Mumbai: New Akurli Bridge faces pothole woes hours after opening

The new bridge was inaugurated on Tuesday. Pics/Satej Shinde

The killer spot along the Western Express Highway (WEH), on Akurli Road in Kandivli East, has finally been fixed by the MMRDA and the bridge is open for vehicles five years after its construction began. However, just a few hours after the inauguration on Tuesday night, heavy rain damaged the stretch and potholes started to emerge.

The blind spot was one of the worst along the WEH, resulting in the deaths of 6-7 people, with more than 20 injured after their vehicles met with an accident due to poor road design. The uneven road level, with dividers and paver blocks placed in between, led to many accidents.

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A pothole that appeared overnight

For years while the Akurli bridge was being constructed, commuters suffered due to major traffic jams on the WEH, which stretched for 3 km-4 km on the southbound side till Jogeshwari/Goregaon. People expected to get relief from traffic snarls once the bridge was ready, but the potholes have made it dangerous. Team mid-day visited the spot on Wednesday and found several potholes on the newly constructed bridge.

MMRDA declared around 70 blind spots across the city in 2016-17 and started to work on removing these. Construction of the new Akurli bridge was started by the MMRDA in 2019, after receiving several complaints of accidents and the existing bridge being declared one of the most dangerous accident spots. The MMRDA also put instructions boards at the spot, reading ‘go slow' and ‘accident-prone spot ahead'. The road was levelled and the MMDRA fixed the first blind spot along the stretch, on the northbound side, in 2021.

There were many challenges in constructing the new bridge due to the underground two-lane subway and gas pipeline. MMRDA took help from BMC's Public Works Department and the gas supply company to fix all these issues permanently.