Chennai: This happens everytime after a long weekend and today is no exception.
With Pooja holidays, which started on Thursday, concluding Sunday, people who left for their native places and tourism destinations returned to the city this morning to get back to routine, leading to traffic snarls on almost all major roads.
The worst affected, no prizes for guessing, was the GST Road, which connects Chennai with the central and southern parts of Tamilnadu. The other important stretches- GNT Road, CTH Road, East Coast Road and Rajiv Gandhi IT Highway- too had their share of sorry story.
Sivakumar of Teynampet, who took his family to Ooty during the four-day weekend, says, “While I reached Chengalpet from Coimbatore, a distance of nearly 450 kms, in seven hours, it took me four hours to reach my home (Teynampet) from Chengalpet (69 kms). Vehicles moved by centimeter by centimeter. Due to the inordinate delay, I could not go to office today and my children are absent from school. Some mechanism needs to be worked out to address this, since this is becoming a regular affair.”
Surya of Urapakkam says, “Traffic would normally be heavy on Monday mornings and today, owing to the return of people to the city after the long weekend, things became worse. Though traffic police personnel were present at Perungalathur and other spots, little could they do due to the huge number of vehicles.”
Police sources said that additional force was deployed on important roads and they did their best to ease difficulties. “But still, traffic jams were witnessed in some areas,” they added.
With another festival weekend, courtesy Deepavali, fast approaching, will the authorities concerned do something to ease the traffic chaos?