Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2018-01-30

Construction of an additional lane each at the Entry and Exit Ramps at the Ja-Ela Interchange on Colombo - Katunayake Expressway

- There are two lanes for the Entry and Exit ramps for vehicles at the Ja-Ela Interchange on Colombo - Katunayake Expressway. At the outset, the Manual Toll Collection (MTC) took place in all these lanes and subsequent to the introduction of the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) separate lanes were allocated for the purpose. Since most of the daily users of the expressway are still not attracted to the ETC method, the number of vehicles moving on the MTC lane has increased.

Also, the number of vehicles which use the Ja-Ela Interchange has gone up unprecedentedly, due to the rapid development of the residential areas in Ja-Ela and associated areas as well and this has caused a huge traffic congestion in the MTC lane at the Interchange at peak hours.

As such, taking into account the long term advantages in the ETC method, the proposal made by Hon. Lakshman Kiriella, the Minister of Higher Education and Highways, to further maintain the lane set apart and to construct an additional MTC lane each in the entry and exit ramp at the Ja-Ela Interchange as a remedial measure for the above said traffic congestion, was approved by the Cabinet.