Coastal Road (Mumbai)

About

Coastal Road (officially known as Dharamveer Swarajya Rakshak Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj Mumbai Coastal Road) is an 8-lane, 29.2-km long grade separated expressway along Mumbai's western coastline, connecting Marine Lines in the south to Kandivali in the north. It is projected to be used by 130,000 vehicles daily, and is expected to reduce travel time between South Mumbai and the Western Suburbs from 2 hours to only 40 minutes. The estimated cost of the project is ₹13,060 crore (US$1.4 billion). Its first phase, which was inaugurated on 11 March 2024, is a 10.58 km section from Princess Street flyover to the Worli end of the Bandra–Worli Sea Link. Wilbur Smith and Associates, commissioned in 1962 to study transportation in Mumbai, recommended construction of a 3.6 km road between Haji Ali and Nariman Point on reclaimed land and a 1.04 km tunnel under Malabar Hill up to Girgaon Chowpatty. Smith's report also proposed connectors to Walkeshwar Road and Chowpatty. However, the proposed road was not built. In 2011, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan proposed the Coastal Road as an alternative to the plan for the Western Freeway. Chavan asked the MSRDC to think of building coastal roads instead of capital intensive sea links. He appointed a Joint Technical Committee, comprising experts and officials, in 2012 under the then municipal commissioner Subodh Kumar to study the plan to build a coastal road. In its report, submitted in January 2012, the committee advised the government to build a 35.6 km coastal freeway from Manora MLA Hostel at Nariman Point to Kandivali to ease traffic congestion. The project was estimated to cost ₹10,000 crore (equivalent to ₹190 billion or US$2.0 billion in 2023) and would have consisted of roads built on reclaimed land as well as stilts, bridges and tunnels. The committee was against building any more sea links and pointed out that the coastal road would help save ₹12,000 crore (equivalent to ₹230 billion or US$2.3 billion in 2023) of public money. The 35.6 km road was proposed to begin near Manora (MLA Hostel), with entry and exit points at Jagannath Bhosale Marg, move along Marine Drive and lead into a tun

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