BMC has realised that there were some technical complications at Vidyavihar.
The Brihnamumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Central Railway (CR) have dropped the idea of constructing a cable-stayed bridge to connect the east and west sides of Vidyavihar station as the height of the bridge and the supporting pillars are falling beyond the height restrictions. According to officials, airspace above the station comes in the flight path of aircraft descending towards Mumbai airport, and as such, having a structure at a height of 24 metres would have been an infringement.
The cable-stayed bridge plan was first thought up by engineers of the railways and BMC after they realised that there were some technical complications at Vidyavihar. The station has a total of 11 sets of tracks and the distance between the first set — the slow line that runs along platform number 1 — and the 11th set is a good 200 metres.
While the first four of these tracks are suburban lines, the other two are the 5th and 6th line that are used by long distance trains going in and coming out of Kurla Terminus. There are some other tracks that form the yard of Kurla Terminus and a sole line that takes electric locomotives into the Loco Shed situated between on the eastern fringe between Vidyavihar and Kurla Terminus.
The railways was clear that having too many pillars in this 200-metre stretch was not advisable as slewing of tracks to make way for these pillars would be an operational nightmare. "Making a conventional bridge with a lot of supporting pillars is not possibly because of the multiplicity of tracks none of which can be touched as it would affect long-distance trains coming and going into Kurla Terminus," said a railway official.
The bridge is essential as the areas on either side of Vidyavihar are growing rapidly. The east of the station merges into the rapidly growing urban landscape of Tilaknagar while the western part is in close proximity to LBS Road and several business parks, malls and plush residential colonies have come up. The Station Road in the east and the Kirol Road in the west are wide at 60-feet and can comfortably allow an elevated road to come up, it is the tracks at Vidyavihar that is causing a problem.
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