A group of office-goers on a shuttle service in Panaji had the most horrendous journey of their life. It took them nearly five hours to reach home and end their agony. This painstaking travel back home has been tortuous for many. This logjam along the Zuari bridge routes, like the many previous ones, saw serpentine queues of vehicles clogging all roads, but appeared to be a never-ending nightmare.
A series of minor accidents all piled on to be catastrophic for the traveler who missed flights and scheduled appointments, forcing them to spend a good four to five hours on the Zuari roads. There were few ambulances that were ‘running for life’ and had nowhere to go.
The over-five kilometer road along either sides of the Zuari Bridge is a highly sensitive one with traffic bottlenecks at almost every deviation. This is not the first time that these traffic snarls have been witnessed. And yet, lessons have not been learnt. The susegad attitude of all and sundry, from the authorities to the traffic management was exposed on manic Saturday. If the road works of Dilip Buildcon did not come in the way this time, it was sheer lack of traffic control that kept adding to the chaos. Even as late as 11 pm, there was an accident that happened midway on the Zuari bridge, bringing traffic to a grinding halt on either side of the bridge.
On a traffic sensitive stretch, traffic management is the most crucial and hence government should deploy additional forces along this route at all times. The only area where traffic management happens is at the Cortalim round-about virtually leaving the entire 5-km area on either sides unmanned. This gives enough scope for frustrated motorists to over-take and over-speed throwing all traffic rules to the wind. And this is precisely what happened on Saturday. Reckless overtaking due to time delays was the order of the day and night and this blocked oncoming vehicles leading to a gridlock.
The monsoon is soon approaching and it is only going to be worse in the rains. Road filling is still going on at a brisk pace and with the condition of the roads pitiable, pools of water and the numerous diversions are only going to add to the misery of motorists.
The diversion route which politicos showed an initial urgency has hit a rough patch and there appears to be little headway. On the flip side, with the builder already behind schedule, there is little chance of a ‘go-slow’ on works. The government can only think of regulating traffic with additional deployment of traffic police “ those who are seriously on the job and not whiling away time on their cellphones. Many a times, it is seen that traffic police are multi-tasking “ directing traffic and yet attending to cell phone calls.
Authorities cannot wash their hands off in a situation like this. This is not a one-off situation. Minor traffic jams have been witnessed three days prior to this and that should have put police on an alert. There can’t be scope for complacency. It’s time government focuses on heightened traffic management with quick-response teams on standby for any mishaps along the route. Every minute counts in situations like these.
