Traffic jams on either side of the River Zuari on the Agassaim-Cortalim stretch have restarted, with motorists and commuters stuck here for up to even two hours. It happened last week and continues this week, and the cause, other than the ongoing bridge work that has led to narrowing of the road and worsening the condition of the road, besides the high volume of traffic on the highway, is not easily explicable as there has been no accident or breakdown of vehicle on the stretch that is causing the jams and the resultant delays. Traffic police at the site too appeared clueless only stating that more police personnel have been posted on the route at strategic locations to ease the flow.
It is not merely at strategic locations that the police personnel are required to be posted, but all along the route, as motorists on this road will bear out the fact that there are vehicles that attempt to overtake despite the queues and so causing bottle necks that further slow down the traffic. It is not uncommon to see vehicles driving on the road shoulder in attempts to get ahead in the queue. If such rash driving and blatant disregard to the traffic rules can be avoided with police help, much of the delays will possibly be reduced. Those breaking the rules on this stretch must be penalised immediately. A reasonable number of traffic policemen on this stretch would greatly alleviate the problem.
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Motorists on the route, however, have a different version for the reasons of the congestion claiming that the funnelling of three lanes into a single approach, when there’s ample place for two lanes is causing the jams. This would be one reason for the jams, as the road does narrow to a single lane of traffic but this too is not entirely new as the existing bridge and the approach road on either side is of two lanes and hence allows only a single stream of traffic on either side. But even this does not explain the delays that resulted in up to two hours of being stranded on this stretch.
Over two years ago – around May 2019 to November of that year this same stretch had also seen a number of such traffic jams. At that time, the bridge was stated to be over 50 per cent complete and a two-year deadline had been given by which it would be completed. It is now over two years, and construction there is nowhere near completion. To reduce the travel time due to the jams at that time, the construction of a parallel road to bypass this stretch had been approved and was to be completed in a month. Over 24 months later, the road is yet to be built. The bridge construction work causing some delay is understandable, but when the delays cannot lead to hours stuck on the same stretch.
Motorists should not have to take two hours to traverse two or three kilometres, it just indicates that traffic monitoring on this stretch is a failure. It is a sign of incompetence on the part of the authorities and so is unacceptable. The traffic cell of the police has to introduce a system whereby traffic on this stretch is not held up on an almost regular basis. Vehicles have to keep moving, even if at a slow pace. It perhaps requires traffic personnel stationed at regular intervals along the route so that vehicles do not break the queue. The statement from the traffic cell of the police that the traffic situation has now eased will have to be borne out over the week, especially on the weekend.
