MSRDC takes its toll, with a difference

P L Bongirwar, joint managing director of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which is constructing 40 flyovers in the city, believes tolling at the four entry and exit points of the city – Mulund check naka and LBS Marg, Dahisar check naka, Thane bridge and Airoli – over and above dues for the expressways will act as a deterrent thus defined: “By the tolls we’re saying that by entering the city you’re overburdening the infrastructure. Sokeep away.”

There’s a slight contradiction, though. For one, Mumbaiites, who will be main users of the flyover bridges won’t be paying. The burden will be on outsiders who might be entering the city for a short while.

The main opponents of the toll – at the rates of Rs 20 per car – are residents of Navi Mumbai, who today pay a nominal toll of Rs 8 to enter the city at Thane creek bridge. Considering that the toll will be levied while entering and exiting the city, A K Bhattacharya of Navi Mumbai Residents Action Committee, who works in Mumbai, will have to pay Rs 40 per trip in a car or share a Rs 100 toll on buses for conducting his business.

“This is partisan,” he says. “We were the ones who shifted to Navi Mumbai to decongest Mumbai. Why should we pay for the flyovers, when Mumbaiites who will be the most benefitted aren’t paying anything?”

For Bongirwar, this opposition is only because people aren’t used to paying for road services. “People have to realise one will have to pay for roads oneuses,” he says. While the toll money to continue for 25 years (around two lakh vehicles are estimated to enter Mumbai daily) will be used to finance the loans, traffic experts remark that instead of proving to be a deterrent, a commuter would actually be attracted to enter the city in a private vehicle due to the smooth movement. Why should anybody grudge paying the toll, especially if, as MSRDC calculates, the person saves 50 per cent of his fuel and time when cruising into the city?

Worldwide, countries have been working out alternate solutions to fight traffic congestion without resorting to creation of additional roads. In September 1997, Paris banned cars with odd and even license plates from entering the city on alternate days to fight pollution. And public transport was made free. In Singapore, high road pricing introduced for the last 22 years has ensured the country has been able to keep its seven sq km of central business district free of traffic jams.

While none of these measures are in voguehere, even the toll pattern on the flyovers is found to be lop-sided, where the local car commuter has been subsidised and encouraged by long distance commuters. “People inside the city who have cars should be asked to pay a small fee for using the flyovers themselves,” says a civic traffic engineer. On a similar vein is the World Bank aide memoir, which says measures like an increase in wheel tax or a surcharge on fuel prices as well as increased parking charges should be implemented in Mumbai metropolitan region as well.

And it had better be soon. For if, as the flyovers promise, private vehicles keep pouring into the island city, there will be no place to park them. At present, the narrow south end of the city parks around 4,500 cars and only 6,000 can be “scientifically” parked, as a study has shown. While a parking fee ranging from Rs 5 to Rs 60 implemented by BMC has had some effect in reducing traffic, there’s scope for more reduction, feels Krishan Lal, railway advisor to Mumbai MetropolitanRegion Development Authority (MMRDA). “In Washington, minimum parking fees are around US$6 (Rs 180). Why should BMC’s rates be so low?” he asked.

The WB had, in fact, gone a step further when it suggested the city should have a Municipal Parking Authority devoted to creating parking places in the city and managing them. A chief of the rank of deputy municipal commissioner should be at its head, it has suggested.

The traffic police on its part would like that registration of new vehicles in the city be linked to parking places of the owner. “Or we’ll just have vehicles on streets of the city,” says traffic chief SPS Yadav.

While Bongirwar insists the flyovers exclude none of these measures, it remains to be seen if the political support given to MSRDC is as enthusiastic about these schemes.