Bandra - Worli Sea link to Connect Western Mumbai

The Bandra-Worli Sea Link is all set to become the new landmark of Mumbai. After commissioning it is all set to change the way of travel on this stretch of western Mumbai. It is a 4.7 kilometer, eight-lane link. It promises to cut travel time between Lovegrove Junction in Worli to Mahim Junction, which ranges between 35 minutes to an hour during peak hour traffic at present.

The Bandra-Worli Sea Link will be an engineering masterpiece once finished. It weighs as much as 50,000 African elephants, the tallest tower equals a 43-storey building and steel wires that could be lined up to form the circumference of the earth have been used to make it. Each of the concrete girders weighs more than 150 metric tonnes. The massive cranes help move the girders. A 96-wheel trolley helps carry the enormous structure to fit one into another and form a continuation of a bridge that will go on and connect to the other end. Come December 2008, one side will be opened for use. Six months later the project will be completed, after which it will then be stretched on, all the way up to Nariman Point. Mumbaikars will have to wait a couple of years more for this to be finished.

Metro rail in MUMBAI

The Mumbai Metro should be the answer to the city’s commuting woes. And Mumbai’s local trains will soon have a competitor. The three-phase Metro rail will be move across 40 km on the 14 km Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar route connecting Colaba-Mahim-Charkop in Phase two. The Metro will change the way half a million people travel from the daily grime of packed trains and buses to a silent, air-conditioned mode of transport. It will also add a crucial link between Mahim-Bandra Kurla-Mankhurd on the eastern suburbs. To run on elevated platforms cutting through dense traffic; Metro is a joint venture of Anil Ambani's Reliance and the Mumbai Metropolitan Authority.

The Twenty Thousand crore project may be India's most expensive mass rapid transit system bringing smiles on the faces of more than six million people who brave perhaps the country's worst transportation system. And Delhi has shown the way where a 60 km Metro network is almost to be completed in record time. But it is not easy. With civil work on line one already in progress, authorities are optimistic Mumbaikars could get to ride the Metro in 2011.