Long weekend traffic halts merrymakers

Mumbai: This year’s holiday season has brought some Christmas cheer for Mumbaikars as they are all set to celebrate the long weekend with the December 25 holiday falling on a Monday, helping them overcome workday blues for the last week of the year. However, with so many people from the city and suburbs visiting getaway locations in Pune, Mahabaleshwar and Kolhapur by road, the number of vehicles clogging the state’s highways has grown manifold with bumper-to-bumper traffic being witnessed on both, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway as well as the old Mumbai-Pune highway. Certain parts of the city too were seen to be jampacked.

According to the sources, the traffic disruption on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the old Mumbai-Pune highway have stalled the weekend plans of thousands of merrymakers, as the lines made by the crawling traffic on these highways were seen to be extending up to two to three kilometres.

The traffic was further worsened by the road contouring done by a fallen container near the Adoshi tunnel in Khopoli. Heavy vehicles were even diverted to tackle the heavy jam.

Amitesh Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic) said, “To tackle the heavy traffic due to the long weekend, we have stationed traffic cops at various locations. We are trying our best to smoothen the traffic.”

The heavy traffic was seen persisting not only on highways, but also on the main roads in the city, with people coming out to have a leisure time. Traffic was such that in many places, several hours had to be spent for distances that could otherwise be covered in minutes.