Borivali railway station is a terminus on the Western Line, so many slow and fast locals start or end here rather than arriving full from stations further south. Mumbai Metro Line 2A runs through the suburb with Mandapeshwar, Borivali West, Eksar and National Park stations, connecting toward Dahisar and Andheri West.

The Western Express Highway serves the eastern side and New Link Road serves the west, giving two separate arterial routes across the city. A harbour line extension into the station has also been surveyed.

The neighborhood carries a wide spread of schools across boards, including Ryan International School, the VIBGYOR Group of Schools, JBCN International School, Don Bosco High School and Junior College, Saint Francis D'Assisi High School, Mary Immaculate Girls' High School and St. Anne's Girls High School.

This spread across ICSE, CBSE, state board and international curricula means families can generally find a school within the neighborhood rather than commuting across the suburbs.

Sanjay Gandhi National Park has its headquarters in the neighborhood and draws millions of visitors a year for its forest trails, boating, a toy train and lion and tiger safari enclosures. Inside the park, the Kanheri Caves hold more than a hundred rock-cut Buddhist shrines carved into basalt rock from the 1st century CE onward.

The smaller Mandapeshwar Caves and the ruins of a Portuguese-era church sit on the neighborhood's Mount Poinsur, and the Global Vipassana Pagoda is a short distance away toward Gorai.

Water Kingdom, one of Asia's larger water parks, operates in the neighborhood, and several municipal gardens add everyday recreation options, including Veer Savarkar Udyan with its jogging track and boating area, Rivali Park, and the Jhansi Ki Rani Laxmibai Joggers' Park with its boating pond and freedom-fighter memorials.

EsselWorld, formerly a major amusement park on the same stretch, has stayed closed since the pandemic.

A twin-tunnel road link between Borivali and Thane is under construction beneath the adjoining national park, intended to cut travel time to the eastern side of the metropolitan region without a surface route through the park.

The project has required forest-land diversion and tree felling inside the park, which has drawn objections from environmentalists even as government clearances for the land diversion have moved forward.