With the Mumbai Trans-Harbour Link (MTHL) finally hitting its stride the past couple of weeks, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has begun to fast-track the elevated Sewri-Worli corridor that will act as a feeder for the MTHL.
The Sewri-Worli corridor — a proposed four-lane 4.25-kilometre stretch expected to cost Rs616 crore at the current rates — will be the east-west connector that would allow motorists from the western parts of the city to make their way to the MTHL at Sewri.
According to MMRDA officials, the connector needs to be ready by the time the MTHL gets built — which is expected around November 2018 — to make the Rs9,320 crore sea bridge project viable in terms of traffic estimates.
One of the biggest hurdles that the project was facing, that of the corridor crossing the ten tracks at Elphinstone and Parel stations, has now been overcome, the officials said.
Speaking to DNA, additional metropolitan commissioner (MMRDA) Ashwini Bhide said, “Because of the Western Railway’s elevated railway corridor between Churchgate and Virar, the Sewri-Worli link was supposed to have gone over these 10 tracks at a height of nearly 20 metres.
Constructing an elevated road at that height is a very difficult task. So we have decided to have the connector at the same level as the Elphinstone bridge.”
According to Bhide, the general agreement drawing of the road overbridge at the point where it crosses the tracks at the two stations has been submitted to railway authorities.
The elevated road would need to cross the flyovers at Senapati Bapat and Ambedkar roads and go over the monorail viaduct as well as the Harbour line and Mumbai Port Trust set of tracks closer to Sewri. It will also have ramps to connect it to the under-conctruction Eastern Freeway.
“A detailed project report of the connector is being prepared and we are confident we will be able to construct it along the same time as the MTHL,” Bhide said.
