The three-mile long Maratha Ditch was excavated in 1742 as a protection against the marauding Maratha soldiers then foraging in the countryside but who never came. It was filled up in 1799 to build the Circular Road, that ran from Shyambazar, right around old Kolkata, covering the southern end of the Maidan. It was metalled in the early 19th century. Around the same time, the most important axial thoroughfare from south to north — Wood Street (portion renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Sarani), Wellesley Street (renamed Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road), Wellington Street (renamed Nirmal Chandra Sarani) and College Street — was built by the Lottery Committee. The new road to Barrackpore (now called Barrackpore Trunk Road), Cornwallis Street (now called Bidhan Sarani), Upper Circular Road (now called Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road) and the extension of Central Avenue (the Shyambazar end is now called Bhupendra Bose Avenue), which was built by the Kolkata Improvement Trust formed in 1911, also converged on the same point, making Shyambazar five-point crossing and one of the busiest street crossings in Kolkata. Shyambazar is connected to Tala and Paikpara with Barrackpore Bridge (over a canal) and Hemanta Setu (Tala Rail Overbridge) along Barrackpore Trunk Road (B.T. Road). Tala Bridge was firstly inaugurated in 1936.