This will go down and then rise,literally

The first one to go will be Hancock Bridge between Sandhurst Road and Byculla stations. Parel’s Carol Bridge (built in 1918) and Dadar’s Tilak Bridge too will eventually have to be demolished,one by one.

Wishing to maintain the aesthetic value of Garden Bridge,the original name for S-Bridge,and to help rebuild the road overbridge (ROB) without harming the entire structure,Central Railway recently appointed a consultant for the project. The structure includes long curved ramps on either side of the railway tracks connecting the bridge to N M Joshi Marg in Byculla (West) and the Byculla zoo.

Central Railway officials hope it will be possible to maintain the ramp portions and demolish only the bridge portion,making reconstruction faster. CR has already submitted the general agreement drawings (GAD). “We have got permission from the BMC and the traffic police. We will start demolition in December and it will take around a year to construct the bridge,” said a senior CR official.

According to the CR archives,when the railways planned a bridge across Byculla on the lines of Carol Bridge,it met with opposition. Bullock carts and horse carts were still a popular mode of transport then and a gradient like that of Carol Bridge would have been too steep for the animals. The alternative was a longer,curved ramp.

“Constructing a bridge at an angle was much more complicated and expensive than building a bridge perpendicular to the tracks. Therefore,the bridges were constructed at 90 degrees,and then two aprons were constructed at opposite angles to direct the traffic flow smoothly onto the bridge,thus creating the S shape,” said V Chandrasekar,spokesperson for CR.

When reconstructed,as the bridge portion will be slightly higher than it is currently,some part of the ramps will have to be raised too,to maintain the prescribed gradient. The newly constructed portion would include two steel,50-metre spans on either side of the railway line. “We don’t want any obstruction on the tracks as it would easier for us to shift tracks in future,” said a CR official.

As the traction change work under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project progresses,the other ROBs to be razed are the Currey Road Bridge,the Carnac Bridge and the Patri Bridge. Two more ROBs,one of these the Carol Bridge (connecting Parel and Elphinstone),would make way for proposed cable-stayed bridges.

But railway officials also said it would be difficult to meet the deadline for MUTP Phase II. “Hancock Bridge,which would be demolished first,doesn’t have traffic. But the Carol (Elphinstone-Parel) and Currey Road bridges have to be demolished and these cannot be done simultaneously. These bridges connect to the newly developed service sector industries in Lower Parel and Worli. These bridges already see chaotic traffic,so one can imagine the mess if both are closed for traffic. This is unlikely to get permission from the BMC and the traffic police,” said a CR official.