Commuters battled gridlock on Friday after a section of the Dayanand Bandodkar Road in Panjim was shut for urgent maintenance on damaged expan sion joints of the Patto bridge, exposing glaring gaps in traffic planning in the State capital. The lane closure, undertaken by the Public Works Department (PWD), led to severe bottlenecks at key entry and exit points to the city, with vehicles crawling through peak-hour traffic and tempers running high among daily commuters and business owners. PWD officials said the work in volved repairing damaged expan sion joints using Poliflex materi al. The repair is being executed by Kolkata-based Mageba Bridge Products Pvt Ltd. Company rep resentative Aveek Sana explained that the process required the ap plication of a primer roughly 30 minutes before laying the Polif lex layer, with the treated surface expected to be traffic-ready after 24 hours. The repair was exe cuted by Kolkata-based Mageba Bridge Products Pvt Ltd.
Rachel Fernandes, a resident of Old Goa, said the ab sence of prior public notification compounded the chaos. After a long workday, she found herself stuck in unex pected traffic snarls, describing the experience as deeply frustrating. Jason Fernandes from Porvorim said he was aware of the repair work but had no choice but to travel to Panjim for an unavoidable meeting. “It would have been better if they had planned it properly and carried out the work on a Sun day when the flow of traffic is much less,” he said. Devesh Vernekar, travelling from Reis Magos, managed to navigate the congestion on his two-wheeler but crit icised the project’s execution. “The planning is so poor. I have come here to meet some friends after a while and this makes for a very painful experience,” he said. Sonia Fernandes, a Vasco-based business owner, said she reached her Panjim shop nearly an hour and a half late due to the jam.
