Mumbai is now the most car-congested city in India: Report

• Mumbai is now the most car-congested city in India with 510 cars for every kilometre.
  
• Car density in Mumbai is five times more than that of New Delhi.
  
• Pune, Kolkata, Chennai are among the top five most ‘car congested’ cities after Mumbai.
  

Narrow roads and lack of parking regulation have all contributed to turning India’s financial capital Mumbai into the most car-congested city in the country.

Mumbai’s car density rose by 18% in the last two years with 510 cars for kilometers of road, Times of India reported. The density is five times higher than that of New Delhi, which is also struggling with longer traffic jams and lower Air Quality Index, reported the Times of India.

Other cities struggling with the problem of high car congestion include Pune with 359 cars per kilometre, followed by Kolkata with 319 cars per km and Chennai with 297 cars per km.

The primary reason behind car-congestion is insufficient road space. The private car population of Mumbai is less than a third of Delhi but it has only 2,000km of road in comparison to 28,000 km road space in Delhi. The under-construction Mumbai metro network adds to the problem. There were only 430 cars per km in mid-2016, according to Maharashtra transport ministry data, reported the Times of India. However, the government expects traffic to ease once the Metro project finishes by 2021.

In mid-2016, car density in Mumbai was 430 cars per km, which has now gone up to 510, This has taken the total number of registered private cars to 1 million on city roads, roughly 28% of the total vehicular population in the city, which stands at 3.6 million, said the report citing an official.

Nearly half the road space is occupied by private cars of all types including SUVs which is why the average speed on the Western Express highway is limited to 10kmph during peak hours.

There is an urgent need to set up a parking authority which will overlook parking problems in the city and free up 50% roadspace in the city, said the reporting citing an official.

The transport commissioners in the past have suggested people to using public transportation system but there’s little progress on it.

See also:
India accounts for 7 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities — with Gurugram ranked as the worst: Study