India, June 11 -- One hundred and seventy-two years after Great Indian Peninsula Railways ran Bombay's first suburban train between Bori Bunder and Thane, the city's rail network continues to be its lifeline. But Monday's accident at Mumbra in which four people lost their lives is a stark reminder of how hazardous the daily commute is for millions of Mumbaikars. Trains that are meant to carry 2,500 passengers routinely carry twice that number, making the crush load on Mumbai's suburban network among the densest in the world. The 1,810 daily train services on the central railway on which the accident happened, carry four million passengers annually, excluding the hundreds of daily ticketless passengers. The city's eye-watering property prices and lopsided redevelopment have pushed most of its middle class away from the island city to its peripheries. Suburbs such as Badlapur, Titwala, Diva, Kalyan, and Karjat are bursting at the seams because they offer affordable housing. However, they continue to be poorly connected. The BEST bus services do not extend to these neighbourhoods, nor are there any arterial highways that can facilitate smooth road travel. The metro rail projects have yet to reach these conurbations. The Devendra Fadnavis government has embarked on a massive infra upgrade in Mumbai, but much of it is underway in the island city and the already-pampered western suburbs. While short-term cures such as air-conditioned rail coaches with doors to prevent people from hanging out of compartments have been proffered, there's a larger and far more complex central question that needs addressing: How will Mumbai take care of its famous working class? The mill land redevelopment in Parel and the shiny upgrade of the Bandra-Kurla complex have dismantled old working-class neighbourhoods, pushing residents to the farthest edges of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and forcing them to commute longer distances. The BEST bus fleet, still the most affordable mode of travel, instead of expanding, has been whittled down from 4,700 to 2,800 buses in recent years. Meanwhile, old suburban railway stations on these routes have not been upgraded, with most having just two platforms even though the number of commuters has gone up manifold, leading to everyday instances of dangerously surging crowds. The central railway has refused to categorise what happened on Monday as an accident, terming it an "incident". An accident necessarily entails an inquiry but the reasons for this week's death on Mumbai's tracks are all too well known. It's high time the government addressed them....