Mumbai: Mumbaikars may well use the phrase ‘living nightmare’ to describe Tuesday’s traffic situation across the central and western suburbs.
A rally at Mulund West near the Panch Rasta area made traffic worse on the narrow road during the peak hours usually crowded with motorists, school and private buses.
Residents alleged traffic authorities could do nothing to mitigate the situation. “On my way to work I saw the roads were jammed with vehicles stuck for more than an hour. The rally slowed down the traffic,” said a resident. “There were some school buses and even auto-rickshaws which ferry students. It was a complete nuisance and yet no traffic officials were present,” another resident said.
While in Thane West, heavy traffic at Panch Pakhadi area affected the movement on EEH, via Mulund Check Naka. This in turn affected the entire stretch of the EEH from Mulund, Bhandup, and Kanjurmarg that ultimately affected its adjoining routes like Mulund-Goregaon Link Road and Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road. “It’s a nightmare to travel on the EEH. I have never reached my workplace on time due to this. Bad roads and gross negligence of authorities on the express highway often cause traffic snarls,” Bhandup resident Raghu Dixit said.
Meanwhile, in the western suburbs, traffic moved at snail’s pace on a jam-packed Aarey Road. Congestion on the Dindoshi Bridge at Goregaon impacted the southbound traffic on Goregaon-Andheri stretch. The traffic authorities cited reasons for backlog traffic at Western Express Highway and New Link Road.
Motorists faced a rough ride at the Andheri subway which parallelly connects the east and the west side of Andheri as it was jammed. Traffic authorities cite the closure of the Gokhale for repairs as the primary cause of the traffic jam at the subway.
“The traffic was moving at snail’s speed. There were no traffic police in sight and whoever was trying to manage the traffic was not doing a good job. I even dialed the traffic control room and they kept saying “inform kardiya hai traffic division ko” repeatedly. I saw no one monitoring the traffic for over 35 minutes that I was stuck there,” said a motorist from Andheri west.
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