Ganpati Festival: Why there’s terrible traffic in Mumbai ahead of celebrations

Mumbai: In the city of dreams, buying a vehicle may not be a luxury, but driving one is far from enjoyable. While acute traffic snarls in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region are hardly news, the last few days have been particularly bad due to a plethora of reasons: from the recent strike called by state transport employees to ongoing construction work for metro rail, new roads, subways and flyovers, to the rush of devotees heading home to celebrate the Ganpati festival.
HT dives deep into all the issues faced by Mumbaiites on the roads over this past week.
Rush to Konkan amidst MSRTC strike
On September 3, the 11 worker unions of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) declared a strike. While the strike only lasted a day, it was enough to turn road traffic upside down.
At least 10,500 buses out of the fleet of 15,000 remained off-road on September 4. With devotees wanting to reach their hometowns, especially in the Konkan region, for Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations, there was chaos outside MSRTC bus depots, railway stations and private bus stands as hordes of desperate citizens scrambled to find alternative modes of transport.
On September 5, MSRTC scheduled 3,618 Ganpati special buses. This put a strain on the city’s limited infrastructure, with buses piling up at depots in Parel, Borivali, and Kurla, among other places. Thane, where there are many more MSRTC depots, took over the majority of the load. Due to space constraints inside depots, buses were seen parked on the roads.
“We tried to ensure that the buses left soon one after the other, so as to not cause much inconvenience to people,” said sources in MSRTC. Private bus operators deployed 30-35% more buses to Konkan after a request from the Maharashtra government.
On Thursday, two days before the Ganpati festival began, several Konkan-bound buses full to the brim started departing Mumbai. Cue: bedlam.
“My bus left from Borivali and took 2.5-3 hours to reach Bandra, which on a normal day would take two hours,” said Malik Patel, a bus owner and member of the Mumbai Bus Malak Sanghatana. “Reaching Panvel also meant a delay of another 30-45 minutes. The driver said there was a lot of traffic on the roads, which affected our bus timetable.”
KV Shetty, owner of Supreme Travels, said his tourist bus reached Konkan 6-7 hours late. “The bus, which left Borivali (E) at 5 pm, should have left Mumbai city in 2-2.5 hours. But there was a delay of 60-75 minutes. The bus reached the Goa border at 3 pm [the next day], which otherwise should have reached at 8 am.”
Increase in vehicles
Maximum City has also witnessed a rise in vehicle registration over the last few years. According to the data from the transport department, Mumbai has 4.8 million registered vehicles. In 2019-20, just before Covid-19, there were 3.85 million. Out of these, the number of two-wheelers has increased substantially, from 2.28 million to 2.9 million.
“Any city is designed for a service of a certain capacity. Mumbai is exhausted now. For years, the road lengths have remained around 2,000 km, while the number of vehicles has increased exponentially,” said AV Shenoy, a member of the Mumbai Mobility Forum, a think tank.
This means there are 2,400 vehicles per kilometre of road. As a result, traffic congestion, parking issues and constant honking have become normal for Mumbaiites. This year, until June, regional transport offices in Mumbai have seen a 15% increase in vehicle registration compared to last year.
“There is a need to address the bottlenecks on Mumbai roads if we must tackle traffic jams. The roads start from 6-7 lanes, but end up becoming 2-3 lanes, which causes traffic snarls. The Eastern Freeway is one of the best examples of infrastructure that Mumbai has, which is signal-free and has proper roads de-aligning from it,” said Jigar Shah, a resident of Vile Parle who drives daily to south Mumbai.
The situation is no better in Thane, where traffic congestion has plagued both sides of Ghodbunder Road—a vital route for heavy vehicles travelling to Uran, Gujarat, and Nashik—over the last three days. Routine breakdowns of heavy vehicles on the ghats at Gaimukh and accidents involving overturned trucks and containers at the Patalipada flyover have added to the mayhem.
On Thursday morning, the situation reached unprecedented levels, with continuous traffic jams reported for 12 hours. Although cranes were deployed to remove the heavy vehicles, some drivers moved against the traffic flow, further complicating the situation.
One of the reasons behind the increase in vehicles on the road is a saturated public transport network, according to experts. BEST buses cater to around 3-3.2 million passengers daily, while Central and Western Railways together ferry 5.5-5.7 million commuters every day. Around 750,000 people use the three operational metro rail lines daily.
“The suburban rail is exhausted and will take years to expand,” said Shenoy. “The only way to improve public transport is by adding more metro rail corridors, for which work is underway. Citizens will see some relief when the Metro-6 and Metro-3 lines begin, as it will give people an option to give up their personal vehicles.”
The ongoing metro work across the city has led to the installation of barriers that are eating up road space. This has only added to the traffic snarls.
Ganapati preparations
This past week, ahead of the Ganpati festival, there was a heavy rush in the market areas of Dadar, Chinchpokli, Matunga, Andheri, Borivali, Crawford Market, Ghatkopar, and Mulund, among others. This impacted the movement of both vehicles and pedestrians.
According to the traffic police, many Ganapati pandals have come up not only on footpaths but also on roads. Ganpati-welcoming processions across the city added to the traffic jams.
But then again, this is nothing new. The festival has been celebrated in Mumbai and across Maharashtra for decades. You’d think the various authorities in charge of administering the city would have figured out how to manage the situation by now. Unfortunately, it’s the same old story every year.