The Gujarat government has approved a major capacity upgrade of the Ahmedabad–Mehsana road corridor, signalling a renewed push to modernise high-traffic urban connectors in the state’s fast-growing northern belt. The proposed expansion will convert the existing four-lane highway into an eight-lane arterial route, reshaping daily mobility patterns between Ahmedabad and key industrial districts further north.Stretching roughly 51 kilometres, the corridor is one of Gujarat’s most heavily used road links, carrying more than one lakh vehicles each day. Persistent congestion, especially at urbanised nodes such as Kalol, has increasingly affected commuter reliability, logistics movement, and regional productivity. Urban planners view the widening as a response not only to traffic volumes but also to structural changes in land use, with residential, industrial, and warehousing clusters intensifying along the route.
According to senior officials familiar with the plan, the project will include continuous service roads on both sides, allowing local traffic, pedestrians, and non-motorised users to move without conflicting with long-distance vehicles. This separation of traffic streams is expected to improve safety outcomes while reducing bottlenecks at junctions and access points. A notable component of the upgrade is a dedicated elevated section through Kalol, designed to divert through-traffic away from city streets. Infrastructure experts say this approach reflects a shift in highway planning acknowledging that simply adding lanes is insufficient without addressing urban intersections where highways double as city roads. Multiple flyovers and underpasses will also be widened or newly built to maintain uninterrupted movement for both regional and neighbourhood traffic.
From an economic perspective, the Ahmedabad Mehsana highway expansion is likely to influence real estate development, freight efficiency, and industrial competitiveness across Mehsana, Patan, and Banaskantha districts. Shorter travel times could strengthen labour mobility and make peripheral industrial zones more viable, easing pressure on Ahmedabad’s saturated employment hubs. However, sustainability specialists caution that large-scale road expansion must be accompanied by careful stormwater management, heat mitigation, and controlled access planning. Wider highways can exacerbate urban heat islands and induce additional traffic unless integrated with public transport, land-use controls, and last-mile connectivity. Officials indicate that environmental safeguards and drainage upgrades will form part of the detailed design phase.
The corridor was last comprehensively widened more than two decades ago, at a time when traffic demand and vehicle ownership were significantly lower. Its latest transformation reflects Gujarat’s broader infrastructure strategy of upgrading existing assets rather than creating entirely new alignments. As construction moves towards tendering, the project’s execution will be closely watched by urban policy observers. Its success may set a template for balancing capacity expansion with people-first design on other high-growth corridors across the state.
