Biz, students, commuters suffer as Sion ROB’s closure snaps crucial connectivity

Mumbai: It's 2pm. Technically, Suresh Shetty's New Madras Lunch Home — a linear Udipi restaurant-cum-bar serving up chicken ghee roasts and fish thalis near Sion station — should be brimming at this lucrative hour. But, like the two draught beer glasses on a table here at the moment, the eatery is only half full. "Business is down by 50 per cent," frowns a tall server while Shetty confesses from behind the cash counter that their neer dosas now get delivered cold and soggy.
Ever since the British-era Sion Railway Over Bridge (ROB) connecting Sion West to Sion East was closed to traffic for two years starting August 1, the last mile — a 40-metre-long concrete connective tissue taping Sion to Dharavi, Bandra and LBS Road — has become long, ‘ROBbing' thousands across the city of time, money, energy and patience.
Delivery men, rickshaw drivers, BEST bus drivers, restaurant owners, shopkeepers, residents, schoolchildren, their parents, senior citizens, businessmen heading to the international airport, other commuters spanning Vashi to Chembur — the range of Mumbaikars affected by the closure of this critical connector is staggering.
"There's no choice," says Dharavi-resident Santosh Savle, who has just sent off Siddhi, his Senior KG daughter, through the manned gap in the gate of Our Lady of Good Counsel School saying "hushar ban" (become smart). To reach the school, the 90-feet road resident, like many other parents from Dharavi and Kurla, must now negotiate a narrow 40-metre vendor-lined path adjoining Sion station on foot twice a day.
"Earlier, I would bring my bike up to the gate. It would take me five minutes from my place," says Savle. Nearby, Shilpa Thombre nudges her four-year-old Rajvi towards the school gate. Without losing her smile, she says she has to spend Rs 23 — a surplus of Rs 13 — on the rickshaw ride from Kurla daily. "The bus we used to take doesn't stop near the gate anymore," says Thombre.
Over 200 BEST buses had to alter their routes after the authorities closed the century-old Sion bridge to traffic. Central Railway plans to demolish the bridge in a few months to create a 51-metre-long bridge that would accommodate the new fifth and sixth railway lines. So, traffic now plies through three alternative routes: Sulochana Shetty Marg near Lokmanya Tilak Hospital, Sion; Chunabhatti to BKC Connector; and Chembur-Santacruz Link Road.
"It's a mess," says 65-year-old Sion (east) resident K S Venkatraman, tired of taking a U-turn at Chembur each time he has to go to BKC — a prospect that involves navigating what seem like round-the-clock jam. Often, when he has to go to Kurla LBS for work, Venkatraman, a businessman, ditches his car, walks up to Sion station and hails a rickshaw from the east end as "it is faster".
"On normal days, Sion to BKC via the Everard flyover takes around 20 minutes, but now with the closure of Sion bridge, it takes nearly an hour. The entire traffic is diverted to Everard Nagar flyover," says a senior banker who works in BKC. "Also, with no traffic cops to regulate the route from Sion hospital to Dharavi and Chembur to BKC, people and cars cut lanes; the travel time to the airport has doubled," he says.
As per reports, two and three-wheelers are not allowed on the Chunabhatti connector. "We are not even allowed to use the Sion Hospital route. The cops stop us at the signal," says auto driver Abdul Razzaq, who used to make Rs 900 a day. "Now I barely make Rs 500," he says.
The continuously passing Volvo buses that formed the default workplace livestream for Banarasi Dughdhalay's Sandeep Yadav has stopped for over a month now. Turning back a page of the calendar in his dairy, Yadav says he has lost 30 to 40 per cent revenue since August 1, though he seems to feel more for the row of tours and travels agents further down the road who are all sitting morosely behind their counters, checking their phones. "We have lost 90 per cent of our customers," says Mitesh Solanki of Purple Tours and Travels, whose clients have trickled down from around 50 a day to five.
With the luxury buses vanished, the walk-ins at Mani's Lunch Home across the road, eating into 25 per cent of the eatery's revenue. The queue outside the South Indian restaurant this mid-week lunch hour is mostly made up of local silvers. "Those who like our food find a way but spontaneous customers have reduced in number," says co-owner Venkatraman Narayanan, whose online orders come chiefly from offices in BKC, Matunga Road and Parel.
"The congestion at 60 feet road means that food that used to reach in 15 minutes takes at least half an hour to be delivered. At least a temporary steel bridge over the road should have been created for pedestrians and light vehicles while the work is on," says Narayanan, referring to the cordoned-off grey space in which a giraffe-like tall white JCB now stands still next to a pile of cement rubble.
"Are they making a maidan for people to sit and while away their time?" asks Dharavi-resident Lata Kadam, hinting at the fact that the work in progress has not progressed in 35 days. According to reports, the demolition work only happens at night when the railway is closed or during megablock times on Sundays.
"The only remedy is to expedite the process," says Shetty. "If a 25-storey highrise can be erected in two years and a temporary bridge can be created within two months in Wayanad..." says Shetty, "surely the 40-metre Sion bridge can be rebuilt in nine months?"