01
Network vs
Place
A road like JVLR works as part of a network. That network stretches far. In Mumbai, JVLR has brought western suburbs closer to Thane, and Pune closer to Mumbai’s western suburbs.
JVLR splitting Pratap Nagar is thus a story of network vs. place.
Today Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR) connects the two
North-South arterial highways of Mumbai, the Western Express Highway and the Eastern Express Highway. It has strengthened the city road network as a whole.
But places themselves are networks - of paths, people, institutions. What happens when roads break these networks?
Though conceived in the early 1960s and included in Mumbai's first Development Plan (DP 1967), JVLR was first built in the 1990s as a snaking two-lane road by demolishing homes in Pratap Nagar built on its alignment. Families were resettled a few kilometres to the east and disconnected from the city.
From 2005-2011, JVLR was widened to six lanes, straightened and flattened to speed up traffic along it, and therefore across the entire urban network. The project was implemented at a cost of Rs. 220 crore (USD 29 million in 2020) by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). It formed part of the World Bank-funded Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). Today an elevated metro line is under construction along the centre of the road.
