Ghodbunder Road braces for a month-long squeeze as Thane-Borivali tunnelling ramps up

Thane traffic police have announced a month-long traffic diversion at Kasarvadavali on Ghodbunder Road to facilitate construction of MMRDA's Thane-Borivali twin tunnel. The change lands in peak monsoon on one of the region's most congested corridors, and commuters between Thane's Ghodbunder belt and the western suburbs should expect slower runs through July.

The project it serves is the biggest road shortcut under construction in the MMR: twin tubes of roughly 10.25 km each beneath Sanjay Gandhi National Park, connecting Borivali on the Western Express Highway with Ghodbunder Road in Thane. The first tunnel boring machine, Nayak, was launched by the chief minister in April and excavation is underway from the Thane side.

The payoff, when it comes, is a Borivali-Thane road trip of roughly 15-20 minutes against an hour or more today around the national park, removing much of the through-traffic that clogs Ghodbunder Road. That rewires the geography for households weighing Thane against the western suburbs, and for the residential belts on either portal, from Kasarvadavali and Ovala to Borivali East.

Near term, though, the corridor absorbs the construction load. Buyers touring Ghodbunder-belt projects this monsoon should read the traffic as a work-in-progress cost of an upgrade, and track it alongside Metro Line 4's parallel progress on the same road.