The Vashi Bridge, also known as Thane Creek Bridge or the Second Thane Creek Bridge, is a road

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

across

Thane Creek Thane Creek, previously Thana Creek, is an estuary of the Arabian Sea and one of the two main distributaries of the Ulhas River, in Konkan division of Maharashtra, India. The Ulhas splits at the northeast corner of Salsette island into its ...

, which connects the city of

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

to the Indian mainland at

Navi Mumbai Navi Mumbai (; also known as New Bombay, its official name until 1995) is a large city next to Mumbai, located in the Konkan division of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, on the mainland of India. Navi Mumbai is situated in Thane distr ...

. Opened in 1997, the bridge links the suburb of Mankhurd in Mumbai with

Vashi Vashi is a residential and commercial node in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, across the Thane Creek of the Arabian Sea on the outskirts of city of Mumbai. Vashi is named after the largest village present in Vashi Node. Overview Vashi is well-c ...

in Navi Mumbai, the satellite city of Mumbai. It is one of four entry points into Mumbai (the other three being the

Airoli Bridge The Airoli Bridge is a bridge in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region of India. It was constructed to establish a direct road link between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Structure Afcons Infrastructure, a subsidiary of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, con ...

upstream across Thane Creek, Mulund, and

Dahisar Dahisar (Marathi pronunciation: ̪əɦisəɾ is the northernmost suburb (and railway station) of Mumbai. (Not to be confused with Dahisar Mori in Navi Mumbai). It is the last local railway station in Mumbai while travelling towards Dahanu Roa ...

), and handles traffic directed towards the region to the south and east of Mumbai. The bridge replaces the first Thane Creek Bridge, built in 1973, which still stands to the north of the current bridge, but is closed to traffic. A third bridge is currently under construction and is expected to open in August 2024. There is also a

railway bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somet ...

to the south of both road bridges.

History

First bridge

In 1959, a study group for Greater Bombay, headed by S.G. Barve, proposed constructing a rail-cum-road bridge over the Thane Creek in order to expand industrial development areas and accommodate the.city's growing population. In the 1960s, civil engineer Adi Kanga and others proposed building Navi Mumbai to help decongest Mumbai. The first bridge, conceived by Adi Kanga, was opened in 1973. The two-lane road bridge named Thane Creek Bridge 1 (TCB-1) is long. The bottom side of the prestressed girders of some spans developed corrosion cracks within two years of the bridge opening to traffic.This led to a series of extensive repairs including external prestressing. The railway bridge was opened on 9 May 1992. The first bridge is currently closed to traffic.

Second bridge

The Thane Creek Bridge 2 (TCB-2) was proposed in 1987 to replace the first bridge. The bridge was built by the U.P. State Bridge Corporation and opened to traffic in 1995. It is a

box girder bridge A box girder bridge, or box section bridge, is a bridge in which the main beam (structure), beams comprise girders in the shape of a hollow box. The box girder normally comprises prestressed concrete, structural steel, or a composite ma ...

, carrying a 6-lane dual carriageway, with a length of . It has several unique features in its construction and design, with emphasis on durability and a formal QA/QC programme. Proof Consultants were appointed to oversee each aspect of planning, design and construction. Open foundations were taken into the bedrock with foundation concrete being laid in the dry, with the sea water being pumped out using submersible pumps. The piers in the intertidal zone were protected by epoxy coal tar paint painted on thick m.s. plate which was considered as a lost shuttering. The superstructure was a P. S. C.

box girder A box girder or tubular girder (or box beam) is a girder that forms an enclosed tube with multiple walls, as opposed to an i-beam, - or H-beam. Originally constructed of wrought iron joined by riveting, they are now made of rolled steel, rolled ...

, one for each carriageway, constructed using balanced cantilever cast-in-situ segments. It was constructed by U. P. State Bridge Corporation Ltd., and won the most outstanding concrete structure award.
NRS AS
a manufacturer specializing in comprehensive bridge construction equipment, provided the U.P. State Bridge Corporation Ltd. with a total of 12 pairs of 'BRIDGEBUILDER' FORMTRAVELER (BB FT) equipment specially designed for Free Cantilever Construction. These supplied BBFT units belonged to the 'Type II-A12-51' category, boasting impressive specifications: * Load Capacity (Tons): 156 * Maximum Road Width (meters): 3.35 * Maximum Box Width (meters): 7.5 * Maximum Segment Length (meters): 5

Third bridge

The Thane Creek Bridge 3 (TCB-3) was proposed in 2012. It will consist of two separate 3-lane bridges constructed on either side of TCB-2. The third bridge will have a main span and of approach roads. The project will be executed by the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) and the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), with MSRDC being the nodal agency.

Larsen and Toubro Larsen & Toubro Limited, abbreviated as L&T, is an Indian multinational conglomerate, with interests in industrial technology, heavy industry, engineering, construction, manufacturing, power, information technology, defence and financial ser ...

was awarded the contract to build TCB-3 in September 2018. Work was scheduled to begin in September 2018, however, it was delayed by permissions required to cut down an estimated 430 mangroves across . The

Bombay High Court The High Court of Bombay is the High courts of India, high court of the States and union territories of India, states of Maharashtra and Goa in India, and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. It is seated primarily ...

granted permission for construction in January 2020. Works were also delayed by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Construction began on 29 October 2020. Around 15% of the total project work had been completed by April 2022, and 33% by November 2022. Around 51% of the work had been completed by June 2023. The bridge is expected to open in August 2024.

Bridge locations

The old bridge lies just to the north of the present Vashi Bridge, and the

further south (labelled "Mankhurd Vashi Railway Bridge"), can be seen on the map. The

is further upstream across Thane Creek, while the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link is further south.

References