After the Coastal Road was thrown open to the public on Tuesday, mid-day decided to travel the distance along with urban planning and transport experts to understand just how these projects will benefit Mumbaikars. We started our ride with two experts—Alan Abraham, a city planner, and Chetan Bordawekar, a transport expert. We began from S V Road in Bandra at 9.22 am.

The aim was to assess the impact of the Bandra Worli Sea Link (BWSL) - a part of the Coastal Road that opened in 2009, 15 years ago. Without much difficulty, we took the road towards BWSL and, after paying a one-way toll of Rs 85 for using the 4.2 km long bridge, we arrived at Worli by 9.31 am. “Even during peak hours, most lanes of the bridge are empty, which indicates that the authorities’ claims regarding ridership were incorrect,” explained Alan. (The authorities hoped that around 1.5 lakh vehicles would ply daily on the sea link, but contrary to that, only around 40,000 vehicles use it daily.)