MUMBAI: City traffic is in for an even tighter squeeze over the next couple of years as the BMC plans to reconstruct 14 damaged bridges.Officials from the BMC bridges department said one of the structures, a foot over-bridge (FOB) at Yellow Gate in Masjid had already been demolished.The 14 structures, five of which are foot over-bridges, were among 18 that were listed as being beyond repair in a recent civic audit of 296 bridges.The audit also found that 61 bridges needed major repairs and 107 bridges, minor repairs. Officials said the tendering process was on for structural repairs to 15 bridges.On July 3, the pedestrian portion of the Gokhale bridge over the railway tracks in Andheri collapsed, a tragedy that claimed two lives. The bridge was subsequently closed for repairs, resulting in traffic chaos in the area.After the Gokhale bridge crash, civic representatives had asked for the audit report of the bridges to be presented without delay.From July 23, the Delisle bridge in Lower Parel was also closed over safety concerns, causing traffic mayhem in the vicinity.A senior civic official from the bridges department said the BMC wanted to start work on priority on the 14 road bridges and FOBs that were beyond repair. While no concrete time-frame was given, the official said the works might take up to two years to complete."We have accelerated the works to ensure that reconstruction of the 14 bridges takes place well in time," the official said. "Besides, structural repairs for bridges in H and K wards, which includes parts of Andheri, Jogeshwari, Bandra and Santcruz, is already in progress."Of the 18 bridges originally marked for demolition and reconstruction in the audit report, only 14 will be taken up by the BMC as an internal inspection that followed the audit found the remaining four structures were not the responsibility of the municipal corporation.The BMC internal inspection found that the four non-BMC bridges were on railways, MMRDA and private layouts.These four bridges are the vehicular bridge on Hans Bhugra Marg pipeline in Vakola, Santacruz, under the MMRDA, the bridge at Ramnagar Chowk in Kandivli (west), the FOB at Tilak Nagar station under the railways, and the bridge at Chirag Nagar in the eastern suburbs, which falls in a private layout.The BMC had undertaken an audit of bridges in the city following the 2016 Mahad bridge collapse on the Savitri river. Conducted at a cost of Rs 2 crore, the audit began around a year ago and the report categorised bridges into three categories: those in good condition, those that require minor repairs or major repairs, and those that require demolition and reconstruction.

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