Mumbai : The State government needs to wake up from its deep slumber and improve the public transportation system before the city reaches a saturation point with sheer increase in the number of vehicles in the city, feel transport experts. There also needs be a law which will restrict people from purchasing cars to keep a check on the number of vehicles in the city, they added.
Mumbai, being an already built-up city there is not much scope to expand the roads but there is a grave need for implementing crucial public transportation projects such as the Metro Line-3 and the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) to reduce traffic.
AV Shenoy, a member of the Mumbai Vikas Samiti, is of the opinion that people need to be restricted from buying vehicles and from applying for new ones. Shenoy said, “The State government needs to restrict the registration of vehicles and construct better public transportation systems. Instead of constructing Costal Roads which will come at a cost of Rs 9,000 crore and only cater to about 7 per cent of the people, the government needs to wisely invest in Metro-3, Metro-2 projects which will give a comfortable ride to people and control the environmental pollution.”
Nitin Dossa, executive chairman of Western Automobile Association, said, “Everyday over 75,000 people travel to the airport which takes them over an hour to reach. If the State government can construct an Airport Express such as the one in Delhi it will go a long way in reducing the congestion.”
Talking about the long pending projects such as the proposed Coastal Road, Dossa said, “Costal Road is a project which has been proposed and discussed for over a year now as is the case with extension of Worli-Bandra Sea link to Nariman Point. The government has been wasting public money on studies while none of these projects have been implemented.”
Nigel Buthello, a resident of Kandivali who drives to work in Churchgate, said, “The government needs to come up with a policy where they will restrict people from buying cars. There are families with five members but have six cars including one for their dog. There can be construction of public transportation system but it will take too long; an immediate solution will be to restrict the number of vehicles each household can buy.”
