The Western Railway (WR) has asked the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to connect the Western Express Highway (WEH) to the small stretch of highway built by them outside the Bandra Terminus. WR officials claimed that this would decrease the road traffic between the Bandra’s suburban and outstation station, which is infamous for traffic snarls.
In a recent meeting with MMRDA authorities, the WR has asked the former to connect the Dharavi end of the connector from Kala Nagar directly on to a small-elevated patch of highway, that was built between suburban Bandra to Bandra Terminus, popularly known as BDTS. Speaking about the plan, WR general manager G.C. Agarwal said that the plan has finally seen recent development after MMRDA officials has assured the work would soon be undertaken.
“We met with the MMRDA commissioner U.P.S. Madan last week and he has assured us they will come up with a strategy on how to go about the connection,” said Mr Agarwal.
Currently, BDTS sees around 144 passenger trains coming in an out of the terminus per day and each train carries 2, 000 passengers per train on an average. These commuters have to usually get down from WEH and then manoeuvre their way around the traffic that mostly consists of autorickshaws outside the suburban station, because of which very few people take the WR highway.
Mr Agarwal said that for full optimisation of this highway it would be ideal to connect it to the WEH. “Currently the highway is barely being used, we have requested the MMRDA to help us decrease this rush caused by the road traffic and optimise it,” he said.
The WR and MMRDA are slated to meet and discuss the matter next month.
