On Monday, vehicles began rolling on the Mohali IT City–Kurali Expressway—a 31-km, six-lane corridor that promises to shave nearly 45 minutes off the daily commute. For anyone who has crawled along Mohali’s Airport Road, that sounds less like infrastructure and more like mercy.
The expressway, built at a cost of ₹1,525.3 crore, allows interstate traffic to skip Mohali and Kharar entirely, cutting straight from IT City Chowk to Kurali. No signals. No intersections. Speeds up to 100 kmph. In theory, it should unclog one of the region’s most overburdened stretches of road.
In practice, it raises a familiar question: is this congestion solved—or merely relocated?
A road built to avoid cities, not fix them
Designed as an access-controlled Greenfield corridor, the expressway is heavy on concrete and ambition: three major bridges, five minor ones, seven flyovers, 23 underpasses, and 83 culverts. A toll plaza is ready near Ajheri village, though tolling hasn’t begun yet.
For commuters passing through Mohali, this is unequivocally good news. Traffic headed towards Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, or Jammu & Kashmir no longer needs to touch the city at all. Airport Road—long a chokepoint—should breathe a little easier.
But for those within Mohali, the benefits are indirect. This road doesn’t improve internal mobility. It simply creates an escape route.
Delayed, diluted, delivered
The opening also closes a long chapter of delays. Monsoon disruptions. Farmer protests in November. Service road disputes. High-tension wire relocations. Each pushed timelines further out until “soon” became a standing joke.
Even now, this is only Package-2 of a much larger promise.
The expressway forms part of the ₹3,166.96-crore, 61-km Chandigarh–Ambala six-lane highway—envisioned as a high-embankment bypass to take pressure off Mohali, Kharar, and Kurali altogether. The remaining package is roughly 75% complete and, according to National Highways Authority of India, should open by May 2026.
Until then, the “Tricity ring road” remains more concept than reality.
The real bet: land, not lanes
Officials argue the expressway will improve logistics, road safety, and regional connectivity. All true. But the quieter expectation lies elsewhere: land.
Faster roads tend to reprice geography. IT City, New Chandigarh, Kharar, and Kurali are already being spoken of less as towns and more as corridors. Real estate activity will likely follow—just as it has every time a new bypass promised to turn distance into minutes.
The risk, of course, is repetition. Roads built to decongest cities often end up enabling more sprawl, more traffic, and eventually—more congestion.
For now, Mohali has a faster way out.
Whether it also gets a better way around remains an open question.