For decades, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway has been a popular route for passengers looking to commute in Maharashtra driving its commerce, but for actress Sonali Kulkarni, it recently turned into a “scary” five-hour trap.
A video of the actress stuck at a standstill on the Manpur Bridge has gone viral, capturing the collective exhaustion of thousands of daily commuters.
However, the timing of the viral outburst is significant: the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is just hours away from opening the high-tech “Missing Link” project on May 1, aimed at ending exactly this kind of gridlock.
The viral moment: ‘Have patience’
In a video shared on social media, a visibly frustrated Sonali Kulkarni documented her ordeal from the driver’s seat when attempting to commute to Pune. “It’s been exactly 5 hours… We are completely stuck because we can’t turn back either,” she said, showing a sea of red taillights stretching into the distance.
The actress noted that while the traffic control team advised “patience,” the lack of updates left commuters feeling abandoned. “I know people must have gone through much more terrible scenarios than us, but this is scary. 5 hours at just one position,” she added.
The clip has since clocked thousands of views, with netizens tagging authorities to highlight the recurring failure of the Borghat section—the notorious bottleneck where the Expressway currently narrows.
The ‘missing link’: A Rs 6,600 crore solution
The timing of Kulkarni’s frustration serves as the ultimate “teaser” for the May 1 opening of the Mumbai–Pune Expressway’s Missing Link. This soon to be inaugurated project has been reportedly designed to bypass the very section where the actress was trapped.
The link creates a 13.3 km bypass between Khopoli and Kusgaon, essentially skipping the steep, landslide-prone hairpin bends of the old Borghat.