Elphinstone bridge closure fallout: 8 Dadar-Lower Parel roads choked

MUMBAI: At least eight roads in the Dadar-Lower Parel belt have been hit with congestion and backlogs since the closure of the Elphinstone bridge this past Friday. These include Senapati Bapat Marg, Gokhale Road and Bhavani Shankar Road in Dadar, N M Joshi Marg in Lower Parel, Lady Jamshedji Road in Mahim, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg in Worli, besides Tilak bridge and Mahadev Palav Marg (Currey Road bridge).

Residents, school students and office-goers alike expressed frustration at delays of an hour to 90 minutes in daily commute.

Residents said it was scary imagining this gridlock situation would persist for the next two or more years. "Delisle bridge took five years to rebuild and we don't want Elphinstone bridge to take a similar time frame given that a double-decker structure is to come up," said a resident. Munaf Thakur, another Elphinstone Road resident, said students earlier took half an hour to reach school, but the same journey is now taking 1.5 hour.

Thakur added tweaking the timing of the operation of vegetable vendors at Dadar would have made some difference, but no such step was taken.Worli residents expressed concern about what would happen in a medical emergency as they felt "cut off" from major hospitals such as KEM, Wadia and Tata, all located in Parel. "Middle-class citizens in Worli cannot afford to travel up to hospitals in south Mumbai. This is a major concern," said Dhanpal Jain, a Worli resident.

An office-goer headed to Peninsula Corporate Park on his motorcycle said he was stranded for half an hour on the Currey Road bridge. "The traffic was backed up from the very start of the bridge. I just wanted to reach my office, but the snarl up was unrelenting," he said. The situation was no better at Dadar's Plaza Cinema. "The bridge has been extended but cars come up from all directions and create a bottleneck. It takes around 20 minutes just to turn towards Shivaji Park," said a motorist.Activist Chetan Kamble of ChakaChak Dadar said, "The internal roads near Sena Bhavan and Shivaji Park are packed during peak hours. Tilak bridge to Dadar Plaza, which is a very short distance, is taking motorists 30 minutes to cover." Public transport users, too, bore the brunt of snarls. A commuter standing at Kotwal Udyan bus stop in Dadar said she had been waiting for a bus for half an hour. The chaos is bad for local businesses as well. "It's tough for customers to get around," said a photocopy shop owner at Shingte Master Chowk in Lower Parel. Parts of Eastern Express Highway were also impacted due to congestion. Motorists lamented the lack of sufficient traffic policemen on congested routes in the vicinity. Swapnaja Kshirsagar, assistant municipal commissioner of BMC's G-South ward, said a meeting was called on Tuesday by MLA Ajay Chaudhary regarding the bridge demolition which was attended by ward level officials.