Mumbai Trans-harbor link road

7 min readJan 11, 2024

Also known as ‘Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Trans Harbour Link’ is a 21.8 KM 6-lane elevated road bridge which will connect ‘Mumbai’ with the satellite city ‘Navi Mumbai’. It is the largest SeaLink bridge in India and also 12th largest Sealink bridge in the world. People can travel from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai in just 15 to 20 minutes.

This project was first planned in 1990 by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to decongest the traffic and congestion in South Mumbai.

First attempt to build SeaLink bridge was made in 2004 when Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS)n submitted a proposal to implement the project on a build, own, operate, and transfer (BOOT) basis. However, the IL&FS proposal was sidelined by the Government of Maharashtra, for undisclosed reasons.
Second attempt was made in 2005 when the MSRDC invited bids for the project. A consortium of the Ambani Group, REL and Hyundai E and C quoted a concession period of nine years and 11 months. The consortium after fighting multiple disputes with governments in supreme court eventually won the bid in February 2008. the MSRDC was not sure about viability of the low concession period. The MSRDC felt that the concession periods were “unrealistic” and hence abandoned the project.
Third attempt was made in 2008 where fresh bids for the project were made. However, none of the interested companies submitted bids. Political feud between NCP and INC exacerbated the slowing down of the pace of Mumbai’s development. The project underwent two failed rounds of tendering under the MSRDC and was stuck for nearly two years (between 2009 and 2011), before the state government decided to hand over the mandate to MMRDA. Further disagreements between Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSDRC) again led to stalling the project.
Fourth attempt was made in 2011, The MTHL project was proposed as a public-private-partnership (PPP) model. It received clearence from the CM of maharashtra as well as environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in 2012. In Jan 2013, the GOI sanctioned ₹1,920 crore, which was 20% of the project cost at the time, in viability gap for the MTHL. Under the public private partnership (PPP) basis that the project was proposed to be implemented in the state government would also contribute the same amount as the center, while the remaining 60% would have been borne by the developer who won the bid. However, the consortia shortlisted for the project backed off due to the irregularities in the agreements w.r.t MSDRA.

The project was approved by the GOI in 2015 after switching from public-private-partnership (PPP) to Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) but the construction was started 3 years later in April-2018 after facing hurdles from the forest advisory committee (FAC) and State Forest Department.

The bridge starts at Sewri — a locality in south Mumbai and ends at Chirle — in Navi Mumbai.

The project has sum total of 3 interchanges which are ‘sewri interchange’, ‘shivajinagar interchange’ and ‘chirle interchange’.

How would traffic movement happen in interchanges?

First we will look at the ‘Sewri interchange’ since it is far more complex than other 2 interchange:

From the picture, it can be seen that ‘Sewri interchange’ has traffic movements from 8 directions and it is marked from 1–8:

№ 3 and № 8 are connected to ‘Bombay Port Trust Road’ which lies under ‘Eastern freeway’. №3 traffic movement is for exiting from trans-harbor link road to trust road. №8 traffic movement is entering trans-harbor link road from trust road.

№1, №2, №6 and №7 connects to the ‘Eastern freeway’. №1 traffic movement is exiting from MTHL towards ‘Wadala’ via eastern freeway. №2 traffic movement is exiting from MHTL towards ‘Mazgaon’ via eastern freeway. №6 traffic movement is entering MHTL from ‘Mazgaon’ side. №7 traffic movement is entering MHTL from ‘Wadala’ side.

№4 and №5 traffic movements will be connecting to the Worli-Sewri connector [A proposed project which will connect Sewri to coastal road and existing Bandra-worli sea-link bridge].

The other 2 interchanges are ‘Shivajinagar interchange’ and ‘Chirle interchange’ both of which are located in ‘Navi Mumbai’.

Shivajinagar interchange will connect MTHL to the under-construction Navi Mumbai international airport and Jawaharlal Nehru Port trust.

The ‘Chirle interchange’ will provide links with the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in the future.

Significance of MHTL:

1: Reduces the travel time from South Mumbai to Navi Mumbai:

Presently, the travel time from South Mumbai to travel to Navi Mumbai it will take 3 to 4 hours currently. After the completion of this bridge, it will barely take 20 to 30 minutes. MHTL will bolster connectivity between Navi Mumbai to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport where this further connects to upcoming ‘Sewri-Worli corridor’ and ‘Bandra-Worli SeaLink’ bridge. It will also enhance connectivity between South Mumbai and upcoming Navi Mumbai international airport.

2: Decongesting the over-crowded South-Mumbai:

The building of trans-harbor link road would help in spreading the Mumbai to the sideways. Since South Mumbai is surrounded by water from all 3 sides so it cannot expand southwards, eastwards and westwards. It could only expand northwards, Mumbai expanded northwards to ‘Mumbai sub-urb’, ‘Thane’, ‘Palgar’ and ‘Raigad.’ Building the Trans-Harbour link road would help in expanding the Mumbai metropolis to eastward and decongesting South Mumbai.

This is the illustrative of how it would turn out to be:

The best example of how such de-congestion taking place is construction of Brooklyn bridge in New York metropolis:

Brooklyn bridge is a suspension bridge in New York city connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn [Sub-urbs of NYC]. The construction of this bridge started in 1869 to enhance connectivity between the Manhattan to the then small town of Brooklyn. Before building this bridge, the only way of travelling to Brooklyn was through small-ships or boat or ferry. Manhattan suburb was overcrowded, and transport facilities was strained so-much-so that even the ferry was overwhelmed with the growing traffic, just picture the areas like Dharavi and other slums, that’s how crowded was Manhattan at that time.

The construction of Brooklyn bridge took 14 yrs., and it was opened in 1883. It offered the much-needed connectivity for automobiles and carriages and reduced the travel time to almost 3/4th of the time. The upgraded access between the suburbs helped in expansion of residential areas to Brooklyn i.e People choose to live in Brooklyn and travel to Manhattan via Brooklyn bridge for jobs and employment. On a long term, it led to spreading out or decongregation of the population and hitherto de-crowding Manhattan. Manhattan is still densely populated [Due to presence of Wall-street] but not as much as before.

Just like how suburbs were decongested in New York city w.r.t Brooklyn bridge [and some other bridges that came thereafter], similar thing will happen in ‘South Mumbai’ where it would be decongested and people will start buying properties in Navi Mumbai and then travel to-and-fro to areas of ‘South Mumbai’ and ‘Mumbai suburbs’ which has high job concentration and thereby decentralize the population to Navi Mumbai and many other satellite cities of Mumbai metropolitan region.

Apart from the main significance (above 2 points) there are other benefits too:

Greater economic integration of Mumbai Island with Navi Mumbai and other satellite cities.
Reducing air-pollution which plagued Mumbai this year and improve in environment.

Traffic Projection:

The daily traffic on the link by 2032 is expected to be 103,900 passenger cars
It is projected to increase up to 145,500 passenger car units by 2042
In the opening year, 2023, the traffic flow on MTHL will represent a diversion of 10% of the traffic across the Thane creek which is expected to go up to 16% by 2032.

All-in all this project will help in de-crowding Mumbai, economic growth of satellite cities and decongested travel to-and-fro the main city and satellite cities.