Outer Circular Highway phase II daily revenue tops Rs. 2.5 m

By Waruni Paranagamage

The Road Development Authority (RDA) yesterday said that the authority receives a daily revenue collection of over Rs. 2.5 million from the second phase of the Outer Circular Highway (OCH) from Kaduwela to Kadawatha.

The Director Expressway Operations Maintenance and Management S. Opanayake told the Daily FT that the revenue collected was above the authority’s expected revenue target.

He said there were 10,000 vehicles using the Kaduwela to Kadawatha OCH daily and the number of vehicles during the weekend increases to 12,000.

The Government opened the exchange at Kotalawala in Kaduwela to Kadawatha on 17 September and motorists were able to make use of the Southern Expressway from Matara to Kadawatha which has drastically reduced travel time between the two cities to one-and-a-half hours.

However Opanayake said that there was a huge traffic jam created at Kottawa due to the route changing from Kotalawala to enter the Colombo city.

“There is a huge traffic at Kottawa during peak hours as people now tend to use expressway from the Kottawa entrance, instead of using Low Level and High Level roads,” he asserted.

The four-lane OCH from Kaduwela to Kadawatha cost Rs. 44.88 billion for a total length of 14.36 km. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funded this project.

The entire OCH will be completed when the construction is carried out from Kadawatha to Kerawalapitiya in the third phase. The third phrase of OCH from Kadawatha to Kerawalapitiya which will cost $ 520.039 million is the next step of the project. 

The OCH is expected to provide an effective bypass for north-south bound traffic and to reduce through-traffic in the city of Colombo and minimise traffic congestion.

He said there were no severe vehicle accidents reported thus far but several incidents of damage to property had been reported.