Mumbai : Chartered accountant S K Khemka left his Malad house at 2.30 pm and reached his office at Nariman Point at 6 pm despite taking the Western Express highway.
Advertising executive Suresh Khanna left his Prabhadevi home at 4.30 pm and reached his office at Fort at 6.15 pm. Motorists and bus passengers had a harrowing time on Tuesday with traffic jams all over the city. Transport expert Ashok Datar, who drives a battery-operated Reva car, took 50 minutes from CST to Churchgate in the evening.
The traffic police blamed it all on water logging and tree falls near Wilson College and Khadi Bhandar on D N Road. It took the authorities nearly one-and-a-half hour to clear the massive tree which fell near Wilson College, causing a jam up to Haji Ali.
At D N Road, commuters were stuck in buses for an hour after a tree fell at 4.30 pm. “For the first 20 minutes no one arrived to clear the road,’’ said a commuter, R Suresh. Also, there were traffic snarls from Parel TT to Dadar with water logging in the low-lying areas of Hindmata, Parel TT, P’Dmello road, Matunga and Sion.
Later in the day a major accident on the Eastern Freeway at 9.30 pm led to a jam on the road to Orange Gate. A speeding car skidded and hit the divider.
A motorist from Prabhadevi, who was stuck for nearly two hours, said, “People did not know about the tree collapse and the consecutive traffic jam. Had there been any attempt to inform the people about the problem some of them might have taken an alternate route and helped reduce the traffic jam.”
Traffic Inspector T S Surulkar of Tardeo said, “The fallen tree at Wilson College was huge and it took nearly 90 minutes to clear the road. The traffic in the meantime was diverted from RTI Junction.”
A truck stuck in sand during high tide at Juhu beach on Tuesday |
On the other hand, people coming to South Mumbai were stuck at P D’Mello road where there was heavy water logging. Moreover, traffic diversion from CST to P D’Mello road only aggravated the problem. Between CST and Hutatma Chowk the smaller vehicles were diverted through the by-lanes at DN road but the BEST buses were stuck.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) BK Upadhyay said, “The arterial roads were blocked due to the tree collapse which had a cascading affect on traffic elsewhere. There were over 150 men extra deployed to clear the traffic along with diversions at Wilson Junction and DN road.”
The local trains were not in any better shape and were running about 20 to 30 minutes late during the evening peak hours. A signal failure was reported at CST at 5:35 pm and rectified at 6:05 pm. In the 35 minutes nearly as many as seven trains were cancelled and the timeline went for a toss. The Harbour line was reportedly running 10 minutes behind schedule. CR PRO AK Singh said, “The signal problem was rectified by 6:05 pm and some services were cancelled to maintain the punctuality as there was bunching of trains.”
There was also breakdown of 77 BEST buses on what turned out to be a horrendous day for commuters.
