Mumbai, July 16: The vehicular movement and city traffic was badly hit on Friday amid heavy rains that caused major traffic snarls, resulting in vehicular congestion of at least 35 minutes on the Eastern Express Highway between Mulund and Sion, as well as on the Western Express Highway, between Kandivali and Andheri. Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road was also one of the roads where traffic snarls were observed on Friday. Waterlogging and rains led to several diversion of traffic routes.
The vehicular movement on the WEH was going at a snail's pace as there were large queues of cars, bikes and buses right from Kandivali to Jogeshwari, where a number of roads were waterlogged. A traffic official said that the speed was badly hit due to the breakdown of vehicles and cautious driving, but a bumper-to-bumper congestion was recorded in the western suburbs. A Twitter user, CS Jigar Shah shared a video of a waterlogged area near The Hub mall at Goregaon on the WEH, and said, "Traffic on highway is affected till Kandivali. With local not permitted, people are going to get stuck in-between. #Mumbairains it can be worse later in a day today due to high tide."
The motorists were stuck in traffic for over an hour on the WEH, which was further congested between the Andheri to Bandra stretch, adding 20 minutes more to the travel time. A similar congestion was seen on the EEH, wherein the vehicles were queued up for hours on the Sion Panvel Highway. The worst hit patch on the EEH was near Sion, where the waterlogging in the low lying areas had put a halt for vehicular movements, which was cleared only after the water was pumped out with the machine.
Meanwhile, on the JVLR, the traffic snarls had cropped up until the Majas Depot, and a similar traffic was seen on the Santacruz-Chembur Link road as well. Vehicles were stuck in traffic near Chembur for close to two hours, after which traffic diversions were out in place. The roads were jammed on the Link Road as well in the Western suburbs.
