A citizen’s movement has organised a Road March, on March 7, 2021 to highlight the plight of Mumbai’s extremely poor Public Infrastructure and begin a dialogue on the undeveloped roads that can actually ease traffic congestion of the city.
The Mumbai March movement has alleged that despite being marked in Development Plan (DP) 1967, 1991 and 2014, more than 85% of the roads are blocked due to various issues like lack of coordination and consensus between different Government Agencies like Forest Department, Food Corporation of India, Defence forces, Airport Authorities, land belonging to private parties, court cases and slums and encroachments.
The Team Mumbai March has already built a 3D model of Roads, connectivity for areas between Bandra and Dahisar based on the city's actual Development Plan to understand the causes behind blockages. “Despite DP 1967/1991 and DP 2014, over 85 per cent of the city’s roads are blocked due to lack of coordination and consensus between different government agencies, court cases and private parties who own lands,” stated activist Gopal Jhaveri founder of Mumbai March.
“For five decades, authorities discuss many other issues, seldom anyone discusses major issues like the opening up of blocked roads. We have studied this thoroughly and realised that opening these blocked/ under developed roads will ease traffic congestion, that we have been grappling with every single day,” Jhaveri added.
The arterial roads within the western suburbs utilised by hundreds of autos each day embody the Western Express Highway, the New Link Road and SV Road. These roads face heavy traffic snarls throughout peak hours.
The Mumbai March team's 3D model highlights different vital roads which, when linked, may resolve these traffic congestion problems. The team has studied and examined the same with the assistance of transport consultants and the DP drafts, which too highlights two vital road links between Dahisar and Andheri.
