Last evening was a trying one when it came to transportation. Having had a tough time getting to the east-central part of the city, i decided to take a app-cab home. A quick check on Ola, gave me a fare that was almost 100 Rupees higher than usual. Uber gave the lesser fare & i hailed their cab. But 15 minutes later, upon calling Cab driver #1, he refused to arrive, citing that my destination was too far away for him. He also asked me to cancel my booking, which i did. Not a problem, shit happens.

So hailed another cab,again on Uber. Said cab showed to be 10 minutes away on the phone. Sadly, 15 minutes later, he was again nowhere close. Called him up & he calmly said that he’s going in a direction further away from where i was, and if i had to hail his cab, i’d have to meet him on the Highway somewhere. At this point, i decided to ditch Uber. But wait, Cabbie #2 was asking me to cancel said trip from my end. I firmly told him to shove it & ended up taking an auto-rickshaw.

It was past midnight by the time i hailed the auto and increased fares were in effect. I ended up paying a whopping 15 Rupees per kilometre for the trip. For an auto-rickshaw. Now i don’t know who’s done what calculation, but to price basic public transportation at a rate which is 200% of the average private vehicular transportation cost is sheer highway robbery.

I did end up hailing an Uber, again, from where i ditched the auto & finally reached my destination. It was a stern reminder on why i can’t seem to abandon my car, even when i want to thanks to the crappy roads & horrid traffic – i simply cannot afford it!

What Mumbai needs, and needs badly is a Bus-Train-Metro network which is laid-out seamlessly to ensure that we wont spend precious time & money on needless stuff. Implemented well, it’ll be the best way to decongest our beloved city!

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