Mumbai Coastal Road inaugurated: Will solve all teething issues soon, says BMC

Gravel patches dust and mobile connectivity issues were some of the annoyances faced by commuters who were lucky enough to travel on the partially open Coastal Road on Monday Informed about these issues by this reporter a civic official said they would be fixed soonThe interchange at Haji Ali hasnrsquot opened yet and commuters can only use Amarsons interchange for now The brief cycle length of the traffic signal at Worli may cause chaos Though one lane of the Coastal Road is dedicated to public transport via BEST buses it is still unclear which routes will include itFisherwomen in AC doubledecker buses and vintage cars were the first travellers on the Coastal Road The 1058 kmlong southern part of the stretch whose total length is 14 km with interchanges is being built at the cost of Rs 13983 crore The southbound 9km lanes from Worli to Marine Lines will be open to the general public at 8 am on Tuesday and remain open on weekdays during the daytimeAlso Read Mumbai Coastal Road project Heres all you need to knowThe partially open southbound stretch of the Coastal Road on Monday PicShadab KhanThe Mumbai Coastal Road Project MCRP officially called the Dharmveer Swarajya Rakshak Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj Coastal Road was partially inaugurated Monday by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde along with Deputy Chief Ministers Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar along with several MLAs Ashwini Bhide additional civic commissioner assured that the entire project would be completed within the next three monthsBMC officials claim the travel time from Worli to Marine Lines will be reduced to 9 to 10 minutes from 30 to 40 minutes The road will be tollfreeGravelly pathsThe lanes from Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk in Worli are half done The road requires a final layer otherwise gravel will start popping out once heavy traffic is seen BMC says The lanes from Worli to the entry of the tunnel are still not complete Another layer will be piled on top of them and the work will complete soonDust devilsInside the tunnels commuters not travelling in AC buses had to put up with a lot of dust which was not only causing pollution but also low visibility BMC says The tunnels have a Saccardo ventilation system which includes air jets that have a velocity of around 30 ms Highspeed winds unsettled dust which created the issue on Monday It wonrsquot happen from TuesdayLack of interchangesThere are three interchanges to make an entry and exit of the Coastal Road at Amarsons Garden Haji Ali and Worli Seaface for entry and exit points to the coastal road But now only the Amarsons Garden interchange has startedBMC says The interchanges will start with the second phase We will try to complete the work by May 2024Brief signal cycle lengthAs the interchanges at Worli are yet to be completed commuters need to take a Uturn at a signal ahead of Bindu Madhav Thackeray Chowk when they emerge from the Bandra Worli Sea Link or Prabhadevi The signal for the Uturn doesnrsquot stay green for too long and this is bound to cause chaos BMC says This is for the time being until we open the interchange We have requested the traffic police to intervene and increase signal durationMobile connectivityDespite the BMCrsquos assurance of mobile connectivity in the Coastal Roadrsquos tunnels signal issues were witnessed BMC says An agency has been finalised for network connectivity The corporation will need to grant the service providers space to set up antennae and the BMC will earn revenue from this The process is going onExpertSpeakA V Shenoy a senior transport expert with the Mumbai Mobility Forum told midday ldquoWe will not know the full effect of the Coastal Road as it will be open from 8 am to 8 pm and closed on weekends Also only southbound traffic will be permitted on the route But surely the major junctions on the old route will see an alleviation of traffic congestion as car users will opt for the Coastal Road The Haji Ali junction which is a traffic hotspot will be seeing partial southbound traffic alleviation along with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Road Pedder Road and other southbound routes from Worli to Marine Lines Because of this there may be some benefits on the old route but we will never know the full effect till the entire road is made open for commutersrdquoHe added ldquoMainly car users will benefit Even though BEST and ST services are permitted I donrsquot think these transport services will be operating routes on it as these buses have to ply from one stop to the other and arenrsquot a pointtopoint service They authorities claim that BRTS bus rapid transit system will also run on these routes but unless we see this we cannot be sure A BRTS was run in Haji Ali around 15 years back for a few months and at BKC for two months and then was stopped Private buses like Chalo and Cityflo which are pointtopoint service operators will benefit from this route Ola and Uber along with other car pickup and drop services will also benefitrdquoInputs by Prasun Choudhari