150 year old British era Carnac Bridge to be demolished in Mumbai: Traffic diversions announced

Mumbai, Aug 22: The 150 year old British era Carnac bridge will be demolished with the traffic police granting a no-objection certificate to the Railways. One of the main pre-condition is that the bridge shall be re-opened by June 2024.

The bridge is located between CSMT and Masjid Bunder station and passes over Central Railway tracks. The closure of the bridge would mean that vehicles have to enter DN Road via General Post Office by a taking a long detour via P D'Mello Road.

The no-objection was issued on August 19 to the BMC's chief engineer (bridges) by the traffic police inspector (planning) Arvind Chandanshive.

The NOC from the traffic police has been issued subject to fulfilment of 25 conditions laid down in the letter issued to BMC. Although most conditions are of a routine nature, we have nevertheless requested a joint meeting with BMC and traffic police as some of these conditions appear to be stringent," a Central Railway official said.

He said that joint discussions could help in paving out some issues which would pave the way for the demolition of this dilapidated structure that poses danger to safe train operations.

Among the conditions are the deployment of heavy load crane 24X7 to help clear broken down vehicles swiftly, deployment of 70 traffic wardens. The traffic department also has to said that the demolition should take place by November and the reconstruction by June 20 2024. They have also asked for 100 barricades, 100 blinkers, 50 reflector jackets, 50 batons, 50 boards displaying traffic diversion signs.

The bridge had been kept off limits for heavy vehicles in August 2014. In November 2018 it was decided that the Carnac bridge would be closed for traffic following an inspection by the Central Railway, IIT Bombay and BMC. IT was found that the structure above the tracks would have to be razed. While it was decided to demolish the bridge, a second opinion was also sought as the Hancock Bridge has not yet been reconstructed as yet.