Save Mumbai
The Peddar road flyover is in the news again nowadays. Unfortunately, instead of using this opportunity to catch the government and make it finally sit up and take notice of our city and its needs, most Mumbaikers seem to have taken a pretty narrow view of the whole issue.
According to me, the Peddar road issue is symptomatic of what ails our city. The government, without much planning and foresight, went ahead with the Worli sea-link. Result - 26/7. In between comes the belated realization that the link alone will only worsen the congestion at its end at Worli. So what does it do? It hurriedly conjures up another grandiose plan, the Peddar road flyover, to decongest the area. And as usual, leaves the civic planners and the local residents out of the discussion. Result - the current scenario. To now convince everyone, it conjures one more plan – the Worli Nariman Point sealink!! Again without anyone hearing or discussing it.
Lets take it up one-by-one. The Worli link, I ll admit, was sanctioned after a lot of deliberation and discussion. So we might give it the benefit of doubt. Peddar Road. Well, one, it’s a hastily put up stopgap arrangement for a few years (till the next sealink is ready). Its utility goes after that. Two, the alternative proposed by the residents seems much more reasonable, keep the 6 lane road oneway instead of making a 3 lane oneway flyover (a better stopgap arrangement and a few thousand crores of taxpayers money saved) Three, and most important, it destroys the beauty of one of city’s biggest landmarks.
But what makes my blood boil is the Worli Nariman Point sealink proposal itself. Who the hell proposed it?! Marine Drive is THE identification of Mumbai. Imagine sitting out there and watching cars zoom by on a monstrous bridge instead of our beloved sunset on the horizon! The Queens’ necklace will look more like a faasi ka fanda. If More raped a girl at Marine Drive, this sealink will be equivalent to raping Marine Drive itself.
And the question is, where will we draw the line, that this is enough, that we cant deface our city anymore, if NOT FOR MARINE DRIVE? And we must realize that the traffic congestion can only be stopped by one way, good public transport. Only better roads are never the solution, as they ll just shift the equilibrium to a new higher level of congestion three years ahead. And that the more the congestion, the lesser the people who opt for individual cars (as Nutz and most Andheriites will vouch for).
Mumbai is much more than just about smoothly flowing traffic. Its about its people, its culture, its landmarks and its feel. The government, through its corruption, ineptness and just plain lack of sensitivity, has already harmed our beloved city enough. Be it 26/7, the removal of book-sellers from Flora, the losing out on the biggest opportunity to improve Mumbai through the mill land or the current Crawford market scenario (what do they plan next - converting Chor Bazaar into a mall?), the same thing is repeated, namely, no planning, no involvement of the people, and greed for money. When is this going to stop?
There is only one way. Its us. We the People. And the Media. We never protested when the Flora books were strewn all over the place. We kept mum when the the government couldn’t even produce enough electricity for us (again lack of foresight). But when we raised our voice, things changed. A simple example. 12 more Virar trains were started once the rail roko happened. Which means that there always was enough time in the schedule to introduce them. But only when the authorities were forced did they sit down and scheduled them in. Similarly, if forced, the authorities will get back to the drawing board and create a simpler plan to decongest Peddar Road without defacing it.
Which is what has to be done now. We have to FORCE the government to give us a better deal. Stop making people scapegoats for its ineptness and asking them to ‘sacrifice’ for the ‘interest’ of others. Get a Minister for Mumbai. Make a master plan. Get a Bangalore type Task Force to implement everything. It definitely not that simple. But once the wheel is set rolling it isn’t that tough either.
According to me, the Peddar road issue is symptomatic of what ails our city. The government, without much planning and foresight, went ahead with the Worli sea-link. Result - 26/7. In between comes the belated realization that the link alone will only worsen the congestion at its end at Worli. So what does it do? It hurriedly conjures up another grandiose plan, the Peddar road flyover, to decongest the area. And as usual, leaves the civic planners and the local residents out of the discussion. Result - the current scenario. To now convince everyone, it conjures one more plan – the Worli Nariman Point sealink!! Again without anyone hearing or discussing it.
Lets take it up one-by-one. The Worli link, I ll admit, was sanctioned after a lot of deliberation and discussion. So we might give it the benefit of doubt. Peddar Road. Well, one, it’s a hastily put up stopgap arrangement for a few years (till the next sealink is ready). Its utility goes after that. Two, the alternative proposed by the residents seems much more reasonable, keep the 6 lane road oneway instead of making a 3 lane oneway flyover (a better stopgap arrangement and a few thousand crores of taxpayers money saved) Three, and most important, it destroys the beauty of one of city’s biggest landmarks.
But what makes my blood boil is the Worli Nariman Point sealink proposal itself. Who the hell proposed it?! Marine Drive is THE identification of Mumbai. Imagine sitting out there and watching cars zoom by on a monstrous bridge instead of our beloved sunset on the horizon! The Queens’ necklace will look more like a faasi ka fanda. If More raped a girl at Marine Drive, this sealink will be equivalent to raping Marine Drive itself.
And the question is, where will we draw the line, that this is enough, that we cant deface our city anymore, if NOT FOR MARINE DRIVE? And we must realize that the traffic congestion can only be stopped by one way, good public transport. Only better roads are never the solution, as they ll just shift the equilibrium to a new higher level of congestion three years ahead. And that the more the congestion, the lesser the people who opt for individual cars (as Nutz and most Andheriites will vouch for).
Mumbai is much more than just about smoothly flowing traffic. Its about its people, its culture, its landmarks and its feel. The government, through its corruption, ineptness and just plain lack of sensitivity, has already harmed our beloved city enough. Be it 26/7, the removal of book-sellers from Flora, the losing out on the biggest opportunity to improve Mumbai through the mill land or the current Crawford market scenario (what do they plan next - converting Chor Bazaar into a mall?), the same thing is repeated, namely, no planning, no involvement of the people, and greed for money. When is this going to stop?
There is only one way. Its us. We the People. And the Media. We never protested when the Flora books were strewn all over the place. We kept mum when the the government couldn’t even produce enough electricity for us (again lack of foresight). But when we raised our voice, things changed. A simple example. 12 more Virar trains were started once the rail roko happened. Which means that there always was enough time in the schedule to introduce them. But only when the authorities were forced did they sit down and scheduled them in. Similarly, if forced, the authorities will get back to the drawing board and create a simpler plan to decongest Peddar Road without defacing it.
Which is what has to be done now. We have to FORCE the government to give us a better deal. Stop making people scapegoats for its ineptness and asking them to ‘sacrifice’ for the ‘interest’ of others. Get a Minister for Mumbai. Make a master plan. Get a Bangalore type Task Force to implement everything. It definitely not that simple. But once the wheel is set rolling it isn’t that tough either.
posted by Akshay at 1:25 PM
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