It must be very unusual for any town to have practically all its main thoroughfares closed either partially or wholly because of repairs and other improvements in progress. Yet that is the position in Bandra, Bombay's biggest suburb, where a big drainage scheme is being carried out - as the people of the place and all who have occasion to pass that way, know only too well. In effect the manner in which the improvements are being introduced is depriving the taxpayers of the town of something like half the road space to which they are entitled. Motorists with a taste for obstacle races would find the locality well worth a visit, but those who have to encounter the obstacles every day are apt to lose their tempers when they find roads closed entirely, or open to traffic in one direction - and this is what has been happening for some months now.

Roads Closed For Traffic

The beginning of Pali Hill Road in the heart of Bandra is completely closed - the area available for the taxi stand is thus increased.

Start from the road on which the town authorities, the Bandra Municipality, have their fine new building. Waterfield Road is for a good distance undergoing excavation in connection with the great scheme. At either end of Waterfield Road are Turner Road and Bandra Hill Road, the two big thoroughfares, which lead to the Station. The former has been for some months, narrowed down to half its width for a considerable distance because of work in progress, and only recently has the partial completion of the work reduced the amount of space of which traffic has been deprived. On the Hill Road, which is equally important, repairs are in progress at several points. Traffic can move with difficulty, and now the section of the road from Waterfield Road, to near the Police Station is only open to traffic in one direction, or was when the writer tried to get down to station recently. Further up neat St. Andrews Church, there is more activity - and the little space available for parking on Sundays has been reduced, as churchgoers known.

Pali Hill Locality

A road by St. Andrews Church, Bandra, completely closed by drainage operations.

Then there is Pali Hill, never a very good locality as roads go - now so badly off on account of road-breaking activities, heart-breaking for the motorist, that one way traffic is the rule. Lower down at the beginning of Pali Hill, a small section near the Bandra Convent was lately closed altogether to traffic! And finally the only other link between the two big roads - Hill Road and Turner Road - which is I believe known as St. Martin's Road, has not been available to motorists for quite some time. And then, can motorists who only know the roads of Bombay City say that they are badly off?

The above article was published in the Motoring Magazine, June 1937

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