The incessant rains played a spoilsport on Saturday as the unexpected showers ruined the weekend travel plans of citizens. Potholed roads added insult to injury, forcing the city's wheels to crawl as endless queues of vehicles moved at snail's pace.
At the Western Express Highway (WEH), major bottleneck traffic was reported, especially between Jogeshwari, Andheri, and Malad areas. Commuters reported that they were stuck for hours due to the slow movement of traffic. “The road near Jogeshwari was congested. The traffic coming from the other direction was a lot due to which the area got jammed and all the adjoining routes, too, were naturally jammed. After a while, traffic was eased due to some cops (traffic police),” said Raghunath Rao, a commuter based in Santacruz.
Those travelling in Malad faced a similar ordeal, especially during the second half of the day. “SV Road to Marve Road was blocked with vehicles,” said traffic police who were on the ground. “Usually, this spot doesn't have that much traffic. Even during a jam, traffic moves after a point but given the weekend rush, it took us some time to clear the traffic. Eventually, it got back to normal,” added the traffic cop.
During the first half of the day, the traffic police announced, “Two feet waterlogging at Andheri subway has slowed down the traffic.” Due to this, the diversion routes like Gokhale Road and SV Road experienced heavy traffic thus creating a backlog till the time the Andheri subway got back to normal. At the SV Road from Alfa Signal to Vile Parle west, there was heavy traffic congestion on Saturday evening. “It took us over an hour to reach from one end to another, which should originally not take more than 10-12 minutes maximum! It was packed with vehicles and there were no traffic cops to handle the situation,” said Mahesh Babu, a resident of Vile Parle East.
Inundation was also reported at Walkeshwar road, Sakkar Panchayat in Wadala, Sion, Bhoiwada areas. Meanwhile, Sion-Trombay Road in the Chunabhatti (southbound) experienced backlog traffic due to an oil tanker breakdown, said the city traffic police.
At the L&T junction in the Powai area, a heavy traffic jam was reported during the evening hours. According to a woman commuter, “There were too many vehicles parked below the flyover at the L&T junction where you take a turn. Traffic got affected due to that and there were no traffic cops available as well. My brother was struck for over 45 minutes and yet we didn’t move an inch, it was that bad!” Meanwhile, the local traffic cops said, “It’s the weekend rush and the traffic got worse due to rains.”
The other places with clogged traffic were Aarey Road, Chakala in Andheri, Akurli Road in Kandivali, Lokhandwala in Andheri, Chedda Nagar, Bandra West, Byculla, and CST Road.
