Festivities throw traffic out of gear in Mangaluru city

MANGALURU: Travel from PVS to Pumpwell, a 4km journey, takes at least 30 minutes even in the noon hours, a phenomenon that Mangalureans never heard of.
In terms of traffic congestion, it seems Mangaluru is going the Bengaluru way. The situation is particularly true in the areas adjoining Pumpwell, Jyoti, Bendorewell and Nantoor among others. The traffic police have attributed the mad rush to the festive season.

Manjunath Shetty, ACP (Traffic), said there has been a manifold increase in the number of vehicles on road mainly as people were on a shopping spree on account of Christmas. The arrival of NRIs back home to celebrate Christmas and New Year has invariably thrown scores of vehicles on road. Poor road infrastructure has only aggravated the situation.

On the other hand, the fest at Shree Brahma Baidarkala Garadi Kshetra, popularly known as the Garodi jathre, from the last three days has been leading to a heavy pileup of vehicles in the city centre. This has also led to bringing the traffic on the Padil-Pumpwell stretch to Nantoor causing a pileup. On Monday afternoon, too, vehicles were seen forming a beeline from Nantoor Circle for up to a kilometre. The diversion of traffic from Padil-Mahaveer Circle via Nantoor is creating bottlenecks right from KPT to Mahaveer Circle.

“We are doing our best to minimise traffic gridlocks. We expect a higher traffic tonight (Monday) as Christians would be visiting the churches for the festal mass and devotees at the Garodi will celebrate their fest big as it is the final day of the day-three celebration. Necessary plans have already been chalked out. We will divert traffic in vantage points for the night,” Shetty said.

According to him, the situation is expected to ease out by Tuesday afternoon as the fest at the Garodi will culminate by morning. The government holiday would further help in keeping vehicles away from the business centre.