Sion, Vidyavihar and Goregaon: three Mumbai flyovers open to vehicles, and what the CM said about ‘Mumbai in 59 minutes’

Three bridges built by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) opened to vehicles on Thursday, 22 October. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis inaugurated them online from his Varsha residence: rail overbridges at Sion and Vidyavihar stations, plus a GMLR (Goregaon-Mulund Link Road) flyover in Goregaon East. The BMC says all three are meant to make east-west travel easier and relieve congested junctions.

Three bridges, three locations

• Sion rail overbridge: a new bridge in place of the 112-year-old one at Sion station. On the east it meets Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Road and the Eastern Express Highway; on the west it leads to Dharavi, Bandra, BKC and Kurla.
• Vidyavihar rail overbridge: crosses the tracks at Vidyavihar station to link Ramchandra Chemburkar Marg (RC Marg) on the eastern side to Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg (LBS Marg) on the western side.
• GMLR flyover, Goregaon East: near Hotel Ratnagiri junction; it starts at General Arunkumar Vaidya Marg and ends at Santosh Nagar, on the road to Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari (Film City).

Sion bridge in numbers

• Railway span: 54.5 m long and 26 m wide, carried on two semi-through steel girders weighing 496 tonnes
• Cost (BMC figures): Rs 33.51 crore for the railway portion and Rs 31.62 crore for the approach roads
• Approach roads: 65 m towards Dr Ambedkar Road, 110 m towards Dharavi and 97 m towards LBS Marg
• Pedestrian subways on LBS Marg and Sant Rohidas Marg
• The main span is Central Railway's work; the approaches were redone by the BMC's bridges department
• The deadline was February 2027; the BMC says the work finished about four months early

The old bridge was found unsafe in 2019. Its replacement stands without any pillars between the tracks, freeing room for the extra pair of lines (the fifth and sixth) planned between CSMT and Kurla under MUTP-II. Once those lines are in use, more local trains can run, and more often, the Chief Minister said. The rebuild had kept this east-west link shut for about two years.

Vidyavihar bridge: 30 minutes down to 10?

• The BMC estimates the trip between RC Marg and LBS Marg will shrink from roughly half an hour to around 10 minutes. The Free Press Journal reported a peak-hour fall from 40 to 45 minutes to 10 to 15.
• It should take some of the traffic off the Ghatkopar station flyover
• The BMC gives the total length as about 600 m, with a width of 15.5 to 17.5 m; some reports put it at 650 m including the approaches
• Two 99.34 m girders were placed over the tracks on 31 May 2024; service roads, the widening of the Somaiya nullah and the shifting of railway utilities were finished by 30 September 2026
• A link from the bridge leads to the Vidyavihar station footpaths

The GMLR flyover in Goregaon East

• 1.26 km long, with six lanes, three in each direction
• The BMC expects fewer jams at Dindoshi court, at Hotel Ratnagiri junction and at the Walbhat River chowk
• Built with precast concrete segments and curved steel spans
• The wider GMLR project is designed to join the two express highways, Western and Eastern. The BMC says this flyover will ease access to the twin tunnels proposed under Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

What is ‘Mumbai in 59 minutes’?

At the inauguration, Fadnavis said the pace at which infrastructure is being built through the BMC has brought the ‘Mumbai in 59 minutes’ goal within sight. Work is aimed at uninterrupted connections running both north-south and east-west, he said, adding that concrete roads, the coastal road, flyovers and tunnels are not separate projects but parts of one wider transport system. In PTI's report of his remarks, he spoke of “our plan to reach from one part of Mumbai to another in 50 to 60 minutes”.

The projects behind the idea were set out by MMRDA Metropolitan Commissioner Dr Sanjay Mukherjee at a NAREDCO Maharashtra summit in September 2026. According to the Deccan Herald, the main points were:

• One combined grid of roads, tunnels, sea bridges, highways and metro lines, with about 10 major link-road and connectivity projects
• The Eastern Freeway, Atal Setu (MTHL), the Santacruz-Chembur Link Road, Worli connectivity and the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road; the Bandra-Versova Sea Link with onward links towards Dahisar and Balkum
• The Thane-Borivali twin tunnel: two tunnel boring machines are at work, and Mukherjee said the journey would take about 15 minutes once it opens
• An underground corridor linking Mahim-Dharavi, Bandra and BKC is being considered
• A metro network of about 337 km across 14 lines, including four in the CIDCO area; pod taxis are being explored for some routes
• All ongoing MMRDA projects are targeted for completion by December 2028, a year ahead of the December 2029 deadline

In October 2025, speaking at a conference, the Chief Minister said that once all the metro lines are linked, travel anywhere in the city within 59 minutes would be possible, with completion targeted before 2029.

For commuters

• Drivers heading from the Eastern Express Highway or Dr Ambedkar Road to Dharavi, Bandra or BKC can use the east-west route over the Sion bridge again.
• Between RC Marg and LBS Marg in the Ghatkopar-Vidyavihar area, the Vidyavihar bridge is a direct alternative to the Ghatkopar flyover.
• In Goregaon East, vehicles going to Film City Road or Dindoshi can take the flyover instead of passing through Ratnagiri junction.
• The turns and lanes are new, so for the first few days follow the signboards and the traffic police's instructions.
• The time savings are official estimates; actual journey times will depend on the traffic on the day.

Sources: Prahaar (BMC project details, 21 October); Prahaar (inauguration, 22 October); PTI via ThePrint (22 October); PTI via ThePrint (21 October); IANS via Punjab Kesari; Navarashtra; eSakal; Free Press Journal; Swarajya; Deccan Herald (MMRDA roadmap, September 2026); Swarajya (CM's remarks, October 2025)