Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Transportation chaos

Hi. Long time since I wrote my last post.Well was busy wid exams..Last week I got chance to visit the financial capital of India- Mumbai. Mumbai is a metropolitan city with modern outloook. It is famous for bollywood , stock markets ,food etc. But its lifeline is the railway tranporation-the local trains that tranport people between their office place and home.
You got to see the sight during morning peek office hour rush. Its maddening. The trains are full way beyond their capacity with every inch space inside trains is utilized.Many just hang outside and above rooftops too.
The city comes to standstill if the trains are not running or are even delayed for few minutes.It is under tremendous transportation pressure as I feel that Mumbai will not be able to sustain the traveling needs of its rapidly growing population and large number of migrants that come here everyday.
People travel like cattle in trains and fights are very common with people getting provocated even for the slightest and insignificant reasons.
My only hope is that the authorities take notice of these and take actionable steps to keep the transportation infrastructure at par with the growing number of commuters. The journey should be enjoyable. The authorities should also look at other means of transportation like running metro trains and monorails. I wish the railways tracks are extended in numbers too so that more trains run simultaneously between two stations and hence the train frequency is doubled.
Completing all pending and unnecessarily delayed transportation projects is the key.As it will not help in any way if transportation facility is increased by twice and the population grows by ten times.
I personally like to travel by bus when I m in Mumbai. The railway crowd mostly consists of daily wage laborers who are indiscipline .But if you want to beat the traffic then railways are the best option.