Soon, commuters and pedestrians will be able to walk from Vakola police station in Santa Cruz (east) to Linking Road in Santa Cruz (west) without even buying a platform ticket to cross the railway tracks. This will be made
possible by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority that has plans to connect the two extreme ends and make it into one of the longest skywalks in the city.
The distance between Vakola police station and Linking Road is nearly 2.5 km. Clubbing both the skywalks including the public rail overbridge, the Santa Cruz skywalk would become one of the longest skywalks constructed by the MMRDA.
“We have plans to extend the skywalks on both the eastern and western side of Santa Cruz,” said Mr Ratnakar Gaikwad, metropolitan commissioner of the MMRDA.
Currently, the MMRDA has constructed two skywalks, one on either side of the Santa Cruz railway station. The one in the east connects the station to the Western Express Highway.
According to the MMRDA’s plans, the arm that terminates at the Highway will be extended till below the Vakola Flyover.
On the other side, the skywalk passes from the Station Road and ends at SV Road. Here, the skywalk will pass Saraswati Road to end at Linking Road.
“We will invite bids for the work for extending these two skywalks soon,” added the metropolitan commissioner.
The MMRDA is even contemplating extending other skywalks in the
city, if possible. As of
now, the MMRDA has plans to construct 34 skywalks out of the initial 50 that were planned for Mumbai, after 16 of them were dropped as per the chief minister’s instructions.