New Barfiwala flyover will help motorists avoid SV Road traffic

The new year will bring major relief to Mumbaiites who have to battle heavy traffic at the SV Road junction in Andheri on their way to the Western Express Highway.

The new year will bring major relief to Mumbaiites who have to battle heavy traffic at the SV Road junction in Andheri on their way to the Western Express Highway.

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The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) will finally throw open the northern arm of the Barfiwala flyover in the third week of January.

“Work on the project [northern arm] is almost complete. We will be opening it to the public by the third week of January,” said Rahul Asthana, metropolitan commissioner.

The northern arm will be opened to public without any fanfare, as the election code of conduct will be in force by then.

The Barfiwala flyover is a 350-metre long, four-lane flyover. It begins at Phadke Marg in Andheri (West) and branches out into two arms at the Rajiv Gandhi Chowk: the northern arm and the southern arm. The two arms – each comprising two lanes – eventually converge and the flyover ends at Gokhale Bridge in Andheri (West). Once open, the northern arm will help commuters snake over the busy SV road junction to directly reach the Western Express Highway from Andheri. Nearly 70,000 vehicles use this stretch daily and it is prone to chronic traffic jams.

The southern arm of the flyover connects the Western Express Highway to Juhu Gully and was opened to the public in June.

Based on studies conducted in 2003, the MMRDA decided to construct the Barfiwala flyover to tide over the congestion at SV Road junction and Barfiwala Road. The project had been commissioned to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and the project was touted to be complete within 15 months. Since September 2006, the flyover has been under construction. Due to delays in land acquisition and rehabilitation of project-affected persons, the cost of constructing the flyover rocketed from Rs24 crore to Rs42.5 crore.