Indian Expressways
An expressway is a controlled-access highway; it is a highway that controls entrances to it and exits from it by incorporating the design of the slip roads for entry and exit into the design of the highway itself.[1] Access-control should not be confused with collection of toll. An expressway may be free to use and may not collect toll at all. Expressways are the highest class of roads in the Indian Road Network. These are six or eight lane highways with controlled-access. India has approximately 600 km expressways.
National Highway system of India consists of approximately 10,000 km (6,200 mi) of four-laned highways that collect toll from users but do not have control of access and cannot be called expressways. Currently, a massive project is underway to expand the highway network and the Government of India plans to add an additional 18,637 km (11,580 mi) of expressways to the network by the year 2022.[2] These roads will be access-controlled roads and will feature between four and six lanes with 3,530 km (2,190 mi) km to come up in the next three years (starting when?). The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is already in the process of preparing a draft for creation of a National Expressways Authority of India (NEAI) on the lines of NHAI.[3]
Expressways
Existing
This list includes roads without access-control. Such a road cannot be called "expressway" though the name of the road may include the word "expressway" and may be a misnomer. Such a road should be excluded from this list. Eastern and Western Express Highways in Mumbai are two examples of such roads. Ambala-Chandigarh NH is another such example as it does not have access control for entry and exit at predetermined points. As stated above, access-control is different from collection of toll.
- Mumbai Pune Expressway The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is India's first six-lane, concrete, high-speed, tolled, access-controlled, 93 km (58 mi) long expressway. It connects Mumbai, the commercial capital of India, to the neighbouring educational and information technology-oriented city of Pune. With its smoothly paved concrete construction, this highway is unlike most other roads in India. This expressway offers a scenic drive between Mumbai and Pune and reduced the travel time between these two commercially important cities from 4–5 hours on the old NH4 to 2–3 hours.
- Highway features
- 6-lane concrete highway with 7m-wide divider. An extra lane provided on each side as a hard shoulder.
- Separate tunnels for traffic in each direction.
- Complete fencing to avoid humans and animals crossing the expressway.
- No two-wheelers, three-wheelers or tractor vehicles allowed.
- Provision of petrol pumps, motels, workshops, toilets, emergency phones, first aid, breakdown vans, etc.
- Proposed planting of 80,000 trees along the Expressway.
- Ahmedabad Vadodara Expressway is also known as National Expressway 1 (India). It was originally planned during the 1970s, but was delayed for decades due to land-usage and political issues. These issues were resolved in the 1990s, and the expressway opened in 2004. The expressway cuts the journey between the two cities to less than 1 hour. This expressway was India's first four-lane expressway project, and includes minor bridges and canal crossings, interchanges at Nadiad and Anand, cross-drainage works, rest areas, and related structures, for a length of 95 km (59 mi).[4][5]
- Delhi Gurgaon Expressway - This eight-lane expressway opened in January 2008 and is part of Golden Quadrilateral highway project. It is 28 km (17 mi) long and was expected to reduce travel time between Gurgaon and Delhi from upwards of 60 minutes to approximately 20 minutes. However, long queues of vehicles at toll plaza have reduced the efficacy of the expressway. Some special features of this expressway are SOS telephones every 1.5 km, CCTV surviliance and a 32-lane toll plaza at the Delhi-Haryana border. The expressway starts near the domestic terminal of the airport at Palam, has an exit for the international airport and ends beyond Gurgaon where it joins the six-lane NH8 after the toll plaza.
- Noida Greater Noida Expressway connects Noida, a residential and industrial suburb of Delhi to Greater Noida, a still newer suburb. The total length of the expressway is 24.53 km (15.24 mi). It is under expansion to Taj Economic Zone, International Airport and Aviation Hub proposed to be constructed along the Taj Expressway. The objectives of the proposed expressway are as follows:
- Highway features
- To provide a fast moving corridor to minimize the travel time
- To connect the main town ships / commercial centers on the Eastern site of river Yamuna
- To ensure development of adjoining area
- To relieve pressure on NH2 that is already congested and runs through the heart of cities like Faridabad, Ballabhgarh and Palwal.
- Delhi Noida Direct Flyway is an eight-lane, 9.2 km (5.7 mi) km[6] access controlled tolled expressway which connects Delhi with Noida. It was built under a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model. The project included the construction of a flyover at Ashram Chowk. The other major part of the project was the construction of a 552.5 m (1,813 ft) bridge over the Yamuna river. This bridge, which was estimated to cost 408 crore (US$77.5 million).
- Ambala Chandigarh Expressway The four-laning of the 35 km[7] long, high-traffic density corridor of Ambala-Chandigarh section (km 5.735 to km 39.960 km on NH22 and 0 km to 0.871 km on NH21) on BOT basis, is completed in 30 months at a cost of 298 crore (US$56.62 million)[8]
- Durgapur Expressway is 65 km (40 mi) long,[9] linking Dankuni with Memari on Grand Trunk Road, now allows fast communication between Kolkata and Durgapur.
- Kona Expressway is 8 km (5.0 mi) long and serves as cut-offs and provides easier access to Kolkata from NH-2.[9]
- Hyderabad Elevated Expressways - The 11.6 km (7.2 mi)[12] long elevated expressway connects Mehdipatnam in the city to Aramgarh Junction on the National Highway-7 leading to the Hyderabad International Airport at Shamshabad[13]
- Hosur Road Elevated Expressway - is a 9.985 km (6.204 mi) kilometers (6 mi) long elevated, tolled, access controlled expressway in the city of Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The project is a part of the BETL (Bangalore Elevated Tollways Ltd), project as part of the National Highways Development Project and the Elevated Highways Project. It was initiated in early 2006, and was inaugurated on 22 January 2010.[14]
Under construction
- Western Freeway Mumbai is an ambitious project to connect the suburbs of Mumbai with downtown Mumbai. The project envisions the setting up of multiple flyovers over the Arabian Sea. The first phase of the project, known as the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, is complete, and links Bandra in the north with Worli to the south with a cable stayed bridge spanning the Mahim Bay. This development shall relieve the congestion on the Mahim Causeway, which up until now has been the only road connection between the suburbs and the main city of Mumbai on the western sea front. Toll will be Rs.50(one way),Rs.75(two way) for cars and Rs.100 for heavy vehicles.
- Eastern Freeway Mumbai project (EFP) to provide a direct link to the Eastern Express Highway and south Mumbai.[16] The Eastern Freeway will be a 22 km (14 mi) high-speed corridor from Prince of Wales Museum up to Eastern Express Highway at Wadala through 12 km (7.5 mi) of relatively less-congested roads of the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) area.[17] Of this, 9 km (5.6 mi) will be elevated. The expressway will drastically reduce travel time between Colaba in South Mumbai and the eastern suburbs like Ghatkopar and Mulund. Work on this freeway started in January 2008 and is scheduled to complete in five years.[18]
- Kundli Manesar Palwal Expressway(KMP) Delhi Western Peripheral Expressway, also known as the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) expressway, will act as a bypass for vehicles transiting Delhi and relieve Delhi of congestion of heavy night traffic. It takes off from NH1 at Kundli (Haryana), crosses NH1, NH10, NH8 and SH57 and meets NH-2 beyond Palwal. Cloverleaf flyovers are being proposed at places where the expressway crosses national highways. The construction of the six-lane 135.6 km (84.3 mi) long road is progressing at a snail's pace. The construction started in 2007 and was expected to be completed by June 2009 but is not likely to be over before 2012.
- Delhi Eastern Peripheral Expressway It will have two six-lane sections: 49 km (30 mi) long Kundli-Ghaziabad section and 56 km (35 mi) long Ghaziabad—NOIDA-Palwal section. It will take off from NH1 at 36.1 km stone at Kundli (Haryana), cross Yamuna river near Mawikalan and Hindon river near Sharfabad (both in Baghpat district, U.P.), NH-58 near Duhai, NH-24 near Dasna, NH-91 near Beel Akbarpur, again cross Yamuna near Fajjupur Khadar and meet NH-2 beyond Palwal at km 64.33 stone. The construction has not started. No contractor has been finalized.
- Ganga Expressway - This project was announced in 2007 by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. At 1,000 km (620 mi), it will be India's longest expressway. It will link Noida, on Uttar Pradesh's western border with Delhi to Ballia, on Uttar Pradesh's eastern border with Bihar. The expressway will run along the left bank of the Ganges river, in contrast to the Grand Trunk Road which is on the right bank. The expected cost is 40,000 crore (US$7.6 billion). This expressway should reduce the travel time between Delhi and Varanasi to 8 hours. The project is expected to be completed in 2011.[24] Private firms have shown their interest in the Ganga Expressway as twenty companies have placed their bids for this project.[25]
- Suratkal-B.C Road Expressway-The expressway is almost completed and it is built to control Traffic on Nh-17 and Nh-48 on Mangalore city.
- Upper Ganga Canal Expressway The eight-lane 150 km (93 mi)-long[28] Upper Ganga Canal Expressway, popularly known as the Hindon Expressway, will stretch from Noida to Hardwar through Muzaffarnagar and Roorkee.[29]
- Chennai Port - Maduravoyal Expressway The Chennai Port - Maduravoyal Expressway is a proposed 19 kilometers (12 mi) elevated expressway in the city of Chennai, India. The corridor begins at Chennai Port Gate no. 10 and travels along the bank of the Cooum River till it reaches Koyambedu and along the median of NH4 thereon till it reaches Maduravoyal.
NH22 from Chandigarh to Shimla has been widened to four lanes at some stretches. Some portions of it (such as through Kalka town on Haryana-Himachal Pradesh border) have just two lanes with no place for widening. NH22 is a mountain road and even after widening, it cannot have access-control and would not become an expressway.
Planned
NHAI has proposed the following two Expressways in the NHDP VI.
The Uttar Pradesh government is planning five more expressways in the state. The five proposed expressways will have a combined length of around 750 km (470 mi).
The Five Expressways would be
Gallery
References and notes
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