the goan I network
PANAJI
With heavy downpour throughout Thursday, traffic jams were the order of the day across the State even as serpentine queues were witnessed along the Panjim-Margao highway especially the infamous Cortalim bridge, leaving commuters fuming.
DySP Traffic Dharmesh Angle admitted to The Goan that traffic jams had been at their peak on Thursday, and that it was hard for the police to handle, even though they had deputed additional staff to help ease the traffic.
He also attributed the traffic chaos to the excessive rains which had washed away the temporary road filling leading to excessive potholes.
Further, he said that early morning, there had been an accident at Agassaim involving three vehicles which had started holding up the traffic.
“Usually if 30-35 vehicles are being sent per minute across the bridge, even if there is a hold up for 3-4 minutes because of an accident, immediately, on both sides of the
bridge, 150 vehicles line up. By the time these queues are cleared, it takes time,” Angle said.
He said that when it rains, people who usually travel by two-wheelers, bring out their four-wheelers, so the density of traffic increases.
He said that traffic was likely to thin by 8 pm, but Google Maps showed around a two-hour journey for those who wanted to do the route via Cortalim.
A commuter who travels daily on the route told The Goan that she had learnt from a friend that the traffic jam on the bridge had started in the afternoon instead of the regular traffic jams at rush hour.
“So I took the route via Ponda to reach Raia, but it was equally bad. There were potholes and diversions everywhere and traffic moved slowly,” she said from the car while waiting for the traffic to move.
Another commuter who left Panjim at 6 in the evening was nowhere near crossing the Cortalim bridge even an hour-and-a-half later.
Most commuters took around two-and-half hours to do the Panjim-Margao commute, which usually takes less than an hour.
