Mumbai: India's Transforming MEGACITY

Big things are happening in the financial and entertainment capital of India.   Its contiguous urban population approaches 25 million and its territory is surrounded by water, making it the second most densely populated major city in the world. But there is hope that a set of five transportation megaprojects, being built simultaneously across the city, will facilitate the movement of people and goods and help position it to become a center of global power by mid-century. This is Mumbai, the

megacity

in transformation. Surrounded by the Arabian Sea, Mumbai, which means "mother" in Marathi, the local language, is the heart of the state of Maharashtra, the second most populous national subdivision in the world and the largest contributor to India's economy.

What was a group of islands was merged, in 1845, into a single continental mass through multiple land reclamation projects. But it was a turning point in American history that arguably did the most to set Mumbai on its modern path. Had it not been for the Civil War in America, Mumbai probably would not have been as important a city as it is today. That source of raw cotton for newly industrialized England was suddenly depleted due to the Civil War.  At the same time they managed to open the Suez Canal, which reduced the journey to London by a third.

So what was a 90-day trip became a 30-day trip.   When you leave Suez and you leave the Red Sea, the port that was just ahead was Mumbai.   So it turned out that Mumbai was in the right place at the right time with all the rich cotton culture of Maharashtra. One of the things the British brought us was railways, mainly to transport goods from the hinterland directly to the port. And the port really grew like crazy. Today, Mumbai Seaport handles most of the container traffic entering and leaving India, creating many jobs for its residents. Ramesh Shinde travels by train to go to work at the port.

Ramesh Shinde: “I work in a shipbuilding company, Mazagon Dock, and I build submarines.   “We have already built five submarines and are currently building the sixth.” The prospect of a good and stable job has attracted people from all over India for decades. In India we have a big problem with people migrating to metropolitan areas.   You cannot stop people from coming to the city of Mumbai; They have as much right to come here as any other Indian. You either figure out how to make things better or you vote for people who figure out how to make things better.

The challenge is that the city's population has grown much faster than its government's ability to build infrastructure and this has been happening for so long that no matter who they elect, there is a lot of catching up to do. Infrastructure was being built to try to keep up with the needs of the city. But starting in the 1970s we had many setbacks in spending money. We had a total lack of foresight. You know, when you get to 10 million people and your infrastructure is good for two, and you raise your infrastructure to 10 million people, by the time you do that it will have already exceeded 15 million and is inadequate.

To close the gap, five massive transportation constructions are underway at the same time. The first is the Mumbai Metro, one of the most ambitious and important transit initiatives in history. “Right now our suburban railway is the lifeline of Mumbai.   This suburban railway carries around nine million passengers. The new metro network that we are creating will transport between 7 and 8 million passengers. “We are almost doubling it.” With gigantic tunnel boring machines, eight lines are being built at the same time through the living city. They can't come soon enough. The existing suburban railway is completely stretched to its limit and carries three times more passengers than originally planned.

This is not only extremely stressful, but also dangerous.   Around 2,000 people die each year on these roads, conditions that cause constant delays. “There is no fast train and it does not arrive on time. If the central line train does not arrive on time, we will miss the western line train that connects us.” “It is difficult to board the train for someone who is not a Mumbaikar.   It can be very busy. “I am a local and I can’t even get on the Virar train.”   The first two overhead metro lines opened earlier this year to positive reviews.   “In the metro, we sit in the air conditioning and travel for 30 rupees.

So it's very convenient. Otherwise, imagine how much money one would spend on a taxi or a rickshaw.” The major arterial line will run for 33 km under many of Mumbai's most historic buildings. “This will be the first underground metro that the city will witness.   I live right outside what will soon be a subway station. I think it will make traveling very comfortable. And it's underground, so there is very little damage to the built heritage or built parts of the city.  The way networks are being built today has made connectivity much easier and more convenient. You leave your train station, you have a walkway that connects you to a metro line and from there directly to home.

I remember talking to RA Rajeev. He said that while the first subway project took about 10 years, they really expected the rest of the lines to be faster, and we're seeing that, we're seeing that happening in the rest of the city, in the suburbs. The current plan is for 14 lines to make up a 360 kilometer network.   It will also help alleviate traffic congestion. The road is very, very stressful. Clutch, brake, clutch, brake. There is a lot of traffic.   Driving a car is very difficult. And what is more difficult than driving is parking.   That's also a problem: there are no parking spaces.

Mumbai's layout means its most popular areas are at its southern tip, such as Bollywood, India's burgeoning film and media industry. Many of its stars live in Bandra, a luxurious and exclusive neighborhood.   A little further south is the historic heart of the city, home to government agencies, the main business district and university, luxury hotels and famous landmarks, including India Gate, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station. and the set of Victorian and Art Deco buildings. buildings facing each other in the Oval Maidan park. However, this area is so congested that it can take more than an hour to get to the airport by car.

That's where project number two comes into play. The Coastal Highway will be a 29.2 kilometer motorway which will reduce this travel time to just 20-25 minutes when it opens next year. As a civil engineer it is a dream project.  It has everything a civil engineer could dream of, including reclamation, seawall, bridges and tunnels. We've had some world records on this too. We have had 456 meters of mining in a month, something that has never happened before. The coastal highway project was a dream in India and now it is being built, so there is a lot of progress in India.

The project also creates 10.5 kilometers of continuous promenade with various green spaces and will improve the ease of travel to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the world's largest urban tropical forest. However, the road will also be a massive concrete barrier that will cut off much of the boardwalk, replacing that view with heavy vehicle traffic.   Cautionary stories about this approach can be found in the US cities of Seattle and Boston, which recently spent billions to open access to their precious coastlines by tearing down viaducts to divert traffic through newly dug tunnels. Other concerns include encouraging greater car ownership, which could worsen air and traffic pollution; that neglects the needs of carless residents who make up the majority of the city's population; and seems to ignore perhaps the city's biggest threat.

When you build roads that will go 1 km into the sea, you will need more roads to connect them. You are increasing your built infrastructure. That increases the cost, that increases the damage you're doing to the environment. You are reclaiming your seas for this, at a time when there is a threat of the city being submerged. We need to think seriously about whether a coastal highway will really benefit the city in 50 years. Are we going to see more incidents of waterlogging during rain? None of that has really been thought through. Mumbaikars call elevated highways like the coastal highway as flyovers.   Another is the Sewri-Worli Connector, the third major project.

It will cross the island so that vehicles can cross the city without interruption from coast to coast. This taxi driver constantly navigates his construction. From conversations with his clients, he has a good idea of ​​how this new infrastructure will be used. “When the bridge is built, locals who have to go to the suburbs will go from below.   The rest of the people will go up the flyover.” So first we had a whole series of flyovers in Mumbai, but they were all from north to south. So East-West connectivity was terrible. Kurush lives in the satellite city of Navi Mumbai, which will benefit from the fourth project.

The Trans Harbor Link is a 21.8 kilometer bridge for vehicles to quickly cross the bay-like entrance to the Arabian Sea that separates the island city from the Indian mainland. When it opens this year, it will be the longest sea bridge in the country. It is not just a transportation corridor, it is and will be an engine of economic growth. So what this bridge does is actually bring the mainland closer to a distance of 12 to 15 minutes, adding a huge chunk of land to Mumbai. Once the bridge is built, the fifth project makes a lot of sense.   Navi Mumbai International Airport will provide what many other major cities around the world already have: a dedicated airport for international flights and a second for domestic travelers.

With an urban area almost twice as dense as the national capital, it is vital that Mumbai's transport system works. So while these five big projects have taken decades, now that the steel has been laid and the concrete poured, an even more ambitious vision is emerging. The city has been transformed and has been moving towards becoming a megapolis. We are looking at something stretching all the way to the Gujarat border in the north, all the way to Mubar in the east and all the way to Mangaon on the Bombay-Goa highway in the south. That's what we realized the city of Mumbai and ultimately the Mumbai Metropolitan Region will be.

But one example of the ever-evolving trade-offs for continued development is Gorai, a part of the city that has remained fairly immune to its expansion. Located just across the Manori stream, it is only accessible from the south by ferry. At night the place is completely deserted.   You don't feel like you are in Mumbai. This is a beautiful place. Hillary has seen firsthand how quickly things are changing. People are crazy about money, everyone wants a fast life. Everyone sold their property. Before there was not a single wall here. Now, since you buy the property, you build your own wall.

Hillary says he is happy earning about $8 a day, although he has to spend hours driving 15 km to the nearest compressed natural gas pump and waiting in line every time he needs to refuel.   The authorities want to build a bridge to connect Gorai (and its beaches) with the rest of the city.   They say this will give residents like him more services, like gas pumps. They will give you options. If you need a gas pump here, we have to build the bridge. To gain something we are losing something. But if they build the bridge, all the beauty of this place will disappear.

Oh mangroves and everything, everything will disappear around here. No land will be saved. So even though his income could improve, he doesn't want the bridge. He believes it will ruin the relatively quiet life he and his wife enjoy among the water-sucking mangrove ecosystem that helps protect them from rising sea levels and storm flooding. Most of the rest of Mumbai's mangroves have been completely destroyed. No one else is destroying nature, we ourselves are destroying nature. And we are blaming nature. What can nature do? Nature stops.   Take care of nature, everything will be fine. If you play with nature you have to pay the fine.

If you cooperate with nature, nature will cooperate with you.