Mumbai Musings # 4: Unsprawled

They say that “every great city sits like a giant spider on its transportation network” – and so we know why not one of India’s metropolitan cities is “great”. They are all like blobs of jelly on the map, nowhere near the nimble spider.

My Konkan railway train from Goa to Mumbai reached Panvel early in the morning, then traveled onto Thane before terminating at Kurla. Between Panvel and Thane, all that one saw from the window were wide open spaces: “unreal estate”.

Indeed, if you fly Goa-Mumbai you see miles and miles of virgin beaches, and acres and acres of what seems to be unowned and unoccupied land. If we want to use these spaces, instead of overcrowding our cities, we must have fast transport connections from the cities (and their business centres and markets) to all these outlying areas.

My hostess in Juhu showed me photos of her cottage in Alibaug – and the place seemed quite like our own tile-roofed one in Goa. There was also a lovely garden - something absent in Juhu. But we could not visit Alibaug – because of poor transportation. The map shows Alibaug to be just across the waters from Mumbai.

If we want Alibaug to “develop”, an undersea tunnel between Mumbai and Alibaug is all that is required. It will also help the citizens of Mumbai to “sprawl” over a far wider area, rather than cramming themselves into a tiny strip of coastal land. There is lots of land along the coast. The undersea tunnel will pay for itself from the property boom that will ensue in Alibaug – and the consequent revenues that will accrue to the State from property taxes. It is all win-win.

American environmentalists hate America’s “urban sprawl”. In India, we need it. There is more than enough room to do so.

In my book, transportation is the key.

We don’t need socialist education.

We need a transportation revolution.