Changing Lanes

By the month-end,four new lanes will be added to the Suman Nagar junction in what is likely to be a major relief for commuters who use the Eastern Express Highway.

The MSRDC plans to commission the new lanes of about five metres each on May 15,but officials say it could take a few more days as the work of developing the crust and laying down paver blocks is yet to be completed. The project,being executed at a cost of Rs 12.12 crore,will cut travel time for northbound commuters traveling towards Panvel,Thane or Chembur,as well as the southbound commuters heading towards Sion. Currently,the ten-lane Eastern Express Highway contracts to a four-lane road at the Suman Nagar junction,creating a major bottleneck.

With the commissioning of the new lanes,the northbound traffic from Sion can use the existing four lanes. Those going towards Panvel or Thane will continue on the highway,while those heading to Chembur will be required to use the newly-constructed Suman Nagar flyover. The four new lanes would be available for the southbound traffic.

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has been working on the project since February 2009. The space for the new lanes has been created by demolishing embankments that were under an existing rail overbridge of the Central Railway. The MSRDC erected piers on either side of the embankments and launched a railway-manufactured girder for the rail traffic.

Earlier,it had tried executing the project once in 2005 using the box-pushing technique. Material and manpower had been mobilised at the site,but the technique did not succeed owing to geological conditions.

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