Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
MUMBAI: After the opening of the coastal road, the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) factor is in full play at Breach Candy. Residents of the upscale neighbourhood are experiencing a significant increase in traffic and are now calling for alternative entry and exit points at Nepean Sea Road to help alleviate the congestion. VIP movement heading towards Malabar Hill has added to their woes.
“People heading to and from Malabar Hills, Napean Sea Road, Grant Road, Kemps Corner, Pedder Road, Girgaon Chowpatty and Bhuleshwar are now all traversing through Breach Candy to access the coastal road,” said Neil Chen, a member of the Breach Candy Residents Forum (BCRF). “Our area is already congested with shops, buildings, hospitals and schools in its narrow lanes, and to add to it all, we have to now deal with a surplus of vehicles from other neighbourhoods.” BCRF plans to write to the BMC, CM’s office and traffic police about alternative entry and exit points.
“There is a massive space between Embassy Apartments and Priyadarshini Park, which can accommodate another intersection,” said Chen. “This was in the original plan but changed later. It will also be more convenient for VIPs travelling to the CM’s bungalow at Malabar Hill.”
Breach Candy resident Ajay Gupta got a taste of the VIP cavalcade nuisance last Sunday when he was stopped by a traffic policeman to clear the road for home minister Amit Shah’s 45-car entourage. “I was a few minutes away from home but I was asked to go to August Kranti Marg, which would have taken me another 30 minutes,” he said. “So I offered to stand by the wayside for the VIP traffic to pass, which it did in 10 minutes.”
To Gupta’s surprise, this seemingly amicable solution ended up costing him. “I was slammed with a challan of ₹2,250 for causing obstruction and inconvenience by resting my vehicle in a public place and disobeying a police order,” he said. “Handing out a challan for not agreeing to follow an order to go in the opposite direction is high-handedness.”
Fuming, Gupta said that the VIP movement through Breach Candy had now become a common occurrence, as the connector over reclaimed land and undersea was being used to reach Napean Sea Road through the exit in their neighbourhood. “Our vehicles are sidelined to make way for the huge cavalcades,” he said. “The shops are made to shut in preparation and the roads are closed. How is this fair to us tax-paying citizens?” Gupta has disputed the challan and plans to contest it further.
Although traffic has been in a lull this week due to the holidays, the residents recounted scenes from earlier when long queues of vehicles exiting the Coastal Road jammed their neighbourhood. Their frustration, boiling over since the opening of the intersection, led them to request a meeting with joint commissioner of traffic Anil Kumbhare last Wednesday.
“We explained the situation to the traffic police,” said another resident. “One of our demands was that the traffic signal at the coastal road interchange be synchronised. Cars going to the coastal road and those taking a U-turn would use it, and since the signals weren’t synced, there would be a lot of honking in the confusion.”
The signal was synchronised on Tuesday morning, easing the situation, although the real test of its effectiveness will be when normal traffic resumes after the holidays. Another demand of the residents—for a traffic policeman to be stationed at the intersection—is complied with in some hours of the day.