Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com takes his car for a spin on Mumbai’s brand-new coastal road and comes away awestruck.
The first phase of Mumbai’s prestigious coastal road was thrown open to the public on Tuesday, a day after its inauguration.
For now, only the south-bound leg of the coastal road has been opened; the north-bound carriageway is expected to be opened by May.
The coastal road between Worli and Marine Drive will reduce travel time from 40 minutes to just nine minutes. Not only that, it will also "save nearly $100 million annually in carbon emissions through fuel savings", Mumbai civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal said on Monday after the inauguration.
Video: Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com
The coastal road -- named after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj and opened on the occasion of his death anniversary – is 10.58 km long and has 16.5 km of interchanges. The entire stretch is being built at a cost of Rs 14,000 crore, consists of four lanes on each side along with two 12.19 metre diameter tunnels of 2.07 km length, making them the largest tunnels by diameter built by tunnel boring machines in the country.
It is also for the first time in India that a four-lane coastal road has been built 100 per cent on land reclaimed from the sea and stands on monopiles only.
The coastal road will be connected to the Bandra-Worli Sea Link and there onwards it will be extended up to Dahisar in the western suburbs.
When completed, the coastal road till Dahisar will stretch over 53 km.
