To reduce traffic congestion, 2 new bridges to come up on Vashi creek by Oct ’23

People travelling via the Sion-Panvel Highway will soon have a traffic-free commute near the Vashi creek as the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has started developing two new bridges on the creek.

Heavy machinery has been mobilised in the creek water over the past two weeks and both the bridges would be ready by October 2023.

At present, there are two bridges for vehicles on the Vashi creek. The first bridge was developed in 1973 but due to its poor condition, it was declared unfit for heavy vehicles nearly two decades ago. The second bridge was developed in the early 1990s. Now the light vehicles are diverted to the first bridge only when maintenance work is conducted on the second bridge.

A senior officer from MSRDC said, “The Sion-Panvel Highway has a total of 10 lanes both in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. However, the second bridge, which is located on that highway, has only six lanes. Therefore, the area of that bridge has turned into a bottleneck and it sees heavy traffic congestion during the peak hours. Taking the gravity of the issue into consideration, we have now started developing two new bridges on either side of the second bridge.”

The officer added that each of the new bridges would have three lanes, each 1.837km long and the total budget for the two bridges is ₹775Cr.

“With the new bridges in place, we will have a total of 12 lanes (three each on the new bridges and six on the second bridge) on the bridges,” he said.

In view of frequent cases of suicide or attempt to suicide, MSRDC has also decided to install suicide barriers on the sides of the existing bridges and the tendering process of that project is now on.

The officer said, “In the upcoming bridges, we will develop 1.5m-tall concrete walls on the sides and hence there will be no need for such suicide barriers. Once we are done with the new bridges, we will also repair and do asphalt coating on the first bridge (developed in 1973) so that it can also be used when the situation demands.”

Purushottam Karad, DCP (traffic), Navi Mumbai, said, “With the new bridges, the number of lanes will be doubled on the creek. So, there will be no chance of a traffic jam near the Vashi toll plaza.”