5,500 km road trip: Why driving through Maharashtra was the worst bit?

Drove from Delhi-NCR to Karnataka & Kerala, while also spending 5 days in Mumbai.

BHPian sinharishi recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I just got back from a 5500 km 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 to 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 reached Parsi Dairy at 4 pm. 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 and 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 11 am. I thought I would beat the morning and Mumbai-Pune traffic at the start of the long weekend.
• It took us 3 hrs only to reach the expressway. We were stuck in a delay of 25 minutes near Andheri.
• Anyway, made smooth progress as we climbed the eastern freeway, then took Atal-Setu to join the expressway from the old highway
• Crossing Pune was a breeze. If I have to nitpick, the road surface for an NH is extremely poor. There is so much undulation, and patchwork 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.
• The next day we resumed our journey to Palolem and were delighted to drive on the 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 a 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, and then you have to 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 at 5 am, empty roads but could not go fast, so much patchwork and uneven surfaces. 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 surfaces. On one hand, we have new roads coming up in the city, and on the other, the existing ones continue to deteriorate.

Exiting Mumbai:

• The boiling point which made me write this post! Started at 5 am 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 5 am, northbound had no reason to be blocked. But here we were stuck, hardly moving.
• We were caught in between trucks, coming from the opposite direction. Southbound had tons of trucks, traffic was hardly moving.
• Buses and trucks came on the wrong side and hence northbound 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 had 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 to the 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 tyres screeching.
• Funnily they have put "Accident Zone Area" and then a "Rumble Strip" board before every rumble strip. The torture ended when we joined NH-52 in MP.

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