The Garland freeway

Mumbai has always been identified with the Queen’s Necklace; now it will have a Garland Freeway as well. The State Government is making a big push for a network of roads, cablestayed bridges and flyovers to connect Churchgate and Cuffe Parade in south Mumbai with Virar in the west, and Navi Mumbai and Kalyan in the east. The project is called Garland Freeway for obvious reasons — once finished, the connecting roads will resemble a garland encircling the island city. The plan involves joining the dots between current infrastructure projects — such as the Eastern Freeway on the Central side or the Sea-Link along the Western coast — to create an inter-linked road network. “Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh will arrive in Mumbai on April 15 to study the coastal road project. We will brief him about the freeway project during this visit,” a senior government official said. He said that Bandra was connected with Worli by a sea link, and now the plan was to build a coastal road from Worli to Mahalaxmi, and then from Chowpatty to Marine Drive. “There is another proposal for a sea link from Bandra to Versova. In future, we plan to extend the Link Road in western suburbs, and construct a cable-stayed bridge from Marve to Manori,” the official said. The existing single-lane road will be turned into a four-lane stretch up to Uttan. Vasai and Uttan will be connected through another cable-stayed bridge. “This will reduce travel time from Virar to Churchgate from three hours to one and a half hours,” he said. In the east, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is constructing a freeway with a tunnel connecting Panjrapole with Wadi Bunder. The state government wants this freeway to be extended to Cuffe Parade. There are also plans to increase the number of lanes on Mumbai-Pune Expressway to 10.