The old road passing through Mumbra was closed for heavy traffic couple of times following number of grave road accidents. It was closed since October 24, 2004 after a fatal accident. On October 23, 2004, a container truck which missed a pothole, crashed into an auto, killing two people to death. Three people had died in two separate incidents on April 10, 2000. In yet another grave accident in 1995, three school children were crushed to death by an Indian Air Force truck. This had led to a violent protest and the police had registered cases of rioting against 500 people and 125 were arrested.

However, with the opening of the new bypass — which cuts through the hills of Mumbra instead of passing through the city — residents can not only breathe free, it has also provided much relief to the harrowing traffic condition resulting in less number of road accidents.

Earlier, road journey on the 4.41 km stretch from Rethibunder on one end of Mumbra to Kausa on the other used to take 45 minutes to one hour. Now, commuters can reach their destination in 10 minutes.

Not only Mumbra, residents of Saket colony situated close to the Thane-Bhiwandi highway, have also benefitted from the new bypass. The only access road of the city was earlier used by heavy vehicles coming from Ahmedabad and going towards JNPT, Panvel and Pune. Now, the traffic is routed from Thane-Bhiwandi highway to Mumbra bypass. “We can now keep our windows open which earlier used to remain perpetually shut because of heavy traffic and pollution. Now, the traffic has reduced considerabally,” said GP Paratkar, a resident of Saket colony and principal of Kelkar College.

Earlier, the traffic police personnel manning the Shivaji Chowk at Kalwa — the junction leading to Saket colony and bottleneck at the railway subway near Chhatrapati Shivaji Hospital at Kalwa — underwent a harrowing task. “It is much better now. Congestion at Saket, Shivaji Chowk and the railway subway has drastically reduced after heavy vehicles have been diverted to the Mumbra bypass road,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic), Dyaneshwar Chavan. He, however, added that their is a scope of improvement on the new bypass in the area of street lights. Also, their is a need to provide crash barriers to prevent vehicles tumbling down the hill and road dividers without any breach.

“Diversion has resulted in less traffic on the Thane-Belapur road. The journey from Kalwa to JNPT, which earlier took 2 hours, now takes forty-five minutes less,” said Suresh Duduskar (54), a resident of Kalwa. He, however, prefers the Thane-Belapur route over the bypass road as it has fewer gates at the toll naka which sometimes results in long queues.