Wondered why Tilak Bridge traffic is up? Blame it on Sion bridge

Top shot of Dadar railway station and Lokmanya Tilak bridge which connects Dadar East to West. Pic/Kirit Surve Parade

An extremely long queue of traffic at either end of the Tilak bridge, Dadar, which is in the heart of the city has been worrying motorists. mid-day visited the bridge to find out the cause and most of the motorists, locals and the traffic police on the ground said that the traffic problem had increased after the shutting down of the Sion bridge, which was a key east-west link and also due to the under-construction work of the new bridge.

"Construction work on the new bridge is already underway, and since the closure of the Sion bridge in August, traffic at BKC and Tilak bridge has increased significantly. The Sion bridge provided a direct route for commuters heading to the suburbs or using LBS Road from the city. With its closure and the Dharavi bridge being less popular due to the required detour, most commuters now prefer Tilak bridge. Additionally, the Matunga bridge was temporarily closed for urgent repairs last week," a traffic official said.

"Work on the new bridge has been going on simultaneously but has not yet affected traffic movement majorly. Due to the work, some of the footpaths and staircases are blocked leading to problems for pedestrians. The Tilak bridge is proving to be very narrow for the volume of vehicles," Ramesh Gadkari, a local commuter said.

What is the new bridge?

The new cable-stayed bridge is being constructed with a cable-based structure and work will be completed in two phases. "Keeping in mind earlier experiences of traffic jams being caused by the closure of bridges, the authorities are building the new bridge parallel to the existing one, without closing the latter. Since the existing bridge is an important link, the bridge is being planned to be constructed in two phases. In the first phase, the construction of a new bridge adjacent to the old bridge will be completed without disturbing the existing traffic flow. Then the traffic will be diverted to the new bridge and the old bridge will be dismantled. In the second phase, the reconstruction of the other side of the bridge will be completed. The project is being jointly done by the Maharashtra Rail Infrastructure Development Corporation (MRIDC) and the BMC. The work at Dadar where land has been made available has been going on at a good pace and will be expedited once more land is procured," a civic official said.

When mid-day visited the site, it was seen that all foundation works had been completed and girder launching and superstructure work was in progress along with work for the construction of a pylon for the cable-stayed road overbridge.

In numbers

The total length and width of the new four-lane bridge will be 663 metres and 16.7 metres height. There will be 190-m cables over the bridge area. The existing 4.5 metre-high Tilak bridge was built exactly a century ago, in 1925. The cost of the construction of the bridge is about 375 crore.

1925
Year Tilak bridge was built