[Aditya]

The environmental cost of Sea Links & Coastal Roads in India

With every passing year, more and more cars are being added to India's metro cities which already have more vehicles on the road than they were designed for. Let's take the example of Mumbai. In 2018-19, 3 lakh new cars were added to Mumbai's roads which translates to 820 cars every day.

In my honest opinion, there is only one solution to our traffic woes = Building a robust and efficient public transport system (and of course, WFH which Covid has taught us ). You simply cannot outrun the massive growth in car sales with sea link projects which come at a HUGE environmental cost. Just look at the pictures below and how these projects are destroying the ecosystem. When the Bandra Reclamation road was constructed, the beach in the Shivaji Park area considerably reduced in size. Perhaps in some correlated way, sea water flooding has increased in the residential lanes adjoining the beach. This is most visible in the areas bang across the Sea Link. And we aren't even discussing the impact on marine life, land reclamation, pollution etc. which I will leave to the experts. This post is just my layman point of view.

I do support flyovers & projects like the Eastern Freeway, wherever absolutely necessary. But I vehemently oppose Sea Links. Please give us an efficient public transport system instead! Make it so good that someone who wants to travel from Juhu to Nariman Point (as an example) will pick an air-conditioned metro train, and not drive his car on the Sea Link.

The Bandra - Worli Sea Link bridge was built to decongest the areas of Bandra, Mahim, Shivaji Park and Worli at a huge cost of Rs. 16.5 billion. Completed in 2010, it did work for a while. No longer though - those areas are again jam packed today (just how things were before). Additionally, the traffic jams on Worli Seaface are at times frustratingly long.

The upcoming Metro Rail network will definitely go a long way in helping matters. We have seen this happen in Delhi. The BEST bus service though, needs to be improved massively. I remember, back in my senior school and college days, there were many bus routes. The frequency of buses was satisfactory and there was a good number of people using them. In 2019 though, when I tried to take a bus from office to home, I was left waiting for more than 30 minutes. I finally decided to cover the distance on foot. I've also noticed many routes being discontinued over the past 5 or 10 years.

The latest project being undertaken in Mumbai is the construction of the Coastal Road. This project has destroyed at least two bays I know of. The construction has required the bays of Haji Ali & Worli Seaface to be filled and pushed the sea back. Not only has this affected the beautiful views the promenades around them offered, but it is also impossible to believe that it has not affected aquatic wildlife in these areas. I live bang on the sea shore and can see everyday how the sea is being destroyed. Next up on their list will be Marine Drive, Juhu Beach, Versova Beach etc.

Here are some pictures of the coastal road construction that I have shot from the Haji Ali road. The sea has been pushed back a long way. One can't even see the iconic Haji Ali dargah clearly any more!!!




Look hard beyond the tetrapods / cranes and you'll get a glimpse of the sea and the dargah. The sea was NOT meant for this brutal abuse!!!


Fishing boats have been relegated to a tiny spot at the northern end of the bay. It won't be long before they disappear too:




Now, here are some shots taken from the Worli Seaface promenade. The sea used to come right up to the promenade during high tide. You can see how far back it has been pushed now:

[GTO]

Voted for No. The sea is sacred to Bombay (and other similar coastal cities). All these projects are brutally destroying it. Sure, I like looking at the Sea Link and driving on it, but given a choice, I would much rather not have it at all and preserve the environment instead.

Let's also not forget that these Sea Links are expensive (70 bucks 1-way & 105 return), 2-wheelers aren't allowed and BEST buses prefer not to take it. So, it's not really helping the masses at large. Even black & yellow cabs never use it. It is quite elitist in that sense.

These are all short-term fixes. As you rightly said, one cannot outrun the growth in cars with such projects. IMHO, we need a fast expanding Metro system (that is currently WIP) like Delhi & more companies should allow WFH (a rare upside of Covid). Make the Metro so good + comfortable + convenient that a Mercedes owner will choose to travel long distance in it, instead of taking out his Benz on the damn Sea Link.

[Kosfactor]

A city like Mumbai can either move with the times or ahead and provide the necessary infrastructure which promotes business or face decline due to industries moving out due to lack of infrastructure.

100 cars being registered does not mean 100 more cars running on the roads everyday, most of them are just sitting in the Garage. A residential township outside of Mumbai with an expressway & affordable rapid mass transit connecting them will do wonders. It is what every major city must do.

[anandhsub]

I am not a Mumbai resident but I use the sea link (rather the cab does) whenever I am there to get to Prabhadevi from the Airport and the other way. I agree it is quite elitist but I really cannot think of a better way unless landing in off peak hours. Never taken the route via Dadar. The only issue is how it narrows down a lot near the seaface but I believe this is needed to support the coastal road project.

[Rehaan]

The truth is simple -- modern man is living WAY beyond his means.

It's not sustainable, and nature cannot survive it.

It's just that it's happening so slowly and so many degrees away that most humans don't see the effects and don't realise how responsible their seemingly routine and harmless every-day choices are in propagating this.

In user-interface design there's a rule that says if the user doesn't see something change within 2-5 seconds of clicking a button, they don't attribute that reaction to the fact that they clicked the button.


When it comes to Sea-Links and Coastal roads, it's a question of certain groups of people vilifying other people's devils. When in fact, everyone has their own devil.

Let's not forget that this is what Bombay actually looked like just ~350 years ago (left), before the sea was filled by man to create where we currently live (right):

Source

To be honest, I don't know what my final opinion on these road constructions is.

But I do know that virtually everyone needs to change significant things about their lifestyles and habits, to even begin to undo the damage we have done to nature.

[ninjatalli]

Voted NO.

- Mumbaikars don't need a car - globally such metro cities are doing great without vehicle ownership - been there, done that in NYC too!

- I sold my car after with bare minimum usage within the city over a period of 1.5 years. It's been more than a year without a car living in the city and we have been doing absolutely just fine!

- Mumbai has been spared of sea-based calamities (touchwood) for quite a while. These projects are not calamity-proof.

- Car owners are a minority in the city. The majority of the public still uses the locals and buses. I'm not sure why the focus isn't on increasing the infrastructure more for them.

- Just today, I was talking to an elderly relative who retired from the railways industry 2 decades ago. Coincidently he was praising how the local rail network back in 1962 was so good that they had connectivity to Dombivili where he was put up. That's the lifeline of Mumbai, not these roads.

- The city already lacked enough number of areas for recreation for families - now with this construction, that just went down by a huge % atleast for another half a decade.

[V.Narayan]

Wholeheartedly support these projects that decongest the financial capital of the country and make travel easier for the millions who live in the northern parts of Greater Mumbai and need to travel North-South for employment/business etc. Without these infrastructure upgrades which are overdue Mumbai will go the way of Kolkata (no offense here, I love the city and its culture) and the commercial centre of gravity will shift elsewhere.

Sure every infrastructure project causes some environmental disruption. There are ways and means of mitigating it though no way of eliminating it. Interestingly the members against these projects are the ones who live South of Mahim Creek!!!

As a Dilli-wallah the road congestion in Mumbai strikes me as a nightmare every time I visit on business. Delhi might have more cars but thanks to the numerous flyovers and elevated roads there are several business commutes I run (self driven) of 50 to 80 kms in peak day traffic without batting an eyelid. Gurgaon to Greater Noida - 70 kms - 80 minutes - 5 traffic lights. Gurgaon to Palwal - 55 kms - 70 mins -4 traffic lights. So many other examples. Only because of infrastructure.

Mumbaikars may not have noticed but after the 1991 economic opening only a few of the MNCs that came in, other than banks, made Mumbai their India HQ. Most went either to BLR or DEL. Build your infrastructure or watch the decline over 30 years.

[RadixLecti]

I'd vote NO if I could vote.

I was born and raised in Bombay and still visit every two weeks or so while I'm between ships. I've seen the same depressing views you've captured in your photos. A friend who lives in one of the affected areas has mounted a camera in his balcony which is taking shots every 24 hours and he plans to make a time lapse video of the destruction from beginning to end.

I'm neither a civil engineer nor an urban planner but from living in Bombay and travelling mostly by BEST bus for 25 odd years I know that the city needs effective, air-conditioned, reliable and affordable public transport much more than these coastal roads and sealinks. I hope the Metro turns out to be a game changer once most of the lines are in service.

One argument I've heard from some of my friends who still live in Bombay is that these projects are needed because of the way businesses (i.e. their offices) keep moving further and further north as rents sky-rocket. But they are not thinking of their own colleagues in the same organisations who do the less well-paid tasks e.g. the office boys, the security and janitorial staff, and even those in lower-level white collar positions. These people cannot afford cars (and two-wheelers are banned from most of the big ticket road projects) and thus have to suffer ever longer commutes by bus and local train.

Road-wise, I think the city needs to try to improve east-west connectivity even further, develop the eastern coast (i.e. the docklands) and look at where elevated road projects like the Eastern Freeway can be replicated. Pessimist though I am, I still have this utopian dream that in 15-20 years, Bombay will become like London or New York, where many of those who can easily afford a car don't need to bother buying one.

[digitalnirvana]

I very strongly believe in the Singapore model. Excellent public transport with focus on Metro & Monorail / Tram.

If one thinks about it with a long-term view, even London (the City) has moved towards congestion fees for cars and more and more focus on public transport (remember the Boris bikes?). London should be what Mumbai should emulate. Both are hamstrung by old infrastructure and yet both need to stay relevant as the financial capital of the country. London reinvented its transportation infrastructure with a long term vision. So should Mumbai or Kolkata or Hyderabad or Lucknow or any of our old cities.

For an old metro city like Mumbai (and Kolkata), there is only so much extra road space you can create without destroying the environment. In Mumbai you have the sea, in Kolkata we have the river and the wetlands (Ramsar eco-site). The key is to upgrade the public transport and disincentivize cars during weekdays.

That's the only real workable way for our old cities.

Delhi and Bangalore are another matter because they can continue to expand the city borders. But the continuous roadworks in Bangalore show that short termism doesn't really work out.

[aaggoswami]

Voted for Yes.

Humans have damaged nature beyond belief, and probably certain things are next to irreversible, like global warming or melting of ice sheets. But the development cannot be free and we all have to pay the cost of development in the form of environmental damage. I believe even to survive while sustaining minimal needs in our times, such large scale developments need to take place, there is no second option. I reside in the state of Gujarat where the heat wave can be extreme. Even then, whenever I have visited Mumbai AC is a must. In such weather, public transport wont make lives easy. Our weather makes it difficult to always use public transport I think.

[batladanny]

Voted NO without even going into environmental issues.

It's been known for a long time that designing cities for cars will only add more cars. One more lane is not a solution The objective instead is to design for optimized transportation.

The reason cars are so popular is due to the convenience of the point-to-point model (straight from home to office). Public transport is almost always a hub-and-spoke model (home - train station - train station - office). Along with better public transportation, we also need to design efficient and convenient last-mile solutions in tandem (eg. for-rent electric bikes outside stations)

[Cessna182]

Land reclamation is the only option open for infrastructure development in Mumbai. It is damaging for the ecosystem, but there are few alternatives. Even if the metro becomes fully functional, it will not be able to take the load off the local trains, let alone the numerous bikes and cars.

The Singapore model may not work because the population density of Mumbai is about 5 times that of Singapore. Maybe some city from China can be studied to see if there's something to learn.

[srishiva]

Not sure if the question is more about aesthetics and losing the old looks of the place. Think of getting a sea facing home and then lose sight of the sea.

We do want our automobile industry to grow, its apparent that most of it will impact cities than rural areas. The infrastructure has to keep up with it. Somehow we dont like far flung suburban kind of models and want to live in a close knit community in millions

Looking at Bengaluru, companies seem not to care about the infrastructure as long as they get the Human resources. The authorities need to keep doing something.

[rdst_1]

I grew up and until 5 years ago, even lived in, one of the few well planned cities of India, Chandigarh. The problem was, in such a small city, since distances were so small, car ownership grew very fast when salaries became good. In such a small city, if there was a good public transport system in place, there was really no need of using a car. One could still own one for outstation trips, but there was no need to use it daily inside the city. Sure, we still don't have very long traffic jams except on festivals like Diwali, but the whole vibe of the city has become so bad just because of all the cars. It was one of the reasons that made me help in moving to mountains and I didn't even have to deal with the office rush or anything.

Frankly speaking, the whole order of how we live and what we value will have to change before we realize that projects like these and living in congested cities is not worth it. And even more importantly, we have to put a stop at our increasing population first. Human population is the root cause of most of the issues we are dealing with today apart from the sustainability aspect.

[sramanat]

Apart from public transport, another approach to try would be to minimize the size of cities. About a week back, Sridhar Vembu, the CEO of Zoho had tweeted a thread about how Japan is stagnating because too much resources was spent in urbanization and building Tokyo. He also mentioned that growing existing cities has perverse incentives for politicians who also happen to be landowners. With COVID, many IT companies are realizing the virtues of having their employees work from home in tier 2/3 cities. Hope this trend continues and we end up developing those cities.