Shut portion of WEH above Akurli subway opened after 2 years

MUMBAI: Five minutes before the clock struck midnight on Tuesday, the barricaded portion of the Western Express Highway (WEH) above the Akurli subway was opened. Union minister and North Mumbai MP Piyush Goyal threw open the road which had been shut for nearly two years and was one of the reasons for the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Dahisar-Goregaon belt. HT had reported the possibility of this road being opened on September 10.
The reason for barricading almost one and a half lanes on the WEH was MMRDA’s project of widening the Akurli subway. Just before the Ganpati festival, BJP leaders announced that this portion of the road would be opened to the public on September 10. Sources said that Goyal visited the site twice this month and interacted with MMRDA officers, contractors and traffic police.
The road work involved the laying of mastic asphalt and concrete after the installation of steel girders. Sources, however, said that as the rains are still on, there is a possibility of potholes appearing, as it takes time for the material to dry.
Motorists are happy with the opening of the lanes, as this has eliminated the bottlenecks, a regular feature for many months now. Driving on the WEH between Malad and Kandivali had become a nightmare due to the presence of barricades above the Akurli subway. Sources said that apart from the road, there would be a 1.5-metre-wide footpath on either side of the WEH.
The balance work on the subway is expected to be completed by October. It currently takes anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes to cross the 1.5-to-2-km stretch on the WEH between Thakur Complex/Thakur Village and Malad East before Samata Nagar Police Station. The barricades disrupt traffic heading towards Lokhandwala in Kandivali via Akurli Road and towards Kandivali railway station using the Akurli subway under the WEH.
An MMRDA official said that they had initiated the widening of the Akurli subway, which was built in the 1960s, to alleviate traffic congestion. “Progress on the subway work was hindered due to the unexpected discovery of an underground gas pipeline during piling work on the Borivali side of the subway,” he said. The gas pipeline is 300 mm in diameter and serves areas from Bandra to Dahisar along the WEH perimeter. The work of shifting the pipeline was initiated in June 2023, for which permissions were received from various authorities in November 2023 and the work was completed in April 2024.