Citizen group push for DP roads as solution for city’s traffic snarls
MUMBAI: With the city becoming a hub for traffic jams, Mumbai March, a people’s collective, has come together, taken matters into their own hands and decided to find a solution that already lies on paper with the government. Implementation of the roads planned in Mumbai’s Development Plan (DP) 2034 can solve the city’s traffic problem, according to Mumbai March.
With their initiative ‘Lapata Sadak’ (Missing Road), they want to solve the problem by getting the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to build these DP roads. A Development Plan is a blueprint of a city’s development to make the city livable. Gopal Jhaveri, founder, Mumbai March, and his team of 40 people have identified more than 250 bottlenecks on these DP roads that, if removed, can resolve major traffic problems.
“If we take an example of the western suburbs, there are three arterial roads between Dahisar and Bandra. These constitute 22 total lanes. The Western Express Highway (WEH), the Link Road and the SV Road. All three are always jammed. But, if you look at the DP 2034, some roads could be built parallel to these three arterial roads, which will add 22 more lanes,” said Jhaveri.
To explain the senior civic officials better, they have printed a 3D model of the western Suburbs as per the DP. Explaining the process of identifying the problem areas, Avinash Thawani, another founder member of Mumbai March, said, members go around these DP roads, identify the problems/bottlenecks and list down the possible solutions. They then meet civic officials and get the work going. “A lot of these DP roads are built in parts. They start and end nowhere. Whatever land is available, the civic body builds on it.
A lot of the land is encroached upon or has informal settlements. If the government rehabilitates them, the problem is resolved,” Thawani said.
Giving an example of connecting Borivali with Kandivali Lokhandwala and further to Goregaon, Thawani said that they were able to get a part road built between Kandivali Lokhandwala and Borivali. The only thing lying in between is 300 slums. A senior BMC official said, “Every ward has a road engineer who has identified these bottlenecks, but we do not have houses to shift PAPS. For example, if we ask a resident in Andheri to rehabilitate in Ghatkopar, he may not, and the ward may not have enough houses to shift them,” he said. The officer explained that if the SRA or MMRDA ties up with the BMC, smaller bottlenecks, which require 25-30 houses to be rehabilitated, can be done in a few days, and roads will start decongesting.