TO MAKE sure there is smooth traffic movement during the festive season, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is set to open one more lane of Delisle bridge ahead of Ganeshotsava this year. Earlier in June, the BMC had opened the first lane of this bridge without any fanfare. A major connector in south-central Mumbai, the Delisle bridge connects Lower Parel with Currey Road and passes above the railway tracks of Western Railway. This bridge was shut down five years back due to its precarious structural condition and was being rebuilt. The Lower Parel area houses some of the major Ganpati Mandals including the famous Lalbaugcha Raja, Chinchpokli Cha Raja and Ganesh Gally and during the festival, it records a footfall of thousands of devotees. Civic officials said that reopening this bridge ahead of the festival will bring respite to the devotees who are visiting these pandals and will also decongest traffic. The bridge has two arms, and in each arm there are two lanes, civic officials said. The new lane will be opened in the arm that is in the left hand side and by this way, traffic movement would be possible from both eastern and western sides. Earlier, the first lane was only catering towards one way traffic travelling from the eastern side. The officials also maintained that the entire bridge will be operational by October end after two remaining lanes in the right hand side arm will be opened for vehicular movement. “At present, the concretisation of the roads is remaining and we are also putting in the utility ducts. We are on schedule and aim to open the entire bridge by the end of October. Meanwhile, to ensure there is smooth movement during the festival, we will open an additional arm before the festival,” said an official. The new bridge is a 'skew bridge' having a span of 65 degrees. The length of the bridge will be 90 metres and will have two lanes in each arm, thus providing a wider carriageway for vehicular movement. The new bridge will also have two escalators along with four staircases so that pedestrians coming towards the side of railway stations can have easy access. The civic officials also maintained that to facilitate pedestrian movement, a footpath has been created on the outer girder. Alongside this, owing to the compact design of the girders, there will also be additional space beneath the bridge for vehicular movement in the north direction. After the Gopal Krishna Gokhale bridge in Andheri collapsed, a structural audit of all the bridges in Mumbai was carried out in which the stability of the Delisle bridge, a British-era structure, was found to be in an unfit state, following which a decision to pull down the bridge was taken and, in its place, the proposal of constructing a new bridge was floated.
