, damaging the water pipelines under Lalbaug flyover.
Last year, the agency had damaged pipelines near the Arthur Road jail where the monorail project is in progress. The general public had to suffer because of their mistake. MMRDA does not seek permission or coordinates with other agencies as it considers itself to be the big boss."
Moreover, the government is yet to decide which agency - MSRDC or MMRDA - will construct the much-awaited Mumbai Trans Harbour Link because of the ongoing tussle between NCP and Congress leaders. The project will connect Sewri with Nhava Sheva via a sealink.
The Opposition has raised questions over the working style of MMRDA several times as they even alleged that the traffic situation was turning from bad to worse.
When Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan came to power, he revived the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) and asked for a detailed presentation on all the three phases of the project from the planning agencies.
Traffic Police say
Speaking to MiD DAY Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Brijesh Singh said, "It is true that the present traffic scenario is not that good, but only blaming the lack of coordination between government agencies for the problem is not right. I think the traffic issue will be only solved by better planning and more use of public transport such as bus and trains services."
Experts say
Speaking to MiD Day transport expert Sudhir Badami said, "There is lack of desire to understand the cause of worsening traffic scenario among various government bodies." Asked should there be an integrated transport plan for Mumbai, monitored by a single agency, Badami replied in the negative. "Integrated transport plan for Mumbai does exist beginning with the MUTPs, MUIPs and Mumbai Metro Master Plan augmented time to time by various projects such as Mumbai monorail master plan, the skywalk projects and the ever vanishing bus rapid transport system (BRTS)."
Pod car project
The pod car project is as ridiculous as the ongoing Monorail project. Both the big-ticket would fail to become an alternative of suburban railway system, reducing crush load in local trains system where around 4,000 people are killed annually, mainly because of overcrowding.
What's the solution?
According to Badami, the real solution for the transportation issue, including the traffic congestion, is to plan for a good quality of walking, cycling and adequate capacity and good quality of BRTS along with appropriate parking facility and traffic demand management and other measures.
MMRDA's stand
Reacting to the allegation of lack of coordination of between government agencies, MMRDA spokesperson and joint project director Dilip Kawatkar said, "It is wrong to say that there is a lack of coordination between MMRDA and other government agencies. Before starting any project, we always inform the agencies concerned and even traffic department to avoid traffic congestion."
BMC's take
When MiD DAY tried to contact a senior official from the roads, traffic and bridges department, the official refused to comment on the issue, saying that he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Planning blunder
Call it a lack of planning or a complete waste of public money, MMRDA will have to demolish the section of Santacruz (w) and Vile Parle (w) skywalk over the S V Road as the second metro corridor between Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd will be passing through the stretch between Vile-Parle and Khar. The skywalk was opened for the public last year.
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