Mumbai Barfiwala Flyover Reopens After Seven Years
Andheri’s C D Barfiwala flyover is now shadowed by fresh concerns of worsening traffic congestion.
Scheduled to reopen on May 15 after a near seven-year delay, the flyover’s westward exit towards Juhu is already choked due to ongoing excavation works for the new JVPD flyover—throwing a spanner in the city’s infrastructure planning. The civic body’s ambitious flyover network—intended to reduce commute times and decongest arterial roads—has instead revealed a lack of synchronisation in execution. While the Barfiwala flyover has finally been realigned with the newly rebuilt Gokhale bridge, a major gap looms ahead—literally and logistically. A deep construction pit for the 1.6-kilometre JVPD flyover has left barely a single-lane passage between the flyover’s end and the start of the work zone. This forces westbound motorists to squeeze into a narrow service road, sharply turning left at a 90-degree angle to head towards Juhu.
Officials argue the JVPD flyover project was pre-planned and that adequate exit space exists. However, traffic experts and local associations have flagged that this critical juncture, already burdened by merging traffic from below the flyover, is set to become a daily nightmare for commuters. The area is expected to witness further gridlock as vehicles from the newly reopened Barfiwala-Gokhale connector feed into an already overwhelmed corridor. The situation underscores a systemic issue that has plagued Mumbai’s urban mobility projects—piecemeal execution without a holistic, phased approach. The JVPD flyover, which began construction in October 2024 and is expected to take three years to complete, was designed to seamlessly connect the Western Express Highway to the Juhu-Vile Parle Development area and eventually integrate into the upcoming northern extension of the coastal road. Yet, its onset has immediately nullified the expected relief that the Barfiwala-Gokhale realignment was meant to offer.
The reconstruction journey of the Gokhale bridge itself has been long and tragic. A collapse in July 2018, which killed two and injured three others, led to the bridge’s eventual closure in November 2022 due to poor structural health. Consequently, the Barfiwala flyover—linked directly to the damaged Gokhale structure—was also shut. Despite partial reopening in February 2024 and a phase-wise strategy under expert oversight from reputed institutes, delays in final alignment meant Barfiwala remained off-limits until realignment began in earnest in April 2024. By July 2024, the east-west arm of Barfiwala flyover was partially operational for light vehicles. However, the full reopening next month is expected to test the mettle of the city’s transport resilience, especially as the ongoing JVPD flyover excavation continues to choke an already-constrained corridor.
Residents and urban planners alike have raised serious doubts over whether the new infrastructure is genuinely solving problems or merely shifting them from one end to another. A local mobility expert warned that unless the pinch point at the Barfiwala-JVPD junction is addressed with urgent interim solutions—such as widened temporary service lanes or better traffic dispersal management—there’s a high risk that commuters will revert to longer, congested routes like S V Road. This would undermine the very objective of the east-west connectivity plan, rendering the crores spent on expedited bridge work less effective.
For a city already grappling with extreme vehicular density, rising emissions, and compromised pedestrian safety, the development also raises questions about the sustainability of infrastructure investments that do not factor in adaptive phasing or interim impact assessments. Urban infrastructure, when not implemented in sync, not only disrupts traffic but also impedes progress towards climate-conscious city building. With the coastal road and metro systems forming part of Mumbai’s long-term mobility plan, the integration—or lack thereof—of ongoing road projects like Barfiwala and JVPD flyovers must be critically evaluated. These corridors should ideally feed into a multimodal, green urban transport grid. Instead, the disjointed rollout is straining neighbourhoods and pushing traffic into chokepoints rather than easing flows.
As things stand, Mumbai’s commuters are likely to face continued hardship until the JVPD flyover is completed in 2027. While civic officials maintain that current traffic flow is manageable, on-ground realities suggest otherwise. Unless immediate, interim measures are adopted to ensure smoother transitions and avoid sudden bends, bottlenecks, and backlogs, the city may once again find itself investing in speed but delivering standstill. For now, as the city celebrates the reopening of the Barfiwala flyover, commuters are bracing not for relief—but for more detours, tighter turns, and traffic snarls ahead.
Mumbai Barfiwala Flyover Reopens After Seven Years
