Mumbai traffic police have done good

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DELHI HAS woken up just now, but Mumbai has been having such traffic penalty drives day in and day out on a very regular basis. There’s a problem with Mumbai’s roads. They are narrow and very peculiar and cannot be widened beyond a particular point as the city is an island surrounded by sea.

Given this limitation, there is no scope of adding more roads to the existing network. This is compounded by the problem of a continuous flow of cars into the city — the ones registered here and the ones that keep coming from other states. Given these peculiarities, I would say the Mumbai traffic department has been doing a good job so far.

The traffic problem in Mumbai must be seen in a comprehensive way and at a macro level. Given the lack of road space, another problem is of increasing population. Hawkers occupy footpaths, leaving no space for pedestrians, who then spill on to roads, hampering traffic movement.

This is one of the major problems that makes an average person think that Mumbai’s traffic has lost its discipline. It is not the case. An average Mumbai driver today is equally disciplined as he or she was earlier, but the crowd is so dense and the space so less that he has nowhere to go and runs a high risk of meeting with an accident.

The latest transport statistics, released March 2007, reveal that the number of vehicles has now touched 15 lakh. But has the city’s land grown? If one keeps adding vehicles like this, it is obvious that it will give an impression of chaos. The traffic police, with a force of less than 2,500 personnel, have been fining traffic violators and have earned money in crores. What more one can expect?

Source: http://epaper.hindustantimes.com (Mumbai Edition)
Date Of Publish: 12-Apr-07