Supposedly it will reduce the 40-minute car journey from Bandra to Worli to seven minutes, but in practice it will lead to traffic bunching at both ends of the link, and become a nightmare during rush hour. Mumbai needs at least one and preferably two ring roads, partly elevated and partly offshore, be linked by a trans-harbour bridge to Navi Mumbai, and have no traffic signals so that traffic can move at high speed, getting off at various exit ramps into different sections of the city. Beijing has seven such ring roads, but India has none.
The Bandra-Worli link is a short stretch that does not even cover the western shore, as envisaged two decades ago. It took ages because of design changes and payment disputes. The trans-harbour bridge creek has been bid for twice yet not awarded to anybody. Nobody takes a holistic view of the city’s traffic needs because of the politics and money involved in alignments, land acquisition and contract placements.
Nevertheless, some people celebrate the Sea Link saying something is better than nothing: “Why expect too much, we are like that only.” Yet plenty of things in India are world class. Infosys and TCS could not have got where they are today by doing projects five years late and at five times the estimated cost. We have world class manufacturing companies like Tata Steel and Bharat Forge.
It is simply not true that Indians cannot do things well. The first step towards holistic town planning may be legislative change that gives cities strong mayors with substantial budgetary resources, who can carry through major initiatives. We do not have to be quite as good as China, which has built seven sea links in the last six years. But we can surely do better than the Bandra-Worli project.
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