Traffic from suburbs and Navi Mumbai was thrown out of gear yesterday, with commuters taking nearly four hours to get from Thane to CST
Traffic from suburbs and Navi Mumbai was thrown out of gear yesterday, with commuters taking nearly four hours to get from Thane to CST
IT seems Murphy's Law was at work for motorists in the city yesterday.
The traffic snarl at the Eastern Express Highway and V N Purav Marg caused by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) rally at Somaiya grounds in Sion was made worse by the rain and ongoing construction work at the Suman Nagar junction, leading to motorists spending as many as four hours in getting from Thane to Sion.
The traffic situation at Suman Nagar Junction. Traffic cops admitted that measures taken to curb congestion had been unsuccessful
And, while their counterparts in other areas of the city were relatively luckier, the showers briefly threw traffic out of gear for them as well.
"Driving towards south Mumbai from Navi Mumbai or the central suburbs was a nightmare yesterday.
VN Purav Marg (Sion-Trombay Road) and the Eastern Express Highway were completely clogged thanks to the rally, and the rain and construction work on the Suman Nagar flyover did not help matters," said a visibly frustrated motorist who was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic at Chembur.
Speaking to MiD DAY, NCP Spokesperson Mahesh Tapase said, "More than 2 lakh people attended the rally from various parts of Maharashtra including NCP bastions Nashik, Nagpur, Marathwada, Nanded and Western Maharashtra.
Around 3,000 State Transport buses and more than 6,000 private vehicles brought our supporters to the mega event, but more than 20,000 people coming from Nashik and Pune were not able to reach the venue as they got stuck in traffic on the EEH and Navi Mumbai."
Even though extra measures were taken by the traffic department to avoid jams in the city, officials admitted that the measures didn't work because of the higher-than-expected turnout.
As a result, traffic crawled on the EEH with vehicles moving in a neutral-first-neutral fashion and even emergency services were disrupted.
Flyover trouble
The Suman Nagar junction (Priyadarshini), which is arguably the biggest bottleneck on the EEH, was the worst affected thanks to ongoing construction work on a flyover connecting the VN Purav Marg to the Highway.
Traffic to and from Nashik, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Chembur and the central suburbs passes through this point and the limited space results in long lines of crawling vehicles even on an ordinary day.
A portion of the VN Purav Marg has also been barricaded to allow the construction of the flyover, which is expected to ease traffic at this junction, but proved to be an additional headache yesterday.
Speaking to MiD DAY around 7 pm yesterday Inspector B B Gaikwad from Trombay said, "It is true that there was a traffic jam in the morning but now we have deployed more than five traffic police constables at all important signals so that inconvenience is not caused to motorists coming to south Mumbai from Navi Mumbai and the central suburbs."
"We have even increased the passing time at each signal and are giving priority to the outstation vehicles so that the traffic situation can return to normalcy. We are also making sure that emergency services don't get affected," he added.
South Mumbai
The traffic moving towards south Mumbai using the Lala Lajpatrai Marg-Haji Ali Junction via Pedder Road was slow moving in the morning after the rain started. Cadbury Junction was choked and so was Mohammad Ali Road, under the JJ Flyover.
Western suburbs
Traffic on the SV Road between Bandra and Borivli was also affected by the rain. The stretch between Andheri and Jogeshwari was the worst affected and traffic on JP Road in Andheri (West) was also moving slowly. The Western Express Highway, though, remained largely free from rain-related snarls.
With inputs by Ravikiran Deshmukh
Politics v/s the aam aadmi
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"Rally hai madam." All it took were these three words from an auto rickshaw driver to explain away more than three hours of pain I suffered trying to negotiate bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Eastern Express Highway yesterday.
Three words that sum up a Mumbaikar's absolute helplessness in the face of political parties doing exactly as they please - even if that means throwing traffic on the entire Eastern Express Highway (a national highway, no less) out of gear to hold a rally bang in the middle of a busy weekday.
Leaving my home in Powai at 11.00 am for an important 1 pm meeting at the MiD DAY office in Parel, I never thought, even for a moment, that I would not get there in time. For, the distance takes me 40 minutes when there is comparatively less traffic and one hour on a bad day.
In the case of Haji Ali Junction, it was the rain that led to traffic snarls
Little did I know, however, that, after spending more than half an hour in getting to the Eastern Express Highway, I would get stuck as soon as I reached there.
Three exasperating hours later, during which I reached the Ghatkopar flyover (which takes 10 minutes from my house on an ordinary day), I decided I just couldn't take it any more.
At 2 pm, I handed the car's reins over to my driver and hopped into an auto rickshaw to get to the nearest railway station.
I finally reached office at 3 pm, having missed the meeting by a good two hours, but my thoughts kept going back to the occupants of two ambulances I had seen stuck in the logjam.
I kept wondering whether they had made it to hospital alive and was not surprised to learn that the jam had nearly cost a woman her life.
For, here in Mumbai, it seems, you need to factor in political rallies before you even dream of getting sick.
Shubha Shetty Saha is Editor-HitList
Did you know?
Nearly 8,000 buses (ST as well as private) were booked for the rally 300 buses each from Pune and Ahmednagar, 200 from Beed and Satara, 1,000 from Raigad district. 1,300 from Nashik and 1,000 from Thane, among others. 250 buses in Mumbai were reserved for women party workers and six trains were booked, one each from Amravati, Nagpur, Latur, Pandharpur, Solapur and Nanded.
Voices
It took me more than two hours to reach Sion from Andheri because of this rally. How is a common man supposed to travel?
Bhavna, who was stuck on the EEH
Politicians have started making our lives worse by organising such rallies every other day It was the Sena-BJP-RPI rally first and now the NCP rally. It usually takes me one-and-a-half hour to get to CST from Thane but it took me four hours yesterday. Don't these parties think of office-goers at all?
Seshan, who was stuck in Chembur
I think these rallies should be banned forever. All they do is add to the common man's woes.
Manisha Shinde, who was stuck on the EEH
Policespeak
Ramesh Sibaal, Assistant Police Inspector (API), said, "It is very difficult for us to handle a traffic situation of this kind but this is our duty and we have to do it. We cannot sit and complain about it."
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