Chembur to Colaba, faster: Sion flyover to get two new arms to ease traffic bottleneck

BMC will be adding two arms to Sion flyover for Rs 125 crore to ease south-bound jams. (Express Photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will add two vehicular extensions to the Sion flyover on the Eastern Express Highway (EEH), to ease a long-standing bottleneck for traffic heading to South Mumbai.

The 1.09-km flyover, which connects the EEH with Sion Circle via BA Road, has three lanes. Only one of them carries southbound traffic from Ghatkopar and Chembur towards Dadar.

The flyover is separate from the Sion railway overbridge, the east-west bridge over the tracks, which the BMC rebuilt after demolishing the century-old structure and opened last month.

“Since there is only one lane catering to southbound traffic movement, the distribution of network towards traffic management has been uneven. Therefore, once the two new arms become operational, commute time will come down significantly,” Additional Municipal Commissioner (Projects) Abhijit Bangar told The Indian Express.

These two arms will originate from the Sion circle and directly merge with the EEH (AI generated GFX)

The new arms will be 1.12 km long and 8.5 metres wide, including crash barriers. They will run parallel to the existing flyover without changing its alignment. The project will cost Rs 125.37 crore, and the BMC has set a deadline of December 2028.

“These two arms will originate from the Sion circle and directly merge with the EEH, as a result motorists travelling southwards to Colaba from Chembur or Ghatkopar will get a much wider connectivity,” Bangar said.

A 2003 flyover under strain

The Maharashtra State Roads Development Corporation (MSRDC) built the flyover in 2003 for Rs 31 crore. Since then, the number of vehicles in the city has grown sharply, and the flyover has become a choke point for south-bound traffic.

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Vehicles ply through Sion Flyover in Mumbai.
(Express Photo by Sankhadeep Banerjee)

The MSRDC owned the flyover until 2021. In 2022, the BMC took it over, along with 25 other flyovers and bridges in the city, following a state government order.

In 2017, a structural audit by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay found that the flyover’s bearings and expansion joints were badly damaged and needed repairs. Bearings control movement between the bridge’s piers and girders. In 2019, part of the bridge’s concrete collapsed, and heavy vehicles were banned from the flyover. Major repairs began in 2020.

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Pratip Acharya is a seasoned journalist based in Mumbai reporting for The Indian Express. With a car... Read More