Western Distress Highway: Why Mumbai's vital avenue is forever clogged

The Western Express Highway faces severe congestion, with daily jams lasting hours, despite attempts to ease traffic with infrastructure projects.

MUMBAI: Motorists travelling on the Western Express Highway (WEH) daily during morning and evening rush hours could be forgiven for scoffing at its name. The 25.33-km multiple-lane highway, which stretches from Mahim Creek in central Mumbai to Dahisar in the north-western suburbs, may be many things, but it certainly isn’t ‘express’.

Mumbai, India - Jan. 14, 2025: Times of India junction, Malad where road become narrow and traffic due to Biggest Bottle Nack on Western Express Highway in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, January 14, 2025. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) (Hindustan Times)

Stories of motorists getting stuck in three-to-four-hour-long traffic jams on the WEH aren’t uncommon. As recently as December, there was one such serpentine jam caused reportedly by supporters of politicians going to welcome them en masse at the Mumbai airport upon their arrival from Nagpur following the winter session of the state assembly. Social media was filled with posts of people missing their flights due to the congestion.

According to the traffic police, the WEH handles between 2.2 million and 3 million vehicles every day, up from 500,000-1 million a decade ago. While the number of vehicles using the highway has steadily increased, the congestion problem has been exacerbated by at least six major bottlenecks (see graphic) caused by various reasons, from unplanned flyovers to ongoing infrastructure work and poor road conditions.

The highway, officially named the Ali Yawar Jung Marg after the former Maharashtra governor, was conceptualised in a report prepared by consultancy firm Wilbur Smith Associates submitted to the state government in 1964. Ironically, the idea behind constructing the express highway was to decongest the Swami Vivekanand Road or SV Road, the main arterial road connecting south Mumbai to the western suburbs. It was—and still is—one of the most congested roads in the city, with thickly populated residential areas and business districts along the route, such as Borivali, Malad, Kandivali, Andheri, Goregaon, Vile Parle and Bandra.

A dream project of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), the WEH was opened to vehicular traffic in the late eighties. While it did its job to decongest SV Road in the initial few years, motorists’ joy was short-lived.

“The vision behind constructing WEH was to reduce congestion on SV Road. And initially, it did help. But as the density of vehicles increased and work on infrastructure projects began in western suburbs, the vision became blurred,” said Sharad Sabnis, a retired MSRDC officer.

Several commuters who regularly traverse the WEH told Hindustan Times that they face frustration on a daily basis due to hours of standstill traffic, road rage incidents, pollution, and an almost criminal waste of fuel.

“I have been travelling from Samta Nagar in Kandivali East to Nirlon in Goregaon East (a distance of around 10 km) daily in the peak hours since 2012. Till date, my travel time has not reduced even by one minute,” said Santosh Shetty, a resident of Lokhandwala in Kandivali East. “It takes one hour or more to reach my office even today.”

Mumbai’s rank in the global slow-moving traffic index compiled by Amsterdam-headquartered location technology firm TomTom has increased to 39th in 2024 from 52nd in 2023. The average travel time in the city during peak hours was 29 minutes and 26 seconds for 10 kilometres in 2024, up from 21 minutes and 20 seconds the previous year, according to the index.

While authorities in charge of the highway have tried to solve the congestion problems over the years by constructing a series of flyovers, starting with the Andheri flyover in 2002, these were just temporary solutions.

Motorists and transport experts hope the eventual completion of ongoing metro line projects will help relieve some of the WEH’s load, but they aren’t waiting with bated breath.

Bottlenecks and poor roads

According to motorists, unplanned and narrow flyovers on the WEH have created several bottlenecks along the 25-km highway. Dhaval Shah, a resident of Lokhandwala in Andheri West, said he experiences at least three major bottlenecks while travelling across the city for business throughout the day: the Times of India junction in Malad, where traffic piles up till Kandivali; the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road junction; and at the beginning of the flyover near the domestic airport.

“One other major bottleneck is near Family Court in the Bandra Kurla Complex, which causes traffic to spill up to Kherwadi Junction on the WEH. These points need immediate rectifications,” said Shah.

Another reason for slow-moving traffic is the poor condition of roads caused by several infrastructure projects, said Shetty. “There are also bumps caused by the authorities haphazardly filling up potholes, which have not been levelled. The bumps slow down vehicles, causing traffic jams due to the high density of vehicles on WEH,” he said.

According to Shetty, while travelling to south Mumbai, there are three major patches with bumps and uneven roads—the beginning of the Oberoi flyover, the JVLR junction, and the start of Andheri flyover, all on the southbound side.

“Fixing these bumps or levelling the roads is not a difficult task for the authorities. Repairing the bumps will improve the travel time, as motorists won’t have to slow down, and the flow of traffic will continue,” he added.

Advocate Trivankumar S Karnani of the Mumbai North Citizen District Forum said that all the 35 major entry and exit points of the WEH are chock-a-block due to congestion on Linking Road and SV Road, and the concretisation of interior roads, especially in Borivali and Kandivali. This results in traffic going all the way back to the toll plaza in Dahisar, increasing the waiting time to over 40 minutes, he said.

Traffic violators

The situation is worsened by heavy vehicles constantly flouting the order to not use the highway from 7 am to 11 am and 5 pm to 9 pm, Karnani added. “The traffic police are solely responsible for this, as these vehicles travel unchecked,” he said.

Motorists also claimed the traffic police are either absent or unable to enforce traffic rules. A traffic police officer confirmed that wrong-side driving and lane cutting are the two major violations that have increased over the years in Mumbai. However, the officer said the traffic police have increased personnel deployment and started lodging FIRs against people driving on the wrong side of the road.

Anil Kumbhare, joint commissioner of police (traffic), believes that newly constructed, proposed and under-construction roads will ease traffic on the WEH. These include the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR) extension till the Vakola Flyover, which is expected to be completed soon.

Kumbhare added that the BKC back road, which will connect to SCLR, and the widening of the road from Gokhale Road to Aarey Check Naka in Goregaon from 45 metres to around 60 metres by removing around 300 illegal residential and commercial structures is also expected to be completed in the next three months.

A major pain point for the traffic police is the Vakola flyover, said Kumbhare. “The convergence of seven to eight roads from the suburbs creates a bottleneck at Vakola flyover. Even if one vehicle breaks down or catches fire on the flyover, it causes a massive traffic jam stretching hours. The sheer density of vehicles on the highway makes the removal of a broken down vehicle difficult, creating a backlog till Andheri on the northbound carriageway and till Kherwadi on the southbound carriageway.” The traffic police have now stationed a crane near the flyover so that broken-down vehicles can be extracted faster.

Meanwhile, officials from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said the civic body had spent ₹3.5 crore to repair the WEH stretch from Kandivali to Dahisar to ease congestion just a month after taking over the highway’s maintenance from MMRDA in November 2022.

“Three service roads have now been made operational by removing 300 slum encroachments, and footpaths around the WEH riddled with unused cars have been cleared for pedestrians,” said an officer from the BMC’s roads department, who requested anonymity as they aren’t authorised to speak to the media. “Even abandoned vehicles from under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park flyover have been removed.”

Proposed solutions

According to transportation experts, an immediate solution to traffic woes on the WEH would be the timely completion of metro lines 7 (extension from Dahisar to Bhayandar), 6 (Lokhandwala to Vikhroli) and 3 (Aarey-BKC-Colaba).

“The problem of WEH is simple: it has more vehicles than it can handle,” said Dhaval Ashar, head of the Sustainable Cities & Transport programme at the World Resources Institute, a nonprofit working to address India’s development challenges. “Even after all the three metro lines begin, there will be a latent demand for cars as people making informed choices of travelling by trains and buses will also travel by cars, assuming less congestion on the WEH.”

Transport expert Ashok Datar stressed the need to enhance public transport, especially buses. A bus occupies 30 sqm of road space and can carry 40 people per trip. With around 15 trips a day, a bus can transport approximately 1,000 passengers daily, he said. “In contrast, a car occupies 8 sqm of road space and carries only one or two people per trip and serves just six to eight passengers in a day,” he added.

Ajay Govale, vice president of community impact at United Way Mumbai, a nonprofit working to identify and implement the most impactful solutions to community problems, said, “Greater focus on public transport to ensure commuters’ comfort and availability is the need of the hour. People do not mind spending more for better services, which can be seen with A/C local trains in Mumbai. At first, there was an uproar due to the high price. But now, the ridership tells a different story.”

Govale added that a good combination of technology and unpredictable, continuous enforcement of traffic rules is essential to ensure road discipline.