Mumbai, Aug 6 (PTI) Maharashtra Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha has expressed concern about the traffic congestion in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) area and suggested the removal of bicycle lanes and minimising space occupied by barriers erected for Metro work.
Shiv Sena UBT leader Aaditya Thackeray, however, disagreed and called for a study on emerging traffic patterns as new offices are coming up.
Bicycle lanes in BKC, a business district in the suburbs, were sanctioned in 2011.
In a letter to MMRDA commissioner Sanjay Mukherjee on Monday, Lodha, the Mumbai suburbs guardian minister, said traffic congestion was increasingly becoming unbearable in the area, and the road space has been reduced further because of the barricades of Metro works.
He suggested the cycle lane be merged with the road. A separate cycle track can be built on any adjoining plot in BKC.
The barriers erected for Metro work should be reduced to the minimum to create more space for pedestrians and motorists, he wrote, urging the development authority to plan special buses from Bandra station to BKC.
Taking to ‘X’, Thackeray said the BKC traffic issue cannot be solved by randomly increasing the width of the road.
The solution lies in studying emerging traffic patterns as new offices are coming up, increasing public transport like BEST ferries, and building more bus stops, he said.
Thackeray also suggested the removal or better management of Metro barricades.
“The random placement of barricades that aren’t needed for many work sites that have been closed and frequent route changes cause the most chaos in BKC. In a fully unbiased and non-political way, I request the guardian minister to conduct this study too, before taking a random misstep,” he said in his post. PTI MR ARU
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