​Maximum Mumbai: On the city, its transportation needs  

The railways have proposed automatic sliding doors with ventilation louvres in all Mumbai suburban trains by next year in response to the Mumbra train tragedy on Monday (June 9, 2025) — four people died and nearly a dozen others were injured. Sliding doors could potentially force people inside and prevent footboard travel, a factor in the accident. They could ensure that passengers do not get down at unscheduled stops and put themselves in danger of being mowed down by passing trains. The proposed vestibules connecting the coaches may also help to evenly distribute the crowds. As in Japan, each station may then need a few enforcers who could shove the crowds in so that the doors could shut and the trains move. While footboard travel is indeed a dangerous safety issue, it is only an outcome of the dangerous overcrowding in Mumbai trains. For vast numbers of people, the trains offer the least expensive travel option. Not too long ago, the dangers of overcrowding resulted in the infamous stampede at the Elphinstone Road station bridge in 2017. Multiple deaths are common along the three arteries that are the lifelines of Mumbai – the Central, Harbour and Western railway lines. Many are hit by trains while crossing tracks instead of using roads or bridges. While rail safety is an immediate issue that needs to be addressed, it is also time city leaders engineer inexpensive, alternative travel options to the trains.

Mumbai’s trains have been seen as an inevitable part of the extreme urbanisation that the city represents and romanticised by literature. But they are simply not humane modes of transport. The suburban train system has undergone little change over the decades though the city has boosted its roads and enabled more vehicular traffic. Two-wheelers that were a rarity a few decades ago are now common. While the Metro promises to decongest the city to an extent, these services price out the lower classes. Bus services could be enhanced for routes connecting shorter distances. Along with doubling efforts to change the structuring of the city from a north-south network with commuter movements dictated by times, planners should consider expanding ferry transport — a cheaper and possibly more eco-friendly mode of transport to a city bound by the sea. Broadly speaking though, stampedes such as the one in Bengaluru, fire accidents in congested areas, and train tragedies such as the Mumbai one only highlight how unprepared India is to handle the consequences of urbanisation and the thrust to overturn the engagement of the vast majority of the people with agriculture.