The KDMC has asked the MSRDC to shut down the 100-year-old bridge which needs to be rebuilt completely. This has caught the motorists off guard who shudder at the thought of upcoming traffic jams.
Residents of Kalyan and beyond who drive through Patri pool in Kalyan east to reach Dombivli, Thane, Panvel will be inconvenienced soon. The KDMC has asked the MSRDC to shut down the 100-year-old bridge which needs to be rebuilt completely. This has caught the motorists off guard who shudder at the thought of upcoming traffic jams.
Along with potholes, now residents of Kalyan, Dombivli will have to be prepared to deal with bad traffic. "Railways has informed us that the old Patri pool bridge which is of British era needs to be repaired urgently and we have notified MSRDC as well as the traffic police to shut it down," says Pramod Kulkarni, city engineer, KDMC (Kalyan Dombivli municipal corporation). The current bridge which is two-lane will be dismantled and converted to a six-lane bridge.
From August 3, the bridge has been shut down for heavy vehicles while light vehicles are allowed. "But even that movement will be stopped once MSRDC and traffic decide the date of closing the bridge," he says.
Though there is an adjacent Tisai bridge which will be open for both kind of vehicles, motorists say that it would lead to traffic jams. The Patri pool bridge connects Kalyan east to west and also provides easy connectivity to Dombivli east. "We take this bridge to go to Dombivli, Thane, Vashi, Panvel. Now we will be caught in long traffic jams as it shuts down," says activist Shrinivas Ghanekar from Kalyan.
Yogesh Dalvi, another resident from Kalyan who works in Thane and commutes on his bike says that the adjacent bridge is quite small to accommodate both heavy and light vehicles. "KDMC should have pre-planned for the future before building the Tisai bridge which is also two lane. Now there will be traffic jams due to their lack of foresightedness," he says.
Even Jay Nair, a resident of Aadharwadi who works in Mahape, Vashi wonders how much more traffic he should be prepared to handle once the bridge shuts. "I travel by car or by air-conditioned bus to Mhape from Kalyan. It takes me two and a half hours during peak hours," says Nair. On August 2, he was stuck in traffic jam for 1.5 hours near Metro mall junction circle, just before the bridge. "I spend four hours to commute to office. Once this bridge shuts, I do not know how much more time I will take," he adds.
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