Will MTHL will be a gamechanger for Mumbai?
Excitement is rife with the opening of Mumbai Trans Harbour Link or Atal Setu as it's official name. Infrastructure and engineering enthusiasts are on a trip. And media . Trips (not the commute kind) can create delusional thinking.
Let me say it clear in the beginning, MTHL will not be a gamechanger for Mumbai or Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which is what we should now clearly be thinking about. Days of just thinking about Mumbai and its needs are passe.
Its just going to be another link. It will deliver benefits certainly but won't be a gamechanger. It would have been a game changer were it to be ready in 1995 or even 2000 and played a big role in shaping land use and the growth of Ulwe in a planned way. By now Third Mumbai is shaping up and people need not be staying in Ulwe and working in Worli. They could very well work at the Navi Mumbai Airport or Karjat or Belapur or anywhere in the new nodes.
MTHL could have been developed in the 1990s at zero public cost by just creating the right package of development rights of Ulwe for any of the big industrialists in exchange for developing the bridge. That is what gamechanger looks like. And I have no political side on that. The current lot is no different.
True change in 2024 will come with making Mumbai Metropolitan Region a place which treats EVERY resident with dignity and provides opportunities for living a highly fulfilled life as an economic being and certainly as a human being.
Mobility is a crucial requirement for economic upliftment. Affordable and reliable mobility allows individuals to be able to access economic opportunities beyond their walkable perimeter and this is what makes all the difference. Cost is the the decisive factor.
A wealthy individual can afford to travel a hundred kms from his location of residence or work in a gas guzzling SUV for work and even leisure but for someone at the bottom or middle of the pyramid any trip is a second thought, only to be undertaken if there is a clear professional requirement and of course a modern mode of transport should be available in the first place.
I keep getting reminded of the enormous observations and inputs which were available to me between 2019-2022 as I worked more in the more far flung of areas in the MMR on waste management projects in two village clusters. Getting to know the lives of people intimately I would understand their career trajectories and aims and ambitions.
Many people would have loved to access jobs in Navi Mumbai or Thane or even Mumbai if a good public bus service was available. The travel times, number of interchanges and costs would be data points as easily available to me as to their Gram Panchayat which should have been looking into the issue in the first place.
About the MTHL, in the past two years media articles have consistently used the figure of 70,000 PCUs (passenger car unit) as a daily capacity. A copy paste from MMRDA releases. Nothing can be more shameful than using PCU as a measure in the third decade of the 21st century. Basically we are saying that only cars will use MTHL. How is it a gamechanger then? A bus will be equal to 3.5 PCUs as per rules but why should it not be 50? Unless a public bus service is not visible every 10 seconds on the MTHL it is not a gamechanger.
I am carrying photos and a video below the post to drive my points.
Look at the following simple and easy to understand alignments using three national highways radiating out of the Mumbai mainland.
1) Thane (multiple locations) to Kasara
2) Panvel S T Bus Depot to Alibag
3) Borivali S T Depot (East) to Virar Phata
4) Kalyan S T Depot to Alibag Depot
Buses could be run at a 60 second frequency on these alignments and they would go full. 60 bus services an hour. Access to economic opportunities massively expands for thousands of people. Existing commuters on these routes go through hell and they benefit, but it induces demand. People who had given up hope can now have a chance. And the flow need not be one direction. Residents in Mumbai, Thane and Panvel can very well explore opportunities in the other direction. Tourism expands. Trips for cultural reasons and meeting family etc. come into being.
These are just indicative alignments. There can be a full 100 different routes.
A nation wanting to become a 5 trillion dollar in a hurry could consider an affordable regional bus service as an investment and not something you have to scurry around to find funds for. In the local political class no one is scurrying around also. They are making money of road contracts and real estate deals and multiple businesses or extortion rackets and are served with topline SUVs for their mobility anytime.
领英推荐
Student at BITS Pilani , Pursuing ME Civil with specialization in Transportation Engineering
10 个月Interesting and Eye opening !!
Always hungry, always looking for that glint of magic!
10 个月I'm always amazed at the densely packed buses, taxis, and trains in India. Like Abhijit T. said in his comment, this takes serious courage that I don't have. I'd probably take my chances walking or cycling. My commute to work is about 20 minutes and the drive is very simple, especially with a podcast playing in the background. I'm spoiled rotten! And, America is blessed to have its Interstate Highway system. Imagine traveling from California to New Jersey across 11 States on one road. The Interstate Highway played a major role in America's post World War II economic boom as goods and people began to freely flow through the nation. Maybe one day we'll see an equivalent (or better!) in India. Saving 20 minutes on commute times for 21 million citizens would give back 420 million combined minutes. That's 7 million hours - or about 800 years of combined time. You could probably easily increase the 21 million citizen count to get the final time savings to a full millennium of savings! ??
Rishi thanks for bringing very important point of discussion. Lack of permission for public transport, cyclists limits its access to general public. Investment in public transport can be game changer in Railway and BEST. Dwindling down the number of buses run by BEST is 15 years low. You would see long queues at each bus stop with complete uncertainty when next bus would arrive and would be any space to accommodate passengers. The way in which people commute by Suberbern railway trains is close to nightmare. Travelling in peak hour requires a real courage to travel. Only two Metro routes are operational, once complete system access Mumbai region is operational it could bring some benefits but cost vs benefit ratio is highly skewed. Unfortunately in data science world where all data about number of passengers commuting across city is available for statistical modeling and analysis. Cloud computing and reliable tools are available. We are spending billions of dollars, that does bring true benefits to the masses. If we can save average 15 -30 minutes in the life 21 million citizensthis could be productivity boost. With more and more citizens migrating from villages to cities, boosting public transport must long term priority.