Gokhale Bridge Barfiwala flyover connection: July 1 opening target dependent on load test results, says BMC

On June 19, the civic body had announced that vehicular movement between the Gopal Krishna Gokhale Bridge and CD Barfiwala Flyover in Mumbai’s Andheri will start from July 1. However, on Sunday, senior civic officials maintained that the decision to open the structures to traffic will be determined on the basis of the outcome of the load bearing test, which was conducted by the VJTI on Sunday night. “The load test was scheduled and the result is expected to come late on Sunday. Upon receiving it, the decision to open the bridge will be taken on the basis of this result,” said a senior BMC official.

While the VJTI –- conducted the technical tests to check the load bearing capacity of the bridge on Sunday, the civic body is racing against time to complete the final pending works on the bridge.

“We have concluded all the structural and physical work on the bridge alignment and the final preparation is currently underway. Currently, the miscellaneous works such as lane marking, painting, height barriers, cleaning etc, are being worked upon,” a senior official told The Indian Express.

It was in April, this year, that the work on the alignment of the two structures commenced, with civic officials stating that hydraulic jacks were used to lift two spans of girders that were required for merging the alignment of the two super structures. The spans were lifted by 1,397 mm and 650 mm each. Besides this, the BMC has also installed six new bearings in the structure.

The civic works on fixing the alignment continued through the monsoon season, when typically all infrastructural work is stalled in the city. The BMC authorities had also written a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI’s) office seeking approval for starting the civil works at the time, when code of conduct for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections were imposed, so that the work on merging the two bridges could begin by April and be finished by June 30.

Constructed in 2008, the CD Barfiwala flyover would originate from Juhu and connect with the north-south arms of the old Gokhale bridge, which had been demolished in 2022, making way for a new bridge in its place. While the new Gokhale bridge was partially opened to traffic on February 26, the BMC constructed the new structure at an elevated height of six metres, in light of the railway guidelines, leading to misalignment of its arms with the Barfiwala flyover. In a bid to conjoin the arms, the civic body took up the work on alignment early in April at a cost of Rs 8 crore.