The crawling construction of the Kalwa bridge over the Thane creek
The COVID-19 lockdown has helped mitigate the nightmarish traffic at this Thane entry point
I went to work by car to Vashi yesterday and used the Kalwa bridge both ways.
Starting around 9 am from Urbania, I found that there was the backing of traffic at the entrance to the bridge from the Thane side. I realized how much traffic this narrow bridge supports between Thane towards Kalwa and Belapur, waiting to turn left on the bridge.
On the Kalwa side of the bridge, my progress was smoother with no traffic build-up, and I could easily turn right and head towards Vashi. On the Thane Belapur road, I faced traffic at two points till Airoli. The junction that allows a right turn at Airoli towards the Airoli bridge is now a choke point that backs up nearly a kilometer.
Driving towards Vashi, I spotted a nearly empty blue Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) electric bus while driving and wondered why I could not have chosen it instead of driving. I had decided to drive as Cityflo has suspended its services from Thane to Navi Mumbai as most IT company officials who use that route are now working from home.
After you cross Airoli, you can drive relatively faster towards Vashi. There is now a flyover at Ghansoli, which helps you avoid traffic at the Reliance Corporate Park (RCP), a major traffic contributor in the area.
On my drive back home, I had a smoother ride all the wall right up to Kalwa. At the entrance to the Kalwa bridge towards Thane, I had to wait for about ten minutes around 6 pm for the traffic police to let our side of the traffic to move. After I exited the Kalwa bridge at the traffic police, another hold-up made me go around and take a left rather than let you turn right into the Saket Kalwa road.
On my way back to Urbania, I could see the new steel bridge over Thane creek on the shore and waiting for the fabricator to mount it over the water. J. Kumar Infraprojects Limited (J. Kumar) is constructing the new bridge and the associated flyovers to smoothen traffic on the Kalwa bridge. Two years ago, J. Kumar had shared a video of their project which shows the traffic flow on the new bridge, and you can watch it here:
The above video will clear your doubts on how exactly traffic would move on the new bridge and clear the congestion below. As you would have seen, the new bridge and its parts give you a roller coaster-like ride within your vehicle.
The bridge work has been on for a while and does not seem slated for completion though you can be sure that Thane's ruling political party will hasten the project when the next municipal election is due. Lockdown does not seem to have hastened this project's pace, and I feel that it will be ready only by July 2021.
As you saw in the video, the creek's tied-arch steel bridge is the key component of the project. The contractor will assemble the bridge, mount it on a barge and then place it on its piers over the creek. When in place, the Kalwa arch bridge will look like a bow.
After the new bridge is in place, the traffic from Thane Railway Station and Saket will not converge onto the old bridge but will flow onto the new bridge and descend on the Kalwa side to proceed to Kalwa or Navi Mumbai. On the Saket side, you can see a lot of work adjacent to the Saket Kalwa and Saket Balkum roads, connecting traffic from Sakek to the new bridge.
We have many junctions at Thane, which are always choc-a-bloc with traffic, and we have the distinction of having traffic signals that stop vehicles for up to three minutes and more. The new Kalwa bridge is a bold experiment to unclog two junctions on either side of a bridge through elaborate diversions. Yes, you will travel a far greater distance to reach the same point when you must keep on to the new bridge's approach and the descent after you crossed it.
In India, wherever we make flyovers or bypasses, we invariably ensure that the congestion merely transfers to the next junction. I suspect that the new Kalwa bridge will ease the traffic around it and create traffic choke points on the Thane Belapur Road. As the Kalwa Saket road generally has lesser traffic, we may not see such traffic choking on it from the new Kalwa bridge.
In the J. Kumar video, I have seen that there shall be two circular gardens, one at each end of the old Kalwa bridge, and I look forward to those. Both those gardens will also help in traffic regulation as the plan is for the traffic police to manage the flow without traffic lights. The Saket biodiversity park has lost a portion of the new bridge project and still does not allow public access. When the new Kalwa bridge is ready, I hope that the park's inauguration also happens with the bridge's inauguration.
Thane's entry points at Kopri and Kalwa are traffic nightmares, with the plans to ease the traffic at both places still a work in progress. With the suburban trains out of bounds for the public, more people now use private vehicles to commute between Thane and Navi Mumbai, adding to traffic congestion. As students are now not going to schools or colleges but studying from home, a significant traffic contributor is missing.
Many residents of Urbania go to work at Navi Mumbai and would be happy to be working from home right now to save commuting time. They will also be looking forward to taking a train to work when suburban trains resume services for all and when the new Kalwa bridge prevents congestion at both ends of the current Kalwa bridge.