Monsoon pain: Traffic police struggle to keep city moving
Times of India | 23 July 2024Cops attributed multiple reasons behind this – general slowing down of vehicles due to rains, vehicles breaking down in the middle of the road that included buses, construction work and deteriorating road conditions besides the spurt of private vehicles in the school sector.Attempts by passers-by and bikers to escape the rains and hence blocking traffic under flyovers, all added to the problems.
Bentinck Street, where the Shahid Diwas rally took place, was reopened to traffic early on Monday morning but had to be regulated multiple times to allow trucks to remove the dais items and open all lanes of the road for traffic. However, what came as the biggest stumbling block in central Kolkata was a rally led by hawkers that blocked the Lenin Sarani-CR Avenue crossing and then moved towards Moulali.
Traffic moved at a snail’s pace between Maa flyover and all the way up to New Town. Bidhannagar Police said it was not before 1 pm that traffic police could normalize the situation. Traffic was extremely slow between Behala Pathakpara and Alipore zoo too after a bus broke down on Burdwan Road, adding to the perils due to metro construction at Mominpore (waterlogging slowing down traffic).
Cops said they were forced to turn off automated signaling at multiple crossings and follow the manual mode. School traffic too made its contribution. “School gates got clogged with a much higher number of privately owned two-wheeler and four-wheeler vehicles,” said an East Traffic Guard officer.
Kolkata Traffic Police said that multiple measures have been planned to counter the increasing number of breakdowns. “We have set up new cut outs to place broken down vehicles. We are helping KMDA clean up the road in the wee hours to remove all nails and other items from the road that can lead to punctures. This exercise will be done regularly from now,” said an officer from the east guard. WBTC has been asked to create breakdown repair teams and station them across the city rather than depend on particular WBTC depots.
Cops have also decided to use alternate routes to push out vehicles whenever they stagnate. “Just like we push vehicles onto PC connector when Maa flyover chokes, we have decided to use alternate routes like Wood Street, Pretoria Street and Lord Sinha Road to drain out the smaller vehicles,” said an officer.
