The buzz around the town is about the inauguration of the Coastal Road complete with its breath-taking underground twin tunnels spanning nearly two kilometres to connect Girgaum Chowpatty with Priyadarshini Park. This Coastal Road will significantly reduce travel time for car users. This comes close on the heels of the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, or Atal Setu, being inaugurated last month connecting Sewri with Nhava Sheva to make the commute between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai shorter, though expensive. The underground metro connecting Aarey with Bandra Kurla Complex is slated for opening in the next few months. These are being showcased as the next-generation infrastructure in the city.
Whether one agrees with this lavish description of the projects or not, the question persists: why is it that a government and municipal corporation capable of such large and breath-taking transport projects is unable to plan and execute the much-needed micro projects that affect millions of Mumbaikars on a daily basis? The Gokhale Bridge connecting the western and eastern sides of Andheri, a portion of which collapsed back in 2017 and was demolished in 2022 to be replaced with a new one, is not yet ready. The sheer volume of traffic diverted to other routes routinely clog them up, road congestion is par for the course in the Andheri-Vile Parle stretch for years now, emissions rise and so do people’s tempers. Does it take so many years to build a sturdy two-three kilometres bridge?
This is but one example. Similar connectors between areas in Goregaon and Ghatkopar, access areas to railway stations, well-lit and comfortable bus stops across the city, electronic information at the stops, pavements that are free for pedestrians to walk on, roads without potholes and badly-placed speed breakers are some of the city’s most essential micro infrastructure that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and the state government should pay urgent attention to. These may not have the glamour of the big-ticket projects but they can make — or break — the daily commutes of millions.
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