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I have the following observations -

1. Amoeba like growth of cities in Maharashtra. Be it Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Karad, Jalgaon or Nagpur. The city limits keep growing every year. I guess Pune takes the cake in this regard. Every year there are new cities getting added in PMC limits. The apparent NH4 which was a bypass is very much a part of the city now. Kolhapur is a nightmare to cross in the morning between 8 am to 11am and 5pm to 7pm as the traffic from industries close by is travelling towards and around Kolhapur. No dedicated bypasses outside the city limits.

2. Major Cities are not connected with proper expressways. The Mumbai Pune expressway essentially cuts down the time taken to between Panvel and Kiwale. The time taken to Panvel and Kiwale from certain suburbs of Mumbai and Pune is equally irritating. Mumbai Nashik highway should be renamed as a joke. Pune Nashik becomes better from Rajgurunagar. Pune to Rajgurunagar is a torture. We have new expressways coming in but sorry this should have been done atleast 15 years back when the city was a city and not today when every other place close to the city is a part of the city.

3. Upnorth around Khandesh, the bypasses were actually good. Be it Dhule, Malegaon or Shirpur. But now the bypasses are infested with restaurants, RMC plants, tiles and sanitary item godowns and showrooms. There should be dedicated areas for these and not so close to the bypass. A bypass should ideally have fuel stations, pharmacies, automobiles repair workshops and tyre shops. These need to be farther away from the service road to ensure future expansions.

4. Concentration of industry. Mumbai, Nagpur & Pune have the highest business followed by Nashik, Aurangabad, Jalgaon and Kolhapur. Areas around Marathwada, Vidarbha and Khandesh have been cursed thanks to corrupt political leadership and in general careless attitude of the locals. Industries should be spread across the state. Agriculture related support needs to be better. Land acquisition for newer highways needs to be smooth.

5. I like how Nashik is bypassed when travelling towards Dhule from Mumbai. It's very smooth. But it's possible in Nashik because they had 2 dedicated service lanes outside the main highway on each side with restricted access to the highway and long flyovers. They are trying the same in Pune and it's not as fruitful as it looks in Nashik. Hence Pune gets a dedicated ring road soon. I hope they don't try this in Mumbai and stick to a regular ring road. The traffic sense in Maharashtra is worsening every passing year. I always thought the western region of India had the worst traffic in Gujarat but MH is catching up. Wrong side driving, riding without helmets and creating bottlenecks is so common. There are infra related issues but nothing which a disciplined traffic can not solve. The traffic before the construction of Chandni chowk, Kothrud related flyovers was a testimony to this indiscipline. The CM was stuck for hours in the same traffic. There were essentially 2.5 lanes for the traffic to pass initially and three lanes later but the traffic became worst thanks to people creating multiple lanes.

I don't know why people living in Maharashtra are surprised with this situation. This was predicted 10 years back. People may have ignored this as their real estate was giving them good money. Every state surrounding Maharashtra be it small or big has excellent infrastructure. I hope the incoming expressways and metros are able to decongest the cities by atleast 25%.

I want to meet the genius incharge of this development. And pardon my behaviour, I can’t guarantee the interaction between me and them won’t turn violent within 10 seconds.:mad::mad:

No planning. No traffic management. No diversions on regular intervals. No repairing of service roads or roads under flyovers, so that traffic can flow smoothly.

They just woke up one day and started concretising 10s of kms at a stretch.

My heart goes out to all the truckers who have to wade through this stretch every week and breathe in those dangerous fumes for hours at a stretch. Can’t imagine what people who have to drive/ride from Virar to Mumbai have to endure on a daily basis.

This Manor-Naigaon stretch is one of the ultimate proofs I’ve come across, of how human life, our time and mental health isn’t worth shit for the political and corporate class of this country, and how we are being taken for a ride with every project taken up in this city or its outskirts. There’s absolutely no way the contractor or the Govt can justify the chaos on this stretch. Just pure negligence, indifference and inhumane.

I can completely relate to your experience, and very sorry for the rant. Every time I come back to India (especially Mumbai) I do see new infrastructure, new buildings, however nothing has changed in terms of traffic experience. If anything things have actually gone from bad to worse.

No one likes to give way to others, people ride/drive on the wrong side as if thats the right thing to do, honking is just on a completely different level. It takes almost an entire day to get used to the honking. Nothing is going to change until and unless already existing laws are enforced and licensing system is beefed up.

This is what my gmap looks like for past 200 days. Having reached all those places driving myself. A rant? So be it.

Maharashtra has the WORST roads of all these places, and the MMR region is the worst in the state.

And its worsening - 10 years ago the Mum-Ahm or the Mum-Nsk had much better surfaces. I haven't encountered patchy / broken / bit concrete / bit asphalt surfaces like MMR in any other big city I have been to recently. Sheer thukpati attitude in general.

Consensus is MMR infra is at least 20 years late - Mumbai's 2nd airport and metros being just two examples.

Irony is I am still ensconced here.

You've detailed out what I always wanted to say. The city is forever under construction, but nothing is ever being built. Mumbai - Goa is approx. 600 kms & takes 12 hours. Bangalore - Goa is approx. 600 kms but takes under 10 hours. I have done Mum-Blr-Mum several times. One knows you've entered Maharashtra when the vehicle starts bouncing & the speed drops to 70kmph

Summarizing MH road woes is simple:

1. Build roads, don't maintain them and look for new contracts.
2. Bypasses are an afterthought.

Needless to say my worst road vote went to MH.

Not surprising at all. I do frequent runs between Hyd-Nagpur, Hyd-Pune and Hyd-Blr. Roads in Telangana and Karnataka have improved by leaps and bounds and it's a delight these days to drive on the highways within these states. The moment you touch the check posts on any border with MH, you know you have entered MH. There is a day and night difference in the quality of roads. Surprising, considering the fact that the Road Transport and Highways minister is from the state.

And the lesser said about Mumbai infrastructure, the better. I spent 8 wonderful and professionally satisfying years in this city, and always think of relocating. Heart wants to go back, mind always wants to stay back, for exactly the reasons outlined on this thread.

As a Bengalurian and one who has lived in Mumbai ( Malad/ Andheri) for a few years I have driven in both the cities and often between the cities also. In Mumbai the roads deteriorate after monsoons badly, while I don't really see that kind of deterioration in Bangalore ( at least where I live) Also the surface of the roads in Bangalore is much much smoother and better IMO. And while the traffic around Malad/ Andheri was bad, the traffic in Jayanagar, Bangalore where I live and WFH is heaven!! 😀

Mum - Blr drives were a breeze in early and mid 2010 -2020 decade. 2Wheeler traffic between Pune - Kolhapur could be avoided with an early 6AM start from Malad and progressively earlier starts as the years went by. Getting out of Mumbai (without getting lost in Chembur ) was a task and used to take me upwards of an hour to reach Vashi. I recollect following Shivneri buses to get me out of the maze😀. No google maps yet! After that it was a breeze and a heavy right foot would see me cross Pune just past 8ish and zipping past Kolhapur by half past 10. All thanks to much lesser traffic and my fab Passat TDI. No speed sensors, not even on the Pune Expressway.
Last year I drove from Pune along with a friend and the quality of roads till Kolhapur was rubbish. Even on my Panchgani drive in 2019 the roads after Kolhapur were bad.
Planning to drive to Saurashtra / Kutch and i hope the roads get better soon.

The one time I took my Octavia into an area (byculla) where I was not aware of the road/speed breakers, this happened. Literally ripped off part of the fender lining and the underbody shield. I also suffered a tyre cut last monsoon and a friend of mine scraped the entire chin of his C class in Bandra. The condition of roads in Bombay have reached such a level that we’ve stopped taking our low cars out for city drives. You never know what’s lurking around the corner.

The conditions of the major NHs in Maharashtra nowadays are always under construction, the worst is when the contractors under political bonds go bankrupt causing the entire project to be in a dilapidated state, Pune-Satara section of NH-48 is one clear example

A Thread was explained on Twitter/X about why Roads in Maharashtra are always in such deteriorated state, posting link below
https://x.com/muglikar_/status/1747940257612320955

At present the section from Shendre (Satara) to Kagal (Kolhapur) is Under Construction with elimination of crossings & restructuring of flyovers in places like Karad with contractors and external funding again from high profile politicians

For those Travelling on NH-48 southbound of Maharashtra, I have made a Google Map of

For those travelling on NH-48 southbound of Maharashtra, & Northern part of Karnataka I have made a Google Map of all the Diversions present alongwith the grade separated structures such as Vehicular Underpasses [VUPs], Cattle Underpasses [CUPs] & Flyovers

Note- CUPs are colored in Maroon and aren't major diversions yet, but will be upgraded and widened to six lanes

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?m...84&usp=sharing

Considering how Terrible the traffic has been in Kolhapur due to this widening, They will have to expedite the Kolhapur Ring Road Construction, such that the traffic is segregated well around the region

as per MSRDC they have plans for Ring Road around Kolhapur region, only disappointing part is that its not being executed by them instead by the PWD Wing :Frustrati
[Although I don't understand why PWD when MSRDC can execute it alongwith proposed Shaktipeeth Expressway that has a planned cloverleaf interchange at Gokul Shirgaon that is near main Kolhapur City]





Details about Ring Road in Kolhapur are in the following links below-
https://twitter.com/haldilal/status/1695332613538337021

https://twitter.com/haldilal/status/1756178946582798496

Although I hope this project is completed without much politicial issues or even Contractors like what happened with Pune-Satara Stretch and hopefully looks like this in the future
[Image taken from NH-16 Andhra Pradesh]

Your tyres in the pic look very worn out. I suggest you replace them.

OT:

Sir, these are Michelin PS4 tyres. Soft compound, less aggressive tread pattern for maximum contact patch. Tyres are only 12k kms old. In fact, you can see the wear indicator too in the photo. They are far from done. :thumbs up

OT:

Well, I see absolutely no cross tread. I don't see how such a tyre will help in braking and traction.

As a fellow mumbaikar i share your pain.

Rant 1) Everytime we pass a toll naka, I can't help but curse at the sheer criminal stupidity of holding up so many people just to collect toll - the time wasted by these poor souls stuck in traffic affects their productivity, health, the environment and our foreign exchange reserves.
But seems that no one cares. :Frustrati

If they did they would probably realise not having toll will lead to more earnings in the long term due to the factors stated above

Or they could just add another cess on fuel sold in the city. We already pay through our noses for the privilege of living in a so called Metro / Tier 1 city.

Rant 2) There is underpass project going on near growels mall on the western express for over a year - Which creates traffic snarls all the way to andheri and beyond during peak hours

You would imagine completing this project would be a priority and work done around the clock so it's completed asap.

Instead from Dec 23 to Feb24 I saw absolutely no work happening. Not in the country now, so don't know if its finally done.


A small remedy I can suggest is it should be mandatory by law for

A) Roads to be identified as critical or arterial

B) Analysis on disruption of traffic flow prior any project is greenlighted along with mitigation measures put in place that will minimise affect on traffic flow

C) Projected disruption to man hours and wastage fuel due to the project - Decision to go ahead or not based on a swot analysis

D) Downtime for projects on arterial roads to be kept to absolute minimum and heavy penalties for delays

E) Arterial roads to be classed as mandatory no parking zones with stiff fines

Reasoning:
1) Hopefully bring into perspective the importance of man hours

2) Force taking into account the wastage of fuel due to traffic disruptions caused by poorly implemented projects.

3) Common sense states that wastage of fuel is bad for the exchequer, the environment and each of our pockets.

We are trying to save foreign exchange by ethanol blending

4) We cannot imagine a private company starting a upgrade or carrying out maintenance that can affect its productivity without taking measures to minimise the downtime - high time the public sector is forced to follow suit.

But this is all wishful thinking since the powers that be love grand projects.

Unless we can somehow use the judicial system to mandate this. Incase someone is interested?