Changing City: BMC to build elevated road connecting Eastern Freeway with Grant Road

Civic officials said that this plan has been envisioned towards making the entire South Mumbai connected through a network of arterial roads that will ensure that there is no chock-a-block in vehicular movement.

At present, the eastern suburbs are connected to South Mumbai through the 17-km-long high-speed Eastern Freeway corridor. However, as soon as the Freeway ends there is no arterial road or elevated corridor available and due to the dense inflow of vehicles from the suburbs, traffic movement gets choked and travelling towards the western part of the island city takes nearly more than an hour.

Once this corridor becomes functional, it will be able to connect the southern-end of Mumbai with Grant Road within six to seven minutes, which usually takes more than 30 to 50 minutes now, depending on the flow of traffic.

Location and specification of the proposed plan:

The proposed arterial road will be like a dispersal arm that will originate from Orange Gate, which is approximately 1kilometre from the PD Mello landing of the freeway. The road will be like an extended arm that will extend towards the western side of the freeway and the vehicles will be able to easily disperse towards Grant Road, without having them go towards the landing of the freeway.

The entire stretch will be 5.6 km-long and it will have three lanes for vehicular movement. This elevated road will be constructed using monopiles to ensure minimum piling works.

Cost and Timeline:

The cost of the project has been earmarked at Rs 638 crore. Keeping in mind the future cost escalation, contingency and consultation charges an overall provision of Rs 743 crore has been made for the project. The tentative timeline is 36 months from the day of issuance of work order.

Current status:

The blueprint of the project has already been approved and the tender was invited in February.

Authority Speak:

“This elevated corridor has been planned to make the entire south Mumbai accessible through a series of arterial roads. At present, there is no alternate route available at the Freeway drop point on PD Mello Road and those who have to travel towards Grant Road, Malabar Hill or Girgaon have to go through Marine Drive. This flyover will provide direct connectivity and will play a key role in dissemination of traffic blockage near PD Mello Road and Colaba,” said P Velrasu, additional municipal commissioner (Projects).