The first person we thought of, when we heard CM Devendra Fadnavis' proposal for a coastal road across the western length of Mumbai to ease its traffic woes, was architect Hafeez Contractor. After all, it was the architect who'd first drawn up a somewhat similar plan in the mid-nineties.

Contractor had advocated the reclamation of a few acres of the sea across the length of Mumbai's western swathe for a green belt, which could act as the city's lungs, and to which Mumbaikars could flock after work for their evening walks, for leisure, even while having a thoroughfare on which they could traverse the entire city.