Coastal Road creates massive traffic jams on Bandra-Worli Sea Link: Commuters

MUMBAI: The partially opened coastal road might have been touted as a panacea for traffic woes in South Mumbai, but according to commuters the traffic has spilled out beyond. Starting at the Worli entry/exit at the Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk (BMTC), the jam has now spread all the way on Worli Sea Face to the Bandra-Worli Sea Link (BWSL) and on it, with many complaining of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the stretch.
“When the coastal road initially opened, the traffic was concentrated at BMTC, where those exiting the BWSL towards the south had to take a double U-turn to get on to the coastal road,” said Pratik Salgaonkar, who works in Tardeo and has been traversing the BWSL every weekday for the past 14 years. “But recently it feels like the traffic has shifted onto the BWSL, where all the four lanes are jammed for a one- to two-km stretch.” The distance that would take him six to eight minutes to cross has been taking between 15 and 20 minutes in the mornings.
Zaheer Memon, a regular on the BWSL who now also uses the coastal road to travel from Bandra to Fort, has a similar experience. “For the past two weeks, traffic has been terrible on the BWSL almost daily,” he said. “The block begins at the halfway mark of the sea link, from where cars begin to crawl in first gear in all the four lanes. It’s often taken me 25 minutes to get through. We pay ₹150 for the toll. In return, shouldn’t the authorities deliver what was promised?”
Memon explained that commuters have been dealing with traffic ever since work on the coastal road began due to the barricades which extended up to the BWSL. But this has got worse in recent days.
“If the authorities are spending on such a road, they also have to ensure that it is planned well,” he said. “The exit from the BWSL merges four lanes into two which causes a bottleneck. After that, to access the coastal road from BMTC, there is a double U-turn, which also causes quite a jam. Hopefully, this is only temporary until the entire coastal road is opened.”
Despite Memon’s use of the coastal road, which he described as a breeze to zip through, the reduction in the travel time of his journey is barely five minutes. The time he saves on the coastal road is spent reaching it.
Worli resident Chikita Kukreja faces the same struggle to reach the sea link from Worli. “The traffic at BMTC and on Worli Sea Face has increased substantially,” she said. “It takes me 25 to 30 minutes to reach the BWSL in the mornings where it used to take around 15 minutes earlier. When I’m returning in the evening and on weekends, there is no traffic as the coastal road is closed,” she continued, coming to the conclusion that many of those using the BWSL were using the coastal road and vice-versa. “We’re hoping this gets resolved when the direct connector between the sea link and coastal road opens.”
An official from the traffic department explained that the traffic was the result of the volume of people using the coastal road. “Cars going from Marine Drive to Worli are reaching much faster, from the 45 minutes it used to take to 10 to 12 minutes,” he said. “This has changed the rhythm of traffic and transported cars to Worli faster, so it seems like there is more traffic.” On the southbound side, he explained, the bottleneck from the exit of the BWSL was an infrastructure issue, not a traffic one.
The southbound lanes of the coastal road, from Worli to Marine Drive, opened to the public on March 11. This was followed by the opening of the northbound carriageway, first from Marine Drive to Haji Ali on June 10 and then till Worli on July 11.