Santacruz-Chembur Link Road fails first peak-hour traffic test.

The Santacruz-Chembur Link Road (SCLR), which opened for traffic recently after being under construction for more than a decade, proved inadequate to cater to peak-hour traffic recently with the Kurla-Kalina stretch turning into a major bottleneck.

Traffic police officials said the traffic volume on the stretch was 20 times more than what it used to be before the SCLR was opened.

Authorities, however, said, it was still early days and the traffic would take about a couple of weeks to stabilise on this road.

UPS Madan, metropolitan commissioner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, said, “There will be teething troubles because certain work on parts of the road have to be completed by other agencies. There were additional problems today as it was the first full working day after the link road was opened, so many people wanted to use it. That combined with the peak hour traffic and the preparations for the political rally at Bandra Kurla Complex must have added to the congestion.”

An MMRDA official requesting anonymity said that when the link road was planned, it was expected to be utilised by about 30,000 to 40,000 vehicles a day.


THE INDIAN EXPRESS