Flying In The Face of Comfort

Huge wooden reels unspool cables for the underground utilities that are being shifted away from the footprint of the giant 17-metre-wide viaduct which will straddle seven metre-high pillars. Pavements are shrinking and electric poles are displaced overnight to widen the road for this behemoth. Work on this viaduct which was to commence this Monday, has beentemporarily delayed over the removal of a few trees and electric poles, and is likely to begin by the end of the month.

This Rs 125 crore viaduct was originally two 900-metre-long flyovers that were merged together to spare future motorists a roller-coaster ride.

But the inconvenience of a roller-coaster ride will be nothing compared to what motorists passing through this zone will be subjected to in the next 18 months. In the words of traffic constables, the entire stretch from Pydhonie to Byculla will become as chaotic and slow-moving like the present Dadar junction, where another MSRDC flyover is taking shape.

According to the traffic department, the flyover in the centre of the road will leave only enough space for a BEST bus and two taxis on either side of the road.

Heavy vehicles, including buses and trucks, will be diverted via the already densely congested P D’Mello Road which runs parallel to the port trust, while the strips of remaining road space on Mohammed Ali Road will be used only bylight motor vehicles, including cars and two wheelers. But traffic police, currently engaged in rehearsals preparing for the day when the roads will be halved, are unsure of dealing with the huge volumes of handcarts and bullock carts. The narrow parallel roads over which traffic is to be diverted have not made things easier.

The flyover will be constructed in five phases — Grant Medical College to JJ Junction and Mandvi to Mumbai Sweet Mart, JJ junction to Bhendi Bazaar and Mumbai Sweet Mart to Yusuf Meherally Road, Yusuf Meherally Road to Manish Marketand Bhendi Bazaar to Mandvi junction. The fourth and fifth phase will extend from Manish Market to MRA Marg police station and MRA Marg to the JJ School of Arts.

The original plan was for three such elevated roads, one for each corridor of the island city, to disperse vehicles out of the city. For the western corridor it was the two-km-long Chowpatty to Haji Ali viaduct speeding over the bottleneck at Tardeo, and for the eastern corridor it was to be theopening of the port trust road from CST to Wadala. Strident protests from residents associations at Tardeo forced the MSRDC to put this viaduct on the backburner. Meanwhile, the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) has completely ruled out opening its private road to traffic and even appeals from the union surface transport ministry have failed to move the port trust committee.

Hence, a lot rides on this viaduct. Environmentalists like Kisan Mehta feel it will mostly be traffic. According to Mehta, this project will attract unprecedented levels of traffic that would normally have gone via the western corridor. Over 71 BEST bus routes pass through this locality. Once the viaduct is completed, they will have to squeeze through the narrow road space beneath the structure.

But, as with the Worli-Bandra link bridge which is only part of the yet-to-be-cleared West Island Freeway, the MSRDC feels that a partial solution is better than no solution at all. The Tardeo via-duct was the fallback option in case the Haji-Ali toNariman Point section of the freeway was shot down. Turns out both are in limbo now.

Despite the fact that this is among the most pedestrian-heavy sections of the island city, it might be some quiet consolation for the MSRDC that there have been no vocal protests over this project. Vehement in its criticism in private conversation, residents of the area have nevertheless treated it with a quiet sense of resignation.

(Sandeep Unnithan is a senior reporter with The Indian Express. He covers infrastructure)