PANJIM/Vasco: This has been the story since Friday. A journey of approximately 33 kms now which was usually covered in forty five minutes now takes a cool It was a day of blockade and long waits for people travelling on Margao Panaji Vasco Panaji roads. On Monday the traffic blockades from Cortalim to Agacaim from the early hours in the morning left several people stranded along kilometer long lines of vehicles. Thousands were delayed for work and 100's were delayed for flights too. The same continued in the evening.
The Margao Panaji, Vasco Panaji blockade has been a matter of increasing stress and on Monday it reached its annoying worst. The lines of stranded vehicles on highways reached Verna from Cortalim circle and towards Bambolim from Agacaim police station stretch. Some of the vehicles got caught up for 3 hours or more due to the traffic jam. People expressed their anger on social media all day while many were stranded again in traffic in the evening again.
The reason for the blockade was found to be at Cortalim circle where the road has been reduced to a single lane and secondly the same stretch has developed several potholes even after constant repairs. The vehicles are slowing down on this stretch which is creating blocks. The second stretch of road causing problems is the Agacaim police station road where water logging is common and the tar layer has given way resulting in traffic slowing down to a great extent.
The Mormugao Traffic Cell Police Inspector Roy Pereira has said that until the Agacaim stretch of the road is not tarred the traffic jams at the Cortalim Circle and onwards are going to continue. He also said that a suggestion to raise the height of the road and cover it with paving stones to prevent water logging in Agacaim has been given to the concerned engineering team.
One of the major reasons for traffic blockade at this stretch can be attributed to some of the people driving vehicles here in an unethical manner. People expressed anger over the bad discipline on roads and have claimed this to be the biggest reason for the blocks. "There is simply no road discipline left. It's the people who are responsible for this mess creating unnecessary parallel lines of traffic and only creating a bottleneck ahead of the road" said Parag Rangnekar who was caught up in traffic in the evening.
The Traffic Headquarters meanwhile have said that in view of the ongoing construction work of new Zuari Bridge and Fly-Over from Agacaim side to Cortalirm the vehicular traffic on the said stretch is being regulated by Goa Police with extra deployment of manpower. Due to rainy season the surface area of the road has developed cracks resulting in potholes leading to accumulation of rain water. This has slowed down the pace of movement of vehicles. Thus motorists are finding it diflicult in navigating through the broken road surface. Consequently the normal flow of traffic is hampered. This is resulting in piling up of traffic especially during peak hours.
In order to work out relief measures the Traffic Police and PWD officials have conducted joint site inspection of the affected stretch and necessary repairs are being undertaken shortly. However, due to continous rain and flow of traffic a lot of difficulty is being faced by the PWD in carrying out the necessary repairs.
It took me four hours to reach Panjim from Margao and this is not a joke. I just had to drop of a parcel in Panjim which would have taken me ten minutes but I ended up spending my entre day for this task alone. My entire day schedule went for a toss
— Ankit Kamat, from Benaulim
I had to reach the Margao court at 2 pm and left Panjim at 12 noon and I was stuck at Cortalim at 2 pm and so turned back and went home and reached at 3 pm so basically I spent three hours doing nothing and wasting my time fuel. I missed an important date at court but I wondered what happened to people who also had other pressing assignments they could not miss. What about those who had to catch a flight
— Roseanne Sequeira from Porvorim.
I left Panjim today at 9 am and I reached Margao at close to 12 pm. I thought I would stay back in Margao as the traffic would ease up later on but it I left at four pm and reached Panjim after 7 pm. Horrible!
— Frank Menezes from Caranzalem
There are so many issues. You have the bad roads with the numerous potholes. You have the non functioning streetlights at night. You have the police who are struggling to cope with the problems that are gaining in intensity every hour and you have vehicles forming a double lane on a single lane and sometimes you even have three lanes in one direction. Then you have so many bikes cutting in from every direction so there is absolutely no space to move
— Roy Dsouza who travels from Nuvem to Panjim every day
What has been even more exasperating is the fact that the traffic jams have gone from bad to worse since Friday and Sunday, which usually a day where there is less traffic saw traffic jams and Monday morning started with traffic jams and there were similar traffic jams on Monday night as well
— Charmaine Fernandes , who took around three hours to get from Verna to Aggasaim bypass
I think a lot of the problems had to do with commuters failing to respect civic sense. A lot of bottlenecks were created with one driver trying to overtakae and then having no way to cut into and blocking the incoming traffic on the other lane. A lot of the jam has been caused by this and the saying haste makes waste is true here but the only thing everyone had to suffer
— Tara Fernandes from Margao
There was traffic jams as early as 10 am from Vasco to Panjim and on the way back they had blocked the Sancoale route to Vasco from Cortalim. The problem for people from Vasco and Margoa is that there are these double lanes of commuters from each side and when they reach the Zuari bridge approach road after the circle, it starts as a single lane and then again vehicles form two lanes then again when you get on the bridge it is a single lane again,”
— Deepika Naik from Vasco
Imagine having to manage the half clutch press for hours altogether for this bumper to bumper ride. So for hours at a stretch you are just waiting to move a little forward every ten minutes and then stalling and then doing the same, you are still a long way from your destination (Panjim)
— Salil Dessai from Cuncolim
With bad road and no proper lights and the dust storms, it is a nightmare travelling late evenings with these traffic jams. There are already minor accidents on the road and you also have many cases where you can see cars breaking down. This has to be rectified soon as the monsoons have not stopped either and it is horrible during the rains
— Dexter Da Costa from Taleigao
We are approaching what is traditionally a holiday week for domestic tourists and the tourism industry is expecting a lot of visitors during this week and until the weekend. You can imagine the kind of chaos they are going to meet and how the roads will only get further clogged. We had a taste of this last December and I dread to think what can happen if the situation is not rectified
— Riswan Ahmed from Panjim
