Mumbai - Roads | Flyovers | Freeways

[powai_mumbai]

any idea where is the second skywalk going to start.
am sure MMRDA has plenty of improvements to make before starting that work.

[Illusionist]

^ ^
OK so let see what we have so far.
blown roof the first day.
shaking structure..

I hope you are right because they will make 49 more of this thing.

[bhargavsura]

Separate Lanes for Buses on Highways

Alarmed by the recent spate of accidents on the Eastern Express Highway (EEH), the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) has felt the need to have a dedicated lane for BEST and private buses.

The EEH and Western Express Highway (WEH) will now be segregated for buses with dividers instead of the red-coloured, plastic, cone-shaped pyramids that presently adorn these highways. Dividers will be placed on the left side lanes on both highways.

Ratnakar Gaikwad, metropolitan commissioner, says, "We will start work on the WEH and EEH in some time. Work will begin from Sion to Thane on EEH and Bandra to Dahisar on WEH."

Benefits

A dedicated lane for buses will help prevent vehicles from cutting lanes apart from giving buses their own space for plying. MMRDA's executive committee had taken a decision in May to appoint a private consultant to study the viability of dedicated lanes for buses on these highways.

Red-coloured pyramids were placed on 500 m stretches at Godrej junction in Vikhroli on the EEH. They will now be replaced with dividers with work likely to commence in July. The MMRDA feels motorists are comfortable driving with dividers on the road rather than the pyramids.

Mid-day.com

[dreadathecontrols]

Originally Posted by Bombay Boy

supposedly some of the roof blew off on the first day itself. could be fatal for someone below. this is such a poorly executed project its unbelievable

Nah, very believable.Wot to say?

[Marathaman]

Originally Posted by Bombay Boy

supposedly some of the roof blew off on the first day itself. could be fatal for someone below. this is such a poorly executed project its unbelievable

Its a miracle that they even managed to execute it.

[bhargavsura]

A Tale of Two Highways

Get set for stand-still jams on the Eastern Express Highway (EEH) at the Priyadarshini Park junction. Three lanes on the EEH have been barricaded on a trial basis to see how traffic will be affected during the construction of a pillar on the highway for the Suman Nagar flyover.

Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and the Traffic Police placed 26 barrels on each side of EEH yesterday. While 12 barrels block one-and-a-half lanes of the road going towards Sion, 14 barrels block the lane towards Ghatkopar.

An MSRDC official said, "We are doing this on a trial basis to get a feel of the situation."

EEH will be further choked tomorrow when another half lane will be blocked on the road going towards Sion. "On Wednesday two lanes of the road will be blocked. We hope to control traffic, but are expecting a lot of problems," said a senior traffic cop.

One lane will remain closed for the entire week for traffic towards Ghatkopar. MSRDC will start barricading the roads using tin sheets once they are granted permission from the traffic department. "We expect to get permission within two days," added the MSRDC official.

Scene on WEH

Meanwhile, MSRDC will allow vehicular traffic on three lanes of the Airport flyover from today. Work on the rest of the six-lane flyover will start after the monsoon and will be completed by March next year.

Source: Mid-day

[powai_mumbai]

Originally Posted by Marathaman

Its a miracle that they even managed to execute it.

I am still hopeful that the future skywalks would be better than this one.
anyways, inorder to have a decent skywalk or any construction i think it should be developed by a private builder or contractor, so that atleast we can have someone responsible.

[qwertyasd]

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/..._10072847.html

he Maharashtra government Thursday announced the launch of the Rs.5.3 billion ($126 million) eastern freeway project (EFP) to provide a direct link to the Eastern Express Highway (EEH) and south Mumbai. Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) joint director D. Kawathkar announced here that the EFP work got underway with the completion of four pillars at the Nawab Tank Overbridge in south Mumbai today.

Once completed, the 22-km-long EFP will drastically reduce travel time between Colaba in south Mumbai and the eastern suburbs like Ghatkopar and Mulund, he added.

The EPF, part of the Mumbai urban infrastructure project, will also include a sub-road adjacent to the existing Mumbai Port Trust road to enable quick movement of heavy vehicles that converges to the wholesale markets and trading areas in the southern parts of the city.

The four-lanes EFP, which starts near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Museum, will go on to the Mumbai Port Trust road before joining the EEH via the Anik-Panjrapole link road, near Wadala, a distance of 12 km. Of these, 9 km will be elevated.

The second phase will link the Anik-Panjrapole link road with Ghatkopar suburb, affording easy access with time saving to the people living in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai.

[bhargavsura]

^

Cool....

[qwertyasd]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow/3252406.cms

JVLR Phase-II clears bottleneck, enters final lap

MUMBAI : The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has finally managed to overcome one of the last hurdles in the completion of the 11.3-km Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR). An MMRDA team on Friday razed the gurudwara opposite Indian Institute of Technology, Powai, to facilitate road widening work in the second phase.

This was one of the major bottlenecks for the project, MMRDA officials said. The gurudwara, spread over 6,000 sq ft, was a major cause for traffic congestion on this road which is one of the key components of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP).

“A new gurudwara will come at Hari Om Nagar in Powai, for which land has been allocated to the concerned committee,” MMRDA additional metropolitan commissioner and MUTP project director Milind Mhaiskar said.

Mr Mhaiskar said that the gurdwara was a major hurdle in the second phase of the JVLR between Larsen & Toubro junction and Gandhinagar junction. “MMRDA’s work in razing the 45-year-old gurudwara became easier due to continuous engagements with members of the Sikh community.

While the existing gurudwara was spread across 6,000 sq ft, the new gurudwara at Hari Om Nagar will be constructed on
6,500 sq ft, which has been acquired by MMRDA under Transfer of Development Rights. The committee will also be paid Rs 48 lakh for construction of the gurdwara.

The first and third phase of the JVLR has been completed, and the razing of the gurudwara marks a significant development in the second phase which will be completed soon, said Mr Mhaiskar.

Meanwhile, the MMRDA has begun work on the Eastern Freeway that will ensure smooth traffic and reduce travel time from Chhatrapati Shivaji Museum, Colaba, to Ghatkopar, an MMRDA spokesperson said.

[bhargavsura]

This bridge in Malaysia reminds me of the Skywalk in Bombay.... A video shot taken from a movie.

[jubin]

Don't know if this is the right forum, but this is the closest that i could find. Is this the beginning of the end of DMRC's involvement in bombay projects? They are out of the tunnel study, the monorail is on, the bandra-colaba metro is off, and the remaining metros are once again being developed by private entities via the PPP model.

DMRC backs out of tunnel study

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, which was to conduct a feasibility study for the central Mumbai- Nariman Point tunnel, is no longer carrying out the survey, an official said.

"No specific reason was given. Now, an engineering firm Arup has taken up the survey," said Anil Deshmukh, Public Works Department (Projects) Minister

[bhargavsura]

Source: Hindustan Times

[phaedrus]

Next on city skywalk trail: A hawkers’ plaza

MUMBAI’S first skywalk with a hawkers’ plaza is expected to be ready within six months, officials said on Wednesday.
The skywalk, a portion of which is to be reserved for hawkers displaced by other infrastructure projects, will be constructed in the north-east suburb of Kanjurmarg, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials said .
The 222-metre-long structure will extend from Kanjurmarg station to the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road and is expected to be the first of the 23 other similar structures to be built in the city. The Kanjurmarg skywalk, which will be seven metres wide and is expected to house about 74 hawker stalls, will be made by J Kumar Infrastructure, authorities said.
The city’s first skywalk was built in Bandra and opened to pedestrians in June. Fifty more skywalks are proposed in the Mumbai metropolitan region.
MMRDA, the nodal body for infrastructure projects in the city and surrounding areas, has allocated Rs 600 crore for 30 skywalks it plans to build. The places where the proposed skywalks will come up are areas like Worli Naka, Senapati Bapat Marg (Tulsi Pipe Road) and Prabhadevi.
All of them will be operated by private parties on a build-operate-transfer basis for 10 years. The agency also intends to provide automatic escalators on some of them. The foundation stone was laid by the general manager of Central Railways, Soumya Raghavan.

source economictimes epaper

[bhargavsura]

The following is too long an article. But it is quite interesting.

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Art...001&mode=1

In the article, its mentioned about a civil engineer named Sudhir Badami. I had signed up for the Road Volunteer Group (Link) and I recieved an email from Sudhir Badami (who might be a part of the group) a few months back about some upcoming function. I actually had emailed him about the conditions of roads in Mumbai. Haven't got any replies from him since then.

[powai_mumbai]

Originally Posted by bhargavsura

The following is too long an article. But it is quite interesting.

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Art...001&mode=1

The link is not displaying the article. i think its an epaper and its not possible to link a page from outside.

Anyways, if you have the article can you please paste it here.

[bhargavsura]

Yeah I see that... It was working fine for me yesterday and I was able to view the link even when not logged in.

Anyways, here's the Article.

THE FIGURES sure are impressive.

Rs 650 crore budgeted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for building new roads in 2008.

Rs 4,500 crore for the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP-I), which envisions bridges, flyovers, subways, new railway stations, trains and dedicated bus lanes for our ever-growing metropolis.

And Rs 43,000 crore spent on big-ticket infrastructure projects from 2004 to 2007.

So why can't we build good roads when we spend so much on them?

The official defence from R A Rajeev, Additional Municipal Commissioner, BMC is: "We do not have a magic wand. Things cannot change overnight. It takes 12 to 18 months for projects to be completed."

The BMC, India's richest corporation, has a Rs 16,000 crore budget this year. Which means the Rs 650 crore it has to spend on road construction is just 0.4% of the total budget. Oh yes, it also shells out Rs 25 crore for pre-monsoon road works (read, filling up of potholes, most of which should not have been there in the first place).

Clearly, money can't buy us good roads in Mumbai, the city where everything is said to have its price.

So where does all this money go?

Towards sub-standard materials, shoddy work and maintenance that comes too late - if you ask the experts.

"There are gaping holes in both the road work and maintenance system," declares N V Mirani. He should know. The road expert heads the Standing Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) on roads, appointed by the High Court to give recommendations on improving Mumbai's road conditions. "Contractors look for short cuts and compromise on quality, which is a well-known phenomenon."

Another expert, Sudhir Badami, a civil engineer and former member of a road monitoring committee, points out, "Laying a road requires precision and monitoring. The bitumen has to be mixed in the right proportion, it has to be laid at the right temperature and rolled at the right time."

The checklist drawn up the STAC reads thus: Road design, quality of construction, trained staff, contract size, tendering process, digging by utility providers, capable contractors, good supervisors.

But, says Badami, "The chalta hai attitude that prevails is the main cause of our problems."

Mirani has another grouse. "Preventive maintenance - the most important recommendation of the STAC - has been completely ignored."

Preventive maintenance involves supervision, monitoring and auditing of work. Tellingly, the BMC has just one consultant right now and he currently monitors 42 projects.

With ineffective supervision, contractors try to reduce the material costs that form the bulk - 60 to 70 per cent - of their expenditure. Labour accounts for 15 per cent and machinery for 10. And there is another 15 per cent put down to "consultants' fees" - often a euphemism for kickbacks.

The BMC, on its part, insists that it has taken the STAC's recommendations seriously . Going by them, a contractor will be fined Rs 5,000 if any problem crops up within the first three days of laying the road, and Rs 500 per day thereafter. The BMC has decided in principle to do so. But, wait, it has yet to implement that decision. And, amazingly , its road report on July 11, 2008 showed only 124 potholes left to be attended in the city.

Rajeev says they are trying new technologies this year. "Keeping in view the pothole problem, we have introduced the carboncor or cold tar technology this year, along with jet-patcher pothole-filling machines, which should improve the road quality this year," he says.

The BMC will also rely on the paver blocks much favoured by them. Earlier recommended for blind alleys and minor roads (on which buses do not ply) that are less than 20 ft wide, the blocks are now used on main junc tions too. "They are quick to lay, so road traffic is not blocked, and they are easy to dig up in case we have to," says DL Shinde, Chief En gineer, Roads.

But the experts refuse to buy this argument. Paver blocks, explains Mirani, have been used since they cost less and reduce labour costs too, but the results are disappointing. Badly-laid stretches that have either caved in or come off at 50 different spots in Mumbai will have to be relaid, according to guidelines that have been now laid by the STAC.

Asphalt, concrete or paver blocks - it's now a familiar story. Do it badly and do it again - and again.
We do not have a magic wand. Things cannot change overnight. It takes 12 to 18 months for projects to be completed.

R.A. RAJEEV, additional municipal commissioner There are gaping holes in both the road work and maintenance systems… contractors look for short cuts and compromise on quality. N.V. MIRANI road expert & head, Standing Technical Advisory Committee, which gives recommendations for improving Mumbai's roads Laying a road requires precision and monitoring. The bitumen has to be mixed in the right proportion, it has to be laid at the right temperature and rolled at the right time. SUDHIR BADAMI former member, Road Monitoring Committee Mumbai entry points (Thane Eastern Express Highway toll, LBS Naka Toll and Vashi Toll Naka): What we get Rs 71.25 crore by way of Thane-Ghodbunder Road: collections Rs 9.36 crore from tolls Mumbai-Pune Expressway:

and taxes Rs 61.20 crore TOLL TALE What happens to the Rs 71.25 crore collected annually from the Thane Eastern Express Highway toll, LBS Naka toll and Vashi Naka toll? The toll fees you pay while entering or leaving Mumbai goes to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), that uses it to repay the loans taken for building 55 flyovers in Mumbai. Since the govern ment did not have enough money to build the flyovers in the mid-1990s, the MSRDC borrowed funds from the market by floating bonds. The collections from toll taxes are now used to honour these bonds. Apart from the toll, the MSRDC also gets the money that the state government collects as a surcharge on fuel sold in Mumbai.

WHEN A CITIZEN PAID FOR A CAUSEWAY ¦ The first major road to be built in Mumbai was the Sion causeway, which linked two of the seven original islands. Work started in 1803 and was completed in 1805. ¦ The second big road was the Colaba Causeway, completed in 1838. ¦ The Mahim causeway, built between 1841 to 1846 to connect the island of Salsette with Mahim, was built not by the government but a prominent citizen. The British East India Company, which governed Bombay at that time, refused to fund the project. This led Lady Jeejeebhoy, wife of the first baronet, Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, to donate the entire amount of Rs 1,57,000 on the condition that the government would not charge a toll for its use.

View from the other side Bharat Jain, a BMC road contractor who has recently laid roads in the eastern suburbs, speaks to Sujit Mahamulkar. Why do we have to suffer such pathetic roads despite the crores spent on them?

The basic reason is that Mumbai was created by reclaiming land and has many low-lying areas that get inundated during the monsoon. Tar and water are enemies - when water accumulates on a road, the tar used for building it separates from the other materials used. That is why you see so many potholes during the monsoon.

Can't that be fixed? Is the problem in the construction or maintenance?

There are several utility agencies working in the city. If a road is built by the BMC, another agency digs it up a fortnight later. This affects the entire stretch of the road. There should be proper coordination between the utility agencies. What do you have to say about the incidents of miscarriages caused by bad roads?

I don't believe it happens just because of potholes. There could be other reasons. Why are the roads in VIP areas like Malabar Hill always in good shape?

Since Malabar Hill is situated atop a slope, rainwater does not get stagnate there; it flows towards the low-lying areas. This is not the case with other roads. Doesn't corruption in the system affect the quality of the roads?

I would say, yes, there is corruption, but not as much as people think, at least in the BMC's central agency that allots major road repair work. I have no idea about small roads that are taken up by ward offices locally .

sujit.mahamulkar@hindustantimes.com

[bhargavsura]

Six More Skywalks /(Overhead bridges)

SIX NEW skywalks are set to come up in eight months in the city, part of a Rs 600 crore Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority plan.

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation has begun work on the plans for the six skywalks to come up near the railway stations of Goregaon, Vile Parle, Vasai Road, Lower Parel, Kandivli and Masjid.

Expected to ease traffic congestion near railway stations by taking pedestrians off the roads, the six skywalks will cost Rs 85.97 crore and will be completed within seven months from the date of commencement of work, said a senior official of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation.

Speaking on condition of anonymity but refusing to give any reason for it, the official said bids had been invited for the construction work and the contract would be finalised by September.

The six proposed skywalks will cost between Rs 9 and Rs 20 crore each.

"We are building these skywalks as they will help in tackling the severe congestion problem outside railway stations during peak hours," Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority Joint Project Director Dilip Kawathkar said. "These skywalks will give commuters easy access from stations to the adjoining roads."

Of the 50 skywalks across the city planned by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, 17 are to be constructed by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation.

Source: Hindustan Times

[dreadathecontrols]

they can plan n build meccano skywalks but metros or drains?

[Sridhar]

I know Sudhir Badami from old times (when I was active in the Delhi Metro group, the skybus group etc.). He is a strong proponent of BRT systems, and a strong opponent of Metros. He has strong views that you may or may not agree with, but is a very committed person and has worked hard to improve public infrastructure in Mumbai in particular and our cities in general. He has taken other initiatives besides transportation. The Mumbai High Court ban on loudspeakers at night was a result of his initiative for instance.