Now, BMC identifies 20 deadliest spots in Mumbai

The intersection of Sion-Panvel Highway and Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Link Road is one of the black spots

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has identified 20 black spots or the city's highest crash-prone intersections. It has decided to make them safer by design. mid-day had reported on Thursday on a study by IIT-B and the NGO United Way Mumbai and government bodies that had also identified 20 such black spots. Some of these spots are common in both lists - Amar Mahal junction, Chhedda Nagar and Sanjay Gandhi National Park junction.

According to the data compiled by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), in three years, from 2019 to 2021, 132 people were killed and 429 were seriously injured in these 20 black spots. Amar Mahal junction in Ghatkopar is the most dangerous intersection in the city, where in the three years span, 24 people were killed in road crashes and 46 were seriously injured.

Another is the Priyadarshini junction at Sion-Chembur. Pics/Shadab Khan

"These locations are a priority, since they record a high number of deaths and injuries compared to other locations in the city. We will introduce design changes at these locations to reduce the number of crashes and save lives," said Ulhas Mahale, deputy municipal commissioner.

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The BMC will receive technical assistance from Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) partners including the Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), India to redesign these deadliest traffic intersections in the city. A meeting was held on Thursday regarding these 20 black spots. Mahale and Manish Kumar Patel, chief engineer of the BMC's Road Department attended the meeting.

After the meeting, experts and the foreign dignitaries visited and inspected the deadliest five of the 20 black spots in Mumbai (these are the first five in the box). "BMC engineers are working along with the BIGRS partners to transform these junctions," Mahale added further.

Abhimanyu Prakash, regional lead, Asia and Africa, GDCI, said, "It is necessary to rethink the possibilities at these high-risk locations based on principles from the Global Street Design Guide - a set of design guidelines officially endorsed for the city of Mumbai. This includes widening pedestrian crossings and sidewalks, adding new refuge areas, and implementing traffic calming measures such as speed humps, and rumble strips. Additionally, lane alignment and narrowing of roads will be applied at select locations."