Mumbai-Pune Expressway Big Update: Expressway to get additional lanes, Fadnavis government to spend Rs…, MSRDC says…

Mumbai: The Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government is planning to add four new lanes to the six-lane Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Known as the Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway, the road promises to ease vehicular congestion and cater to increasing traffic. According to a Hindustan Times report quoting sources, four lanes of the 95-kilometer expressway will cost approximately Rs 14,260 crore.

The report further adds that the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is in the process of submitting a proposal in this regard to the state government. “If tendering formalities are conducted as planned once the government clears the proposal, four new lanes will be added to the expressway by 2030,” the official tells Hindustan Times.

Here are some of the key details:

• The Mumbai Pune Expressway was inaugurated on April 1, 2002
• The inter-city expressway currently has six lanes, three in each direction.
• Daily traffic on the expressway ranges between 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles
• The traffic surges during weekends and public holidays, leading to serpentine jams.
• The 190-year old Amrutanjan bridge along the expressway was demolished to ease congestion in 2002.
• But motorists still complained of inordinate delays, especially along the stretch where it converges with the Old Mumbai-Pune Highway, or National Highway-4.
• This stretch, from Adoshi tunnel to Khandala exit, has six lanes.
• The stretch caters to traffic from 10 lanes – six lanes of the expressway and four lanes of the Old Mumbai-Pune highway.

“We need to upgrade the expressway not only due to increasing traffic load but also because completion of the missing link project will add further traffic,” the MSRDC official quoted earlier said.