To assuage vexed commuters, authorities have promised to complete the repair work before monsoon
To assuage vexed commuters, authorities have promised to complete the repair work before monsoon
It's been two months that the soil testing is in progress on the New Link Road for the second metro corridor of Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd, but officials don't seem to have done much to mitigate commuters' woes about the worsening traffic condition on the stretch. Travelling on the New Link Road stretch between Oshiwara-Malad has become a nightmare for the motorists with traffic movement getting bad to worse between 6-10 pm.
Commuters' nightmare: Travelling on the New Link Road stretch
between Oshiwara-Malad has become a nightmare for the motorists.
Pic/Santosh Nagwekar
A bus driver from Oshiwara depot said, "The traffic is not an issue in the morning but in the evening it is really difficult to drive because the width of the road has been reduced due to barricades at some places, making our trip more time consuming. Earlier, it used to take me 20 minutes to reach Oshiwara depot from Indian Oil junction but now it takes me 45-50 minutes to cover the same distance."
However, what is worrying motorists the most is the upcoming monsoon. If soil testing continues, there are chances of water logging on this road. "I regularly use the Link Road to travel between Kandivli-Lokhandwala. While traveling towards Lokhand-wala is not much of an issue but returning back is a tedious journey because of the soil-testing going on.
We have been reading in papers that how the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar metro construction work has caused an inconvenience to the residents of Andheri west because of traffic jams and road diversions. If proper planning is not done to monitor the traffic flow on Link road then our condition will also be similar to Andheri," said Hemant Khot (56), resident of Mahavir Nagar in Kandivali Meanwhile, a traffic cop posted at one of the signals opined that the actual traffic problem would begin once the construction work starts.
"The roads will be barricaded in the median reducing the three-lane road to a two-lane after the construction begins. Then the scenario of link road will look similar to that of SV Road which is always choked in the evening between Andheri-Malad." However, another motorist Sujit Sonkar said, "I personally feel that there was no need for a metro on this road. If the government wants to encourage the use of public transport then it should implement projects like Bus Rapid Transport System which costs much less and can be implemented in less time as compared to the metro."
Officials speak
A Mumbai Metro Transport Project Limited (MMTPL) spokesperson said that traffic was always an issue on this road during peak hours. "But we will try to complete the soil testing work before monsoons, so the residents should not worry." MMRDA Joint Project Director Dilip Kawatkar said, "MMRDA is working in close coordination with the traffic department. We will see to it that there is no traffic hassle on this important stretch."
Important link
Why is the New Link Road important?
This road connects the western suburbs like Borivli, Kandivli, Malad, Goregaon, Oshiwara with Bandra West Link road. It has less traffic compared to SV Road and WEH (Western Express Highway) because it is wider and in better condition. The road also takes a lot of vehicular burden off SV Road and WEH. Also, motorists travelling from Bandra towards Borivli prefer this road because water logging on the link road between Oshiwara-Malad has been less as compared to SV Road.
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