Every day in Mumbai, millions pack into overcrowded trains just to get to work. At the same time, the city’s new coastal motorway stretches across the Arabian Sea as a massive symbol of speed, money, and inequality. Supporters call it an engineering marvel. Critics call it a taxpayer-funded express lane for the wealthy. But one question keeps coming up: why did one of the world’s most unequal cities spend billions on a high-speed road for private cars while its public transport system remains overcrowded, flood-prone, and deadly?
Mumbai is India’s financial capital, a city of billionaires, luxury towers, and some of the most expensive real estate on Earth. But it is also a city marked by deep inequality, where overcrowded trains, informal settlements, and struggling infrastructure are part of daily life for millions. The contrast is impossible to miss. Glass high-rises with sweeping views of the Arabian Sea stand beside cramped homes built over drains and narrow alleyways. Global research shows Mumbai is home to around 90 billionaires, yet more than six million people live in slums, making up roughly 55% of the population in central parts of the city. Every day, millions of residents rely on packed buses and local trains just to get to work, often hanging from overcrowded train doors during long commutes.
Mumbai’s local trains are known around the world for how brutally overcrowded they are, carrying people packed shoulder to shoulder every single day. An estimated 64% of Mumbai’s residents depend on these trains and crowded buses just to move through the city. And the system comes at a heavy human cost: Government Railway Police data reports roughly seven to ten passengers die every day on Mumbai’s suburban rail network due to accidents, falls, electrocution, and track crossings. So, you can imagine the surprise of many when, instead of prioritizing upgrades to this already strained system, the city chose to build a massive high-speed motorway along its coastline instead.
The Mumbai Coastal Road Project began construction in 2018 and is currently in its first major phase. It’s an eight-lane highway running along the coast, built to speed up car travel across the city using tunnels, bridges, and large areas of reclaimed land. The project is expected to cost around $1.6–$2.4 billion and is funded with public money, meaning taxpayers are paying for it. Not only does the project do little for the majority of Mumbai’s commuters, who rely on trains and buses, but critics say it is also creating new problems along the coast. Large stretches of mangroves have been damaged or removed, even though they act as a natural buffer against storm surges and monsoon flooding in a city that floods almost every year.
Fishing communities also say their traditional access to the sea has been disrupted, affecting their livelihoods and daily routines. On top of that, there are growing concerns about the permanent loss and reshaping of Mumbai’s natural shoreline, raising questions about long-term environmental risks in a city already so vulnerable to flooding. This debate goes beyond one road. It raises a bigger question for cities like Mumbai: should public money prioritize private cars or mass public transport?
In a city where most people rely on trains and buses, many argue the focus should be on strengthening public transit, not building more highways. The coastal road may save time for some drivers, but for millions on crowded trains, it can feel like infrastructure built beside them, not for them. The deeper concern isn’t just the road itself, but what it reveals about who the city is being designed to serve.
