Thane: The 5th lane of the new Kalwa creek bridge in the Saket direction, necessitated to solve the traffic congestion on the old bridge, has been started by the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) from Friday, March 10. With the opening of this route, the traffic congestion on Saket road will be avoided and the traffic load on the old bridge will also be lightened.
'Old bridge narrow, caused traffic'
TMC chief Abhijit Bangar said, "Kalwa bridge on the Thane-Belapur route was narrow, causing traffic jams on this route every day. To solve this traffic jam, TMC has constructed a new Kalwa creek bridge next to the old bridge. A route was started on this bridge from CIDCO towards Kalwa and from Courtnaka towards Kalwa in November and December 2022 respectively, but the work of Saket bridge was not completed, which is the reason why it was not operating at full capacity. Since the Saket route was not open, the vehicles transporting from Saket towards Kalwa used to use the old Kalwa bridge and due to it, the vehicles coming via Balkum had to get stuck in the traffic jam at Kalwa for more than hours."
Total length of new Kalwa bridge is 2.40 km
Bangar further added, "There was a demand from Thanekars that the Saket bridge route should also be started immediately. We set the deadline of March ending but finally the route have been opened for the public from Friday. Due to this, the load of vehicles on the old Kalwa bridge will reduce. As the bridge becomes fully operational, the traffic from Thane city towards Kalwa, Navi Mumbai will be able to be carried entirely over the new bridge. Also similar to the Kalwa bridge, other ongoing projects in the city have been completed on a war footing and efforts are being made through the civic body and other government agencies to free the citizens from the traffic jam. The total length of the new Kalwa bridge is 2.40 km and the average width of the lanes on the bridge is 8.50 m. As all lanes of the bridge are open for traffic, now the bridge is available for traffic at full capacity."
