The CMDA is mulling to build two short flyovers above the Ruby and Avishikta crossings instead of one running over the two, as was proposed earlier, an engineer of the organisation said on Tuesday.

“A traffic survey of the two crossings has revealed that separate flyovers will be more beneficial to motorists than one long flyover,” the engineer said.

Both flyovers will be about one kilometre in length.

The old proposal was of one long flyover that would stretch from near the Ambedkar bridge on EM Bypass till the Prince Anwar Shah Road connector crossing.

The new proposal will allow vehicles coming via the Rashbehari Avenue connector and headed for Patuli to bypass the snarl at the Avishikta crossing. The northern end of the flyover will merge with the Bypass at a point to the south of the Ruby crossing.

“If there were one flyover, motorists from the Rashbehari Avenue connector headed for Patuli would not have been able to benefit from the elevated road,” a CMDA official said.

Similarly, a separate flyover running over the Ruby crossing will benefit those vehicles from the Prince Anwar Shah Road connector that are headed for the Science City crossing.

“We conducted a traffic survey and found that a large number of vehicles access the Bypass through the Anwar Shah Road connector and go towards Science City. Almost an equal number of vehicles approach the Bypass from the Rashbehari Avenue connector. Most of them are headed for Patuli,” the CMDA engineer said.

“A single flyover would mean that these vehicles will have to move along the road below. They might get stuck at the crossings. For the benefit of these motorists, we are thinking of having two flyovers.”

An official of RITES, which had prepared the proposal of a single flyover, said: “Our initial proposal did not have any ramp from the Kasba connector merging with the flyover near the Ruby crossing, but that could have been considered. CMDA has verbally communicated to us that they want two shorter flyovers…. Construction of two flyovers on the Bypass could be challenging,” the official said.

The CMDA is also in talks with RVNL, which is building the New Garia-Airport metro corridor, to build a footbridge at the Ruby crossing.

“We want people to be able to access the footbridge from all roads converging at the intersection. We will discuss with RVNL whether that is possible or not,” a CMDA engineer said.