Spanning a new era: bridge to tomorrow’s Mumbai

Stray lapwings and gulls flap through the humid air as the tide rises and the mudflats slowly disappear near the Rubber Jetty in a decrepit corner of Mumbai known as Eastern Sewri. There’s no one around but a few ragged boys. On a rare, clear day you can glimpse the high rises of Navi Mumbai, the city that can give India’s commercial capital the space and opportunity to reinvent itself into a truly global megapolis.

There’s one problem. It takes the average commuter two hours to reach Navi Mumbai over rutted roads which, in some stretches, are little more than paths of mud.

That’s why the state government hopes that within a few months, gigantic pillars will begin to rise from the mudflats. The pillars will be the foundation of a 21.75km six-lane bridge—India’s longest—across the sea.

This is Mumbai’s long-awaited link to Nhava across the eastern bay in Navi Mumbai and beyond to the multibillion dollar sprawl of condominiums and industries planned across the eastern seaboard.

In Shanghai, the city Mumbai wishes to be, the sturdy 30km Dong Hai Bridge is the mirror of Mumbai’s Trans-Harbour Link (or just Harbour Bridge as some people call it). The people who created the S-shaped concrete structure don’t consider a bridge as a mere connecting link.