Public outrage forces traffic police to remove rumblers from Eastern Freeway in 24 hours

Local Press Co 5-point Snippet

1. The Mumbai Traffic police and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), on Monday, decided to install rumblers on the Eastern Freeway as a part of a trial run.

2. The rumblers were installed close to a new ramp that is expected to carry traffic from Wadala to CST. But, the trial run soon ended after the rumblers brought the entire traffic to a standstill on Monday morning.

3. Since the ramp hasn’t been thrown open to the public, motorists from Sion, Kurla, Wadala etc have to take the creek bridge and take a U-turn under the RCF bridge to travel towards CST. After the road witnessed several minor and two major accidents, Traffic police decided to install rumblers to slow down the traffic.

4. But, the new installation took the motorists by surprise and ended up slowing the entire flow to traffic towards CST. Hundreds of motorist also took to social media to vent their ire claiming how the installation of a rumbler makes the point of the freeway redundant. On average, motorists observed an increase of 15-20 minutes in their travel time on Monday morning.

5. In sight of the long queues and visible public outrage, traffic police removed the rumblers late last night and have decided to replace them with thermoplastic paint, which won’t obstruct the traffic in the same way.