Creek bridge at Vashi, Bhiwandi-Igatpuri stretch of Samruddhi super expressway to open today | Mumbai News – Times of India

Mumbai: The three-lane Mumbai-bound arm of the new Thane creek bridge at Vashi will be commissioned by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and his two deputies, Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, on Thursday at 1 pm through an online ceremony from Igatpuri, where they will throw open the 76 km Bhiwandi-Igatpuri stretch of the Mumbai-Nagpur super expressway for motorists.With the opening of the south-bound arm, the traffic in the morning peak hours will get decongested as there will be six lanes available on the bridge against the existing three lanes, which caused a bottleneck given the 12-lane width of the Sion-Panvel highway on either side. The north-bound arm was opened in Oct, giving relief to the weekend traffic bound for tourist destinations.Given the toll naka that existed there, the bridge was a necessity amid the creation of the new airport, part of which is slated to open soon. Now, the state cabinet has given its formal approval to hand out Rs 780 crore assistance to the MSRDC to pay the toll collecting contractor, Mumbai Entry Point Ltd, to permanently do away with toll collection from cars and SUVs at five entry points of Mumbai, namely, Vashi, Airoli, Mulund, Thane and Dahisar.The traffic coming from old Nashik highway towards Mumbai and wanting to take the Samruddhi Mahamarg for Nagpur will have to take a left turn on a temporarily built road ahead of Shangrila junction in Bhiwandi at Aamne village and then take a U-turn via an underpass built 600 metres ahead of the junction, to eventually come back on the Nagpur-bound Samruddhi arm. MSRDC MD Anil Kumar Gaikwad said this temporary arrangement will be there only for four-five months till the Delhi-Mumbai expressway corridor completes the construction of the clover leaf junction that will offer smooth connectivity from all the directions.