Mumbai’s new coastal road promenade: what is it all about and how can residents access it?

The 5.5-km-long promenade will be longer than Marine Drive, featuring cycle tracks and seating areas alongside patches of green cover. This promenade will extend between Priyadarshini Park at Breach Candy and Worli, and run parallel to the coastal road. The promenade will also become an alternative to the erstwhile Worli seaface, which had to make way for the 10-km-long coastal road in 2019. While the original promenade at Worli still exists, the view has been altered since the sea had to be reclaimed to construct the high-speed corridor. As a result, the new promenade will become the new shoreline of the island city. To enhance greenery on this stretch, the BMC has planted 300 trees, including palm, Washingtonia robusta, and Barringtonia, along the promenade.

The promenade forms a part of the 70 hectares of 110 hectares of the reclaimed portion of the coastal road earmarked for open spaces. The 70-hectare land parcel will also feature amphitheatres and green belts in addition to the promenade.

According to civic officials, another key advantage of the promenade is that it will serve as a natural boundary against high tides during the monsoon. The authorities have placed stone boulders at the base of the promenade to ensure that the impact of high tides on the wall is less.

How will the residents be able to access the coastal road?

The promenade is located on the western edge of the coastal road, which is the new shoreline for this stretch. Residents don’t have direct access to it since vehicles move very fast on the coastal road, and as a safety measure, pedestrian crossing has been banned on the coastal road. The civic authorities have therefore constructed pedestrian underpasses for entry and exit from the road. There are 19 such underpasses, four of which have been opened now to enable the public to access the promenade.

The first entry is from the Akriti Parking Building on Bhulabhai Desai Road. This entry will be followed by another one from Vatsala Bai Desai Chowk (Haji Ali Junction), the third entry from Worli Dairy at Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Road, and the last entry from the Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk.

Civic officials said that the remaining 15 pedestrian underpasses would be opened in a phased manner after the work on the remaining 2.5-km stretch of the road is taken up. The officials said the remaining portion would take more time to be ready as it was not included in the first phase of the plan and that a fresh tender was floated for it.

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