Mumbai: Elevating passengers' experience in Mumbai, the north-bound arm of the Dharamveer Swaraj Rakshak Chhatrapati Sambhaji Mumbai Coastal Road, connecting Marine Drive to Haji Ali, was inaugurated on Monday. The road project was inaugurated by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde earlier in the day.

CM Shinde, along with Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar rode a vintage Rolls Royce car to mark the formal inauguration. Vehicular movement on the route will be allowed from Tuesday. The coastal road is a high speed corridor that will connect Bandra Worli Sea Link with Marine Drive through a series of tunnels, vehicular interchanges and bridges.

Travel from Marine Drive to Haji Ali in Just 8 Minutes

After the inauguration, CM Shinde said, "Today, the second phase of Dharmveer Swarajya Rakshak Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj Coastal Road has been opened. This tunnel is 6.25 km long from Haji Ali and Amarsons. In the month of July, this will open till Worli. Advanced technology has been used in the construction of this tunnel. The travel time will reduce to 8 minutes from 40-50 minutes..."

The carriageway will be open for regular traffic from 7am to 11pm on five days in a week – from Monday to Friday. The second tunnel under coastal road will remain out of bounds on weekends to allow for the remaining work on the stretch to be carried out.

As per BMC, the remaining stretch from Haji Ali to Bindumadhav Thackeray Chowk at Worli—is likely to be thrown open on July 10 after the construction work gets over. Almost 80 per cent work on this section is complete. The remaining work is expected to be over by June-end if rains don’t play a spoiler.

The work on the stretch linking the coastal road and Bandra-Worli Sea Link (BWSL) is expected to be completed only by October.

Mumbai Coastal Road to Cut Travel Time by 70%

Once the entire corridor is ready, it will cut the travel time by about 70% and reduce the fuel consumption by 34%.

The south-bound carriageway of the 10.58km coastal road, from Princess Street flyover at Marine Drive to the Worli-end of BWSL was opened to traffic on March 11. The south-bound section is operational on an eight-kilometre stretch. The value of the entire project is estimated to be around Rs 13,984 crore.

The project work, which began in December 2018, was supposed to be over by 2022 and the entire road was to be thrown open in May this year. However, the deadline has now been pushed to October owing to pending works. The delays were attributed to labour shortage and monsoon which posed problems while carrying out work such as the laying of bitumen. The change in the navigation span to 120m between two piers was also blamed for the delay.

6.25km-Long Stretch Opens Today

With the inauguration of the section linking Marine Drive to Haji Ali, a 6.25km stretch of the coastal road project will be opened to traffic, facilitating the motorists to use the interchanges at Amarsons Garden and Haji Ali.

It will further decongest traffic mainly from Rajni Patel Chowk (Lotus Jetty) towards Worli and Bandra, and from Vatsalabai Desai Chowk (Haji Ali) towards Tardeo, Mahalakshmi and Pedder Road.

After entering the underground tunnel from Marine Drive, motorists can exit from the Amarsons Garden interchange. Those entering from this interchange can go to Marine Drive on the south side and Rajni Patel Chowk and Vatsalabai Desai Chowk on the north. Those entering the tunnel can proceed via the interchange facility at Haji Ali to Rajni Patel Chowk and further to Worli and Bandra, and can also use the same interchange to go to Vatsalabai Desai Chowk, Tardeo, Mahalakshmi and Pedder Road.