The Kaipullai
@thekaipullai
The Tale of Two Bridges
Bridges are an important part of many cities. You build them well; they are a lifesaver. Build them badly, and you curse them for years.
Whether you like it or not, bridges are very critical in the complicated maze that is the urban commute system.
Bridges are like Salt, Nobody notices them when they are present. But when they are absent. They cause havoc.
Today, I am going to be talking about two bridges, 5000 kms apart from each other in terms of distance and 10 years in terms of time.
One is a tale of incredible engineering achievement. The other however, is a case of bureaucratic apathy and systemic disorder. And the tale of these two bridges also is somewhere a metaphor for the progress made by the two countries.
The first bridge I am talking about is a Chinese bridge called Sanyuan Bridge.
Built in 1984, this 350 mtr bridge connects the Beijing Airport expressway and some other important places in Beijing. So important is this bridge, that it is used by over 2 lakh vehicles every day, 48 bus routes and carries more than 7 lakh people. That is 25% of the population of New Zealand to put it in perspective.
By 2010, the bridge had begun to show its age. Cement had started falling off, steel was visible, cracks were observed and the bridge was deteriorating faster than the storylines of a Salman Khan movie.
By 2015, the Beijing authorities decided that the Bridge no longer was safe for people and had to be replaced. They estimated that, if they rebuilt the bridge using traditional methods, would take 90 days.
But considering this was in an important intersection, a shut down of 90 days would be catastrophic. Traffic jams giving Silk board an inferiority complex would occur, countless hours will be wasted, and people’s lives would become hell.
So, what did they do?
First, they did a complete study of the old bridge, its construction technique, the size of its girders, beams, spans and all the other civil engineering stuff, down to the last mm.
Then they prefabricated the entire new bridge off site.
Post that, using lasers and satellite navigation, they planned to bring the constructed bridge to the actual site.
Once everything was planned and ready, at 23:00 on November 13 - 2015, the Sanyuan Bridge replacement project commenced.
First the old bridge was the cut into 27 pieces for removal, each weighing anywhere between 75 to 139 tonnes. 2490 cranes worked in tandem to remove these parts, one by one.
The entire thing was done in 7-8 hours.
Then using a custom-made girder carrier, which was 50 mtrs long, had 96 tyres and a capacity of 216 tonnes, they rolled the new prefabricated bridge in place. To put this in perspective, the world’s biggest airplane, the Antonov AN-225, has 24 tyres. This had 3 times that number.
They manoeuvred it slowly, because they had an error margin of 9mm.
After 18 hours, the new bridged was dropped and snapped into place.
And by 11:30 AM on Nov 15th, 2015, the new bridge was thrown open to traffic.
The entire operation was finished in 43 hours.
In 43 hours, they had replaced a critical Beijing bridge, while causing least inconvenience to the people of Beijing and hardly causing any stoppage.
Now we come to another bridge, this time in the city of Mumbai, called the Sion Bridge.
This 400 mtr bridge is one of the few that connects the central and western suburbs of Mumbai.
Built in 1912, like Rahul Dravid, it carried the bulk of Mumbai traffic for a very long time.
Then in 2024, the BMC had a sudden realization. They realized after 112 years, that the bridge was 112 years old and they had to replace it. Otherwise it would lead to a disaster.
So In Aug 2024, they shut it down.
They said it will be done in 2 years. Six months to demolish it. One and half years to build a new one.
Then the problems started
Post shutting traffic, they realized that there was a public toilet on the bridge and an illegal squatter above that toilet. And there were electric transmission cables which ran thru the bridge. Mind you, this is a 112 year old bridge.
It took them seven months to collect the NoCs for that.
Then they realized, forget vehicles, lakhs of people, including school students, used that bridge to cross over from one side to the other. Demolishing the bridge would deprive them of a major foot over bridge.
So, they had to build a new walkway for pedestrians before they could demolish the bridge.
The walkway is still under construction, nearly 1.5 years after the closure of the bridge.
As of Nov 2025, the old Sion bridge is not yet fully demolished. So, the construction of a new one is out of the question.
There are cranes on that bridge, but I have never seen them operate. It is like the entire project has stalled.
BMC says it will open the new bridge by 2026. But looking at how it is going, I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t done 2036.
And even after taking 10 years, the final bridge won’t be aligned with the road beneath it, which will push the construction by another 5 years.
Today’ thanks to Sion Bridge closure, there are traffic snarls, which are infinitely worse than the ones in Saki Naka.
What used to take 9 minutes, now takes anywhere between 40 to 1 and half hours. The life of Sion/Matunga/Wadala people now starts and ends in that traffic jam.
Two bridges, same dimensions, same criticalities and same challenges.
One country replaced it in 43 hours, ten years ago.
One hasn’t started construction for 15 months.
Don’t give me democracy, dictatorship, communism and capitalism in this.
This is sheer execution. And we suck at it.
Chinese have the resolve the size of the aforementioned girder carrier to solve infrastructural problems.
Our’s smaller than one of those 96 tyres.
https://x.com/thekaipullai/status/19795 ... 64573?s=20
India’s Underwater Power
Transfer of advanced submarine technologies
Advanced Combat Management Systems
To be fair that is true for all services... the only difference is that Nayi Delhi is thousands of kms far from any sea. Still Indian babudom has the inherited capacity to sink all IN plans & aspirations to depths deeper than the Mariana trench.
Bingo! Well said.