Frustrated by congested Akurli road, 11-year-old pens letter to MLA to fix traffic jams

Mumbai: Getting stuck for hours in traffic jams amid continuous honking and heavy vehicles choking the one-kilometre-stretch of Akurli road in Kandivali is becoming strenuous for nearly 50,000 residents of Lokhandwala Township, who take the road to reach Thakur Village, towards the Western Express Highway (WEH).

Having waited long enough for the implementation of the Development Plan of 1991 - which makes a provision for a 120-foot-wide road - or to find an alternate solution to their daily woes, the exasperated residents, old and young alike, have taken matters into their own hands.

An 11-year-old girl, Naisha Shetty, from Samta Nagar, Kandivali East has written a letter to MLA Atul Bhatkhalkar listing how traffic jams are impacting the residents’ lives.

While others have decided to consult an urban planner to find a solution.

“In recent months, the traffic has become particularly worse. It’s entirely unpredictable, even at odd times,” said Santy Shetty, a resident who heads the citizens group We All Connect (wAc). “So, we reached out to an urban planner who lives in the area and compiled a list of solutions that can be executed soon.”

Shetty, who has been living in the area for over 16 years now, said several factors contribute to the heavy jams. “The road is narrow. The load on it has increased as the population in the township has boomed. This is exacerbated by the poor enforcement of traffic rules, which see U-turns taken mid-road, double parking by shared auto-rickshaws, rash driving and few traffic signals. Heavy vehicles heading to factories and construction sites add to the problem,” said Shetty.

The latest addition to the mess is the work being done to widen the Akurli vehicular subway, due to which, in September this year, it was included in the 13 bottlenecks in the city identified by traffic cops.

The situation is so bad that it has afflicted the conscience of children as well. Naisha, who studies in seventh grade at Lokhandwala Foundation School wrote to the MLA, stating, “I am 11 years old, and from the time I remember, Akurli road traffic has been an issue which has been unresolved. Many times my parents discuss leaving Lokhandwala and relocating, however, I like Lokhandwala Township and I don’t want to leave this area.”

Over 60 residents first met with the MLA Bhatkhalkar on Saturday, explaining the issue. This was followed by a meeting on Monday morning, with the MLA, the BMC’s ward officer, the ACP, and traffic in charge, Rane. Around 40 residents participated in the almost two-hour-long meeting, despite it being a working day. There, they put their solutions ahead.

“One solution to streamline the traffic is installing parabolic 3-feet high dividers from signal to signal so that vehicles can’t take U-turns from wherever they want,” said Amol Reddiwar, the urban planner and architect. “Traffic management has to be improved, and action taken on share rickshaws that take six passengers at a time.”

The next was to restrict the movement of heavy vehicles on the road which are headed to a nearby factory and several construction sites. “An alternative is that their timings should be restricted from 12 midnight to 6am,” said Shetty. Improving the public transport in the area was another solution, as its abysmal condition at present increases the reliance on private vehicles.

The meeting was a success, by Shetty and Reddiwar’s account. “All our suggestions were agreed to, although we did not get any concrete deadlines for them. Only the subway widening work was promised to be completed by May 2024. The ward officer informed us that he would need funds for the dividers, which the MLA has agreed to write about,” said Shetty.

Not everyone is convinced. Another resident, Nitin Jha, was involved in getting an alternate route in the space beside the slum housing in Singh Estate. The slums are home to around 300 families that have to be relocated for the completion of the DP road, a process that is stuck in a political tussle as the area falls under the jurisdiction of a different MLA, Prakash Surve.

Jha was successful, in getting the wall by the slums broken down to create space for vehicle movement. But due to the proximity to the houses – with kids often playing just out – only two-wheelers were allowed to ply on the path.

“Such meetings have been held many times in the last ten years, but we still haven’t gotten a permanent solution yet. The DP road has been pending since 1991. It’s always promised by political parties, but nothing happens on the ground,” he said.

Jagdish Bhopale, senior police inspector of Samta Nagar traffic police station said the road that connects Thakur Village and Akurli to WEH is narrow and the number of vehicles has been increasing. There are encroachments on both sides of the road which cause traffic jams.

Bhopale said the problem has been there for the past six years. “We try our best to solve the problem but since the road is narrow it is not possible to solve the problem completely,” he said.