The plight of motorists stuck on pothole-riddled roads on the Western Express Highway (WEH), continued on Wednesday as the long queues of vehicles moved at a snail's pace.
The traffic situation at the WEH, which connects the suburbs from Mira Road to Bandra, is “pathetic”, bemoaned the commuters.
On Wednesday, during the peak hours, starting from 8 am, the WEH witnessed heavy traffic snarls. People travelling from the Santacruz flyover complained about bad roads. “The road is bumpy, at its worst. It’s not even raining that badly these days and yet it takes more than two hours to simply reach Andheri from Santacruz daily. Forget the back and neck pain, as nobody cares about the citizens, but how do we manage to make excuses every day to our bosses’ at the workplace,” asked Kalina resident Rajeev Chintamani.
Reportedly, the Santacruz flyover has medium-sized potholes that are giving nightmares to the commuters. A commuter on Twitter, while tagging the Mumbai traffic police said, “Traffic on the WEH up to Santacruz flyover – an everyday affair. Can special attention not be given to fixing potholes on this bridge? Everyday nightmare!! Absolute apathy on the part of authorities.”
Another commuter travelling to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport said that he was about to miss his flight due to traffic snarls. “Somehow the auto-driver managed to drop me just before the security gates inside the airport were closed. I was supposed to reach in 15 minutes or less, but it took me almost 58 minutes,” said a commuter. The aggrieved blamed poor traffic management by the authorities and the uneven road of the Santacruz flyover for this situation. “The road was bumpy due to which several vehicles were moving slowly. It was not even raining, so can’t blame the rain this time. The traffic was not being managed, everyone was trying to reach their destination, so it was a huge mess over there,” he added.
People travelling from the Mira Road area, too, are facing similar issues. As one commuter said, “Pathetic traffic from Western Hotel, Kashimira (in Mira Road) to Fountain Hotel on Western Highway. Stuck here for an hour now.”
A similar situation was witnessed at the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR). Commuters complained about being stuck for over an hour in the bottleneck traffic. Devashish Turbe, a commuter from Mulund, said he was stuck for 1 hour 17 minutes. “I was travelling towards Andheri via JVLR but got stuck near Kanjurmarg. This is becoming a day-to-day situation for us! Trains are also full-packed and roads are always traffic-jammed. There is no respite anywhere, there is no accountability,” Turbe said.
Commuters say...
It’s not even raining that badly these days and yet it takes more than two hours to simply reach Andheri from Santacruz daily. Forget the back and neck pain, as nobody cares about the citizens, but how do we manage to make excuses every day at the workplace?
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“Traffic on the WEH up to Santacruz flyover – an everyday affair. Can special attention not be given to fixing potholes on this bridge? Everyday nightmare!! Absolute apathy on the part of authorities.”
...
“I was travelling towards Andheri via JVLR but got stuck near Kanjurmarg. This is becoming a day-to-day situation for us! Trains are also full-packed and roads are always traffic-jammed. There is no respite anywhere.”
