The closure of the British-era Sion road over-bridge (ROB) has been postponed for now. According to a TOI report, member of Parliament Rahul Shewale asked the authorities to take a call after taking locals into confidence.Shewale held a meeting with BMC, CR and traffic department officials at his office where a decision was taken to postpone closure of the bridge.
The bridge is being demolished and its length widened to create space for laying fifth and sixth railway lines between Parel and Kurla.After demolition, the span of the bridge will be increased from the existing 30mt to 49mt but the width of the bridge will remain the same at 29mt.At Sion station, the lines are to be laid to the west of the existing tracks. The space on which the tracks are proposed is occupied by pillars of the bridge.
The fifth and sixth Central Railway lines will help segregate mail/express and suburban train traffic and help run more suburban services on existing fast corridors. They currently lie between LTT and Kalyan; the plan is to extend them up to CSMT in two phases.The British-era bridge's closure is expected to lead to congestion on other east-west connectors - like for isntance Santacruz-Chembur Link Road - that connect Eastern Express Highway to LBS Road and lead to Dharavi. Reconstruction could take around 30 months once the structure is pulled down, according to officials.