City expressway on bumpy road

P S Pasricha, Joint Commissioner of Police (law and order) and an expert on traffic, suggests construction of an Eastern Expressway to ensure interconnections between the two freeways to facilitate smoother vehicle movement.The mode of constructing the freeway has also come under fire. The feasibility study by the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), on the basis of which the government sought clearance for the project, clearly stated that construction should be taken up in one phase. However, MMRDA has decided to construct it in phases, with priority given to the Bandra-Worli link.

The TCS report said, “Building the freeway in phases will pose difficulties regarding inter-related construction activities such as access to bridges, inter-changes and arteries. Besides, phased implementation will not achieve the desired easing of traffic on the present arterial routes.”

Ironically, the MMRDA concurred with this view. “The bottlenecks can be removed only if the entire freeway is constructed. But, now we don’t have the funds to build it in one go,” said a senior MMRDA official.

Dismissing the excuse, Pasricha said, “If they don’t have the funds, they should wait till their financial position gets better.” He suggests that the construction be postponed altogether, instead of taking up work on one link at a time. Bittu Sahgal, environmentalist and owner of Sanctuary Features, also warns that partial construction will only magnify the problem.

MMRDA officials say the allegations are exaggerated. “Increase in traffic due to the freeway will be nominal, about two per cent.” But with around eight lakh vehicles registered in Mumbai and another 22 per cent unregistered vehicles plying every day, environmentalists assert that the rise will be anything but minimal.

Meanwhile, objections to the freeway have been coming from other quarters as well. In the original plan, as part of the freeway, a tunnel was proposed from Bandstand till Priyadarshini Park right under the Malabar Hill.

Local residents expressed fears that the tunnelling might affect the foundations of buildings. However, MMRDA officials have assured that new boring machines will take care of such problems.

On the threat to Priyadarshini Park, the officials contend that it stands on government land. They revealed that following an undertaking in 1984, the government allowed the local people to utilise the ground as a park and return the land once the freeway construction was taken up. An MMRDA official said. “Only one-fourth of the park area will be used for the construction,” he added.

Activists, however, are not convinced. P K Das, joint convenor of Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti said the government should have at least studied whether existing infrastructure is adequate.

Besides, the MMRDA has got clearance only for the Bandra-Worli link and not for the entire project. The feasibility report for the entire project was sent to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for clearance only recently. The groundwork on the Bandra-Worli link has already begun though the final clearance may take several years. For the moment, the government is concentrating on the freeway. To be built under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme, the whole project is scheduled for completion in about six years, if properly phased.