By this yearend, India's longest sea bridge is expected to be operational, cutting travel time between central Mumbai and the satellite city of Navi Mumbai by a fourth to about 20 minutes.
The Mumbai Trans Harbour Link is a 22-kilometre, six-lane bridge, with 16.5 km over the sea and 5.5 km over the land. The Rs 18,000-crore project is being build with loan assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
When ready, travel from Sewri in central Mumbai to Chirle in Navi Mumbai will take 15 to 20 minutes. It currently takes about an hour to an hour and a half to cover this distance. The bridge will have interchanges at Sewri in Mumbai, and Shivaji Nagar and Chirle on the Navi Mumbai end.
The link will provide faster connectivity with the proposed Navi Mumbai International Airport and cities like Pune, Goa, and Bengaluru. Once fully operational, it's expected to see daily traffic of around 70,000 vehicles.
"In the future, we will be connecting the sea link right up to the Mumbai-Pune Motorway, for which bids are getting out already," SVR Srinivas, chief secretary and metropolitan commissioner, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, told BQ Prime. He expects the project to be completed by November end or early December this year.
"We will stick to that. The monsoon was an issue last year and even previous years; keeping that in mind, we have kept the target of yearend."
Many Firsts
The 180-metre-long orthotropic steel deck is said to be the world's longest level of span length, according to JICA website. OSD bridges have a stronger structure than concrete or composite girder bridges.
It will also be the first transit in India with open road tolling. Widely used in countries like Singapore and the U.S., the system allows vehicles to electronically pay the toll without stopping at booths.
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