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I just got back from a 5500 KMs road trip from NCR to Karnataka and Kerala. Driving through Maharashtra was the most painful part of the trip. I did spend around 5 days in Mumbai, the city's infrastructure just appears to be collapsing with every visit.

Just wanted to share my experience, rather frustration on the forum with members.

Talsari (GJ-MH Border) to Mumbai Western-Suburbs:

• We do at least 1 trip every quarter from G.Noida to Mumbai. However, this was my 3rd trip already in 2024. We stuck to the usual plan, D1 to Udaipur, D2 Mumbai. The drive time is divided as D1 9 to 10hrs, D2 11 to 13 hrs.
• D1 goes as planned. We reach Udaipur comfortably in under 10 hrs.
• D2 started as planned, we reach Parsi Dairy at 4pm. It takes us 4 hrs from Parsi Dairy to reach home in Kandivali east, 3 hrs from Manor, a distance of 70 KMs!
• I have followed the same schedule in all the trips in 2024, never had such slow progress as we entered MH.
• Reason for delay: Construction, 6-laned tarmac being converted to concrete. Was it required? IMHO - NO! Plus, if you enter the concrete patch - which they have opened, one has to be very careful climbing up/down in a car with poor GC. The least they could have done is made a ramp sort of incline.

Western Suburbs to Karad:

• Ok, so we departed late at 11am. I thought I will beat the morning and Mumbai-Pune traffic at the start of long weekend.
• It took us 3 hrs only to reach expressway. We were stuck in a delay of 25mins near Andheri.
• Anyways, made smooth progress as we climbed eastern freeway, then took Atal setu to join expressway from the old highway
• Crossing Pune was a breeze. If I have to nitpick, the road surface for a NH is extremely poor. There are so many undulations, patch work on this highway.
• Post Satara, the diversions started, I was warned by Pune/Mumbai BHPians well in advance. However, the diversions are very well marked and the surface is acceptable. No complaints.
• Next day we resumed our journey to Palolem and was delighted to drive on Malkapur-Anuskura ghat-Talvade road. Never expected internal MH roads to be so good. This was a surprise.

Belgavi to Karad:

• We left from Chikkamagaluru post breakfast, with hotel reservations done at Karad. Till Belgavi our progress was super fast. Post Belgavi it was a struggle to reach Karad.
• Diversions combined with love for speed breakers made sure we covered the distance of mere 150 KMs in 4 hrs.
• Near Nipani, the amount of rumble strips is just mind blowing! I mean, first you don't have the roads to speed up, then you have put rumble strips to slow the traffic down further.
• I have driven on this stretch back in 2021, when we did Provorim to Mumbai is just a little over 8 hrs. The 4-laned beautiful concrete stretch was so good.

Mumbai:

• The entire city is dug up. I am a 3rd generation Mumbaikar and have made 2 failed attempts to relocate back. Soul reason is the infra, you pay through the nose to afford a decent house and then spend hours just to cover a few KMs.
• Went to drop my wife at the airport on Sunday morning 5am, empty roads but cannot go fast, so many patch works, uneven surface. This is a tier-1 city, under construction since forever.
• Took the metro to visit my father, the entire road was dug up outside the metro station (Poisar Metro Station)
• Anywhere you go, all the roads have uneven surface. At one hand we have new roads coming up in the city, and on the other, the existing ones continue to detoriate.

Exiting Mumbai:

• The boiling point which made me write this post! Started at 5am for Nathdwara. Earlier in Jan, it took us 13 hrs to reach Nathdwara. So, I was hoping that we could do the same now.
• 3 hrs later, we were near Manor, covering a mere distance of 56 KMs! At 5am, north bound had no reason to be blocked. But here we were stuck, hardly moving.
• We were caught in between trucks, coming from the opposite direction. South bound had tons of trucks, traffic was hardly moving.
• Buses, trucks came on the wrong side and hence north bound was blocked too. A full size trailer too was on our side.
• It did not make any sense to continue till Nathdwara as Vapi/Valsad/Surat-Ankleshwar are best avoided in peak traffic hours. We diverted towards Nasik. Finally made some progress once we joined the Mumbai-Nasik highway near Shahpura.
• We thought we have left the worst behind, but no, we still had to cover some distance in MH and I forgot about the love for rumble strips!
• From Nasik till MP border, you have so many rumble strips, at almost every cut. The road between these strips is good though. Since I am always careful and alert of traffic coming from behind, after Dhule, we almost got rear ended by a Venue - I saw him approaching too fast and switched lanes, he braked very late and we could hear the tires screeching
• Funnily they have put "Accident Zone Area" and then a "Rumble Strip" board before every rumble strip. The torture ended till we joined NH-52 in MP.

Great thread! IMHO, the only good time to drive in Mumbai or road-trip around is early morning. Daytime driving generally sucks from Mon - Sat; however Sunday mornings till lunch time are an amazing way to explore the city. Pleasure of driving = early in the morning only.

The Good Roads:

- Atal Setu Sea Link

- The fantastic new Coastal road

- All the relatively new interconnections, such as the Bandra-Worli Sealink, JJ Flyover etc.

- South Bombay is generally nicer

- Drive to Pune, via the Expressway

The Bad Roads:

- Central and Suburbs (especially) are fully dug up for infrastructure projects. If I go to the suburbs, it is only on Sunday mornings. Evenings & nights are a total mess & very frustrating.

- The highway toward Dahisar (Gujarat route) is terrible. So many potholes!

- Mumbai Nashik used to be terrible, but they have improved things lately. Still not what I would call "good", but it's no longer bad.

Over & above, the infestation of yellow plate vehicles (Uber, Ola, Zomato, Zepto, Amazon mini-trucks etc.) have completely destroyed road sense, manners & courtesy - related thread.

I used to drive from Bangalore to Mumbai quite often. Few years back, the Karnataka roads werent great except for one section and the MH roads from Nipani to Pune were nice concrete roads.

Last 2 trips, the Karnataka roads are amazing through out except for one small section of 35kms but from Nipani to Pune is hell.

Bangalore to Belgaum is 550kms which took me 8 hours. Belgaum to Pune is 350kms which took almost 7 hours.

It's no longer enjoyable to drive to Mumbai as it once was thanks to pathetic condition of MH roads.

A great and timely thread! As GTO pointed out the only good time to drive around Mumbai is early morning. The coastal project and Metro construction has made it a mess. They are digging up roads left, right and centre and all of this adding up to the already increasing traffic, coupled with all the debris left over around can prove to be really fatal for two wheelers. One of my friends slipped and had her hand fractured.

The biggest gripe while heading towards GJ from the Western Suburbs is the Ghodbunder-Vasai Creek Bridge. They constructed a bridge bypassing the Ghodbunder signal, but the bridge is just too narrow, and the oncoming traffic driving on the wrong side never ends on this patch. The bridge needs to be widened for good!

Here’s my experience during monsoons when I took the delivery of my Hyryder. It took me only 4 hours to drive from Vasai to Kandivali! :Frustrati

https://youtu.be/A_W25K6taRQ?si=fG29lSqr827c493p

It takes 4 hours to leave Mumbai and reach Bhilad. The roads are so bad that Arunachal border roads with constantly falling rocks seem better in comparison. The average speed on a national highway is less than 30 kmph after paying hefty tolls. But people in Maharashtra seem to be happy with this state of the infrastructure. I’ve been coming to Mumbai from Ahmedabad over a decade, and the quality of roads was better 10 years back.

In Mumbai, even the poshest areas like Lower Parel have horrible roads, constant construction, never ending traffic. Hence, I don’t think it will change on the outskirts anytime soon. Anyone who cared about the quality of infrastructure will likely be ridiculed into accepting that development is “always in progress” and actual progress is a privilege for the chosen few in India.

Things are so bad in Maharashtra that a garage owner told me to not get suspension work done on my Xcent as the suspension sounds will return if I’m forced to drive within Mumbai. There are exposed metal strips on the roads which would be classified as a tire cutter in most states.

You know you are in MH when road quality becomes poor to drive. GJ and KA have super smooth roads just sitting next to MH border and this has been the case since years.

Mumbai City is a horror to drive, too much infra work going on at same time.The only exception being Sunday. Ola/Uber cars are also so bad in shape that it needs sheer luck to find a good cab.

Public Transport, whats that? BEST used to be the pride of Mumbai city but its cut down to a really sorry state in recent times.
Metro is the only hope but it cant go everywhere, so the road traffic will stay as it is even if all lines open.

God save commuters from June onwards :Frustrati

As a Mumbaikar and a neighbor (malad guy) you said what i wanted to say since long, driving in the city particularly the northern suburbs is a nightmare currently.
Due to the current construction works all around aided with poor traffic discipline the situation is so bad in areas i travel regularly that a 5km journey can take anything from 30mins to 1hr, my ScorpioN (petrol) has shown me 4kmpl on the MID many times.

Cant agree more with the above points, most of my airport drops are early morning 6:00 am flights, i get the entire WEH empty at that time but its never a settled ride due to undulations all around the vehicle (scorpioN/Ignis) never rides flat, you get that floating fell through out the journey, the EEH i felt is relatively better in that regards.

I recently returned from my native in UP and felt the roads in capital Lucknow and even my tier 3city nearby are much better then in Mumbai currently.
I have also spent around 8yrs in Bangalore, a few months in Hyderabad and currently shuttling between Mumbai-Pune, i used to laugh when my friends used to complain about bad roads/traffic in their cities, these cities do have their share of problems but Mumbai is something different, a major traffic junction (mithchowky-link road junction, i believe you know) near my place is jammed pack even at night 12am, i don't think any other city can boast of it.

Only hope is once all the road work is done situations may improve.

Mumbai - Nashik. We keep going every 14 days for mom's chemo and we live at Ghatkopar, but still to get to pastures where the highway really starts is a mind numbing 1.5 hours away a few kilometers after Bhiwandi with construction activity, diversions, traffic on Kasheli bridge, trucks taking U turns and what not.

The entire patch till Igatpuri and till Dharmachakra has potholes which are patched up like mountains, so the car keeps suffering.

While getting back, the same patchwork for the entire route back too. They have removed most of the rumblers which were there on the Kasara Ghat except one. These rumblers caused the maximum accidents amongst truckers as they had to constantly brake on those ghats with such heavy loads cause brakes to overheat, not being able to stop on time as cars would brake for rumblers and they would rear end them etc. These rumblers were there for many years and people kept complaining all the time.

This is one highway which needs to really improve, Nashik can't be ignored like this.

The time since I came to senses as a 3 year old during the mid 80's, I have never seen the city of Bombay as construction free. Almost every time in the name of "upgrading infrastructure", the roads are are dug up left, right and centre. May it be for:

• Laying all sorts of cables (electric, telephone/fiber optic, etc.)
• Sewage repair
• Road widening (not for accommodating more vehicles but for helping illegal street hawkers to put up their thela's and bakda's)
• Never ending metro work (started since 2005! close to 20 years and it is still going on in various parts of the city)
• Hawkers/beggars/homeless people occupying footpaths and underpasses forcing pedestrians to spill over the road which is already narrowed due to haphazard parking of vehicles
• Absolutely poor quality arterial roads and even main roads (especially during monsoon)
• Digging up perfectly laid roads in the name of repair/maintenance (money making business for BMC, Contractors, Government, Middlemen, etc.)
• Bad planning and absolutely no regard for hardship public has to endure in their day to day life (GMLR flyover, Gokhale Bridge fiasco, etc.)

and the list goes on and on and on and on...

While I do realize that the city is bursting at its seams which puts unreal pressure on its infrastructure, of which roads are the first casualty. Congestion is being tackled by constructing metro rail, but the progress is painfully slow and runs into decades.

Sometimes I feel most people are buying SUV's to tackle poor roads. I remember suggesting a friend who came for an advice to buy a commuter motorcycle. I asked him to consider the Xpulse 200 or RE Himalayan given the pathetic road infrastructure.

Unfortunately this just does not seem to stop. Construction of real estate due to redevelopment of old societies is already happening and will put more pressure on roads where such buildings will be put up. In my generation I have never seen construction stopping. If it does stop, then it starts somewhere else.

Like Snake Plissken says, "The more things change, the more they stay same."

Do I even need to mention the infamous Mumbai Goa coastal route Nh66. 40% of the road is under construction and still pending. The ghat sections (Kashedi) look as they were never ever paved again once they were laid out. Said route is being under construction I believe since ~2007 something and still not complete. Driving a car in Mumbai has now become a sin.

Almost all infrastructure nodal agencies: BMC, MMRDA, MSRDC, PWD have a penchant for digging up all kinds of roads- be it arterial, service or alleys. This is not just restricted to a specific part of the year, rather this is a year-round headache. Having been born and brought up in Mumbai, one thing that I've observed is the blatant lack of coordination between any of these agencies. Added to the mix now are electricity companies, piped gas, internet providers, real estate guys, etc and the list is endless.

Yes, the infrastructure in the city is definitely upgrading. But I wish there were clear-cut plans for the same. The political volatility doesn't help either as the pendulum results in inordinate delays in infra projects.

P.s. Just got to know from a source that BMC has sanctioned a fresh 50 cr for filling-up potholes across the city, before the impending monsoon. This is in addition to the crores already spent/wasted. :Frustrati

Haven't driven for long distances in India recently (Except in Rajasthan).

But I remember a drive from Goa to Vadodara almost a decade back. I entered Mumbai at Kalamboli around 10Pm, Google Map took me from Taloja (there onward I don’t know from where the route took me), the roads were pathetic, pot holes as big as craters, pounding rain, flooded roads, near zero visibilty, huge lanes of stationary truck/trailers, I had lost my bearings by then and blindly followed google maps till I was able to exit Mumbai at around 5AM. That was complete madness of around 7hrs for 50/60 kms.

And as soon as I exit, I just snoozed at the first motel I found on the highway.

Looks like things haven't changed. On the other note, during those days, roads infrastructure in the neighboring state Gujarat was so good, that for my official visits to Jamnagar, I preferred to drive down.

And here I'm spolied fore sure, when I can cover this much distance (destination to destination). This is all within speed-limits.

Wow what a thread! Where do I start my rant from? Let's start from Mumbai.

RANT BEGINS
Just come to Mumbai and see what sort of a living hell we have created for ourselves and we boast of our multi crore matchboxes. Since 2017, when the metro work began we have sufferred rubbish roads which were left after digging half the city. Only one Metro line has started currently, out of some 7-8. Who decides to start work in the entire city together??:Frustrati

Oct 2023: Govt decided we are concretising all Mumbai roads (some 2000kms) and Centre decided that NH48 needs concretisation. Everything falls apart. My House lane was dug up for 2.5 months. No cars can come to nearby 4-5 buildings. We parked our cars in BMC parking 500 metre away for a hefty monthly charge.

My daily commute is a mix of driving inside the city and 2/3 times a week I visit my factory in Vasai. NH48 concretisation has increased stress levels of many people who are going everyday on that route. One day I spent 6 hours to travel 35 kms. The concrete patch which they have put, it's the worst I have driven on. It's bumpy and uneven, speeds have reduced from earlier. Driving manners have gone to the dogs. If people see their lane not moving, they'll jump onto the opposite side risking people's lives. 1-2 months back a local politcian died on this route due to collision with a truck.

Pune-Karad-Kolhapur is another section they decided to widen. Another route where everyone is sufferring. It doesn't end for MH ever it seems. Mumbai-Goa highway is still a dream for many. People have lost count of the years they have listened to false promises.

RANT ENDS

Now, the surprise
I drove last year to Ashtavinayak (visiting 8 Ganpati temples) in June 2023. All of them are outskirts of Pune. This was the best road I have driven in MH till today. From what I have heard even Samruddhi is concrete. But these roads are all good tarmac with 2 lanes each and very thin traffic. It was fast and enjoyable. Only thing was I didn't see many trucks on this route. Mostly because it doesn't connect many Industrial areas of MH. Only Ranjangaon and Pali are on regular routes iirc.