Mumbai Monsoon Day One: Rains – 1, BMC – 0
Areas surrounding JVLR were majorly affected. Picture Courtesy: @kyronalmeida and @lestonmark
Around two hours of incessant rainfall late last night brought a major part of the city to a standstill on Friday as motorists had to face major delays and traffic snarls during their morning commute.
Parts of south Mumbai and western suburbs received heavy rainfall last night between 1 and 3 am. The showers resumed for a few minutes early morning.
The rainfall ensured that the situation on the ground level, despite repeated assurances from the BMC about the city’s monsoon readiness, was far from ideal.
Although traffic movement in south Mumbai remained largely unaffected, barring Dadar circle, the situation was the exact opposite in the suburbs.
Areas around Seepz, Kherwadi, Andheri subway and Malad subway saw major waterlogging, which had a cascading effect on the traffic flow on the Western Express Highway (WEH).
The vehicular movement on the southbound road of WEH from Borivali and from WEH to Sakinaka was also affected.
The situation was especially worse around Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR), which witnessed water logging at multiple places and led to traffic snarls before Andheri flyover and Powai.
“I take around 50 minutes by car to reach my office in Chakala, Andheri everyday. Today, I left from my house in Sion at 9:45 am and managed to reach by 11:55 am. What worries me most is that this was only the first spell of rain,” said Navin Vijan, a manager with a multinational.
Due to the traffic situation, taxi and auto drivers also started refusing fares, including long distance ones.
“I spent 20 minutes trying to convince auto drivers. But, most of them refused to come to Goregaon. Finally, I had to pay take a app-based cab aggregator and pay 3x surge pricing. I managed to get where I was going, but an hour late and after spending three times more money,” said Sunidhi Nanda, who was travelling from Bandra (E) around 9 am.
A tempo carrying poultry also overturned on the road ahead of the Bandra (E) flyover during peak hours, adding to the motorists’ woes.
The crawling traffic even sent BEST commuters into a tizzy as most of them had to either travel in more crowded buses or wait longer.
When asked about the delays, a senior BMC official refused to comment on the situation till more information was available.
Unfortunately for motorists, the traffic condition may worsen this year as a sizable chunk of the city’s road network has been dug up and cordoned off for metro construction.
First Heavy Rains and this is the situation of #Mumbai
300 meters ahead of Seepz , Andheri
Please act @bmcmumbai @Dev_Fadnavis pic.twitter.com/YA35AxqLBg
— Jitesh Solanki (@jitesh9999) June 9, 2017
