2nd day in row: Traffic crawls on Kalanagar flyover again

MUMBAI:For the second consecutive day on Saturday, the traffic crawled on the Western Express Highway (WEH) as the Public Works Department (PWD) carried out maintenance works at Kalanagar Junction. It took motorists at least three hours to cross the stretch.
Those travelling towards south Mumbai and the airport had a harrowing time, with many missing their flights due to traffic snarls at the Kalanagar Junction stretch on the nearly 5-km-long Prabodhankar Thackeray Flyover.
Motorists questioned why the PWD was carrying out repair works during rush hours instead of night. Many even complained that the PWD had not announced the repair works schedule beforehand and hence citizens were caught in the huge jam.
Around 200 traffic personnel were on bandobast duty to clear the congestion. “On Friday, there was problem in traffic movement. This has been resolved using three lanes on the north stretch (Kala Nagar to Dahisar) for traffic movement in both directions. PWD officials said work will be completed by Monday morning,” said deputy commissioner of police (traffic-suburbs) Sanjay Jadhav.
A Dahisar resident, Amresh Kumar (33), an investment banker in BKC, tweeted that his sister missed a flight to US which was scheduled to depart at 9.30pm on Friday. She and her three-year-old daughter was in Mumbai on vacation and reached airport only at 9.15pm. Kumar said he tried to tell the airline officials to consider allowing his sister and niece to board the flight but they did not allow. “My sister and niece left my Dahisar home at 6pm. It takes 35 to 40 minutes to reach the international airport. But there was a huge jam. The cab driver tried his best to reach in time, he even rerouted and took the JVLR, but in vain,” Kumar told TOI.
The money has gone and my sister had to get tickets on another flight. On Friday morning, when I left for office, I did not notice any traffic problem. Also, no announcement was made. All of a sudden, the road was choc-a-bloc in the evening,” he said.
Hrishikesh Bahekar, a finance executive and a regular commuter between Goregaon and Navi Mumbai, said this was second such heavy snarl-up in the last nine months. He took nearly two-and-a-half hours to reach SCLR from his Goregaon office. “How can such small repair works take a toll lakhs of commuters?” he asked. “My colleague who was to fly to Delhi on an office assignment, but he postponed it by a day due to the traffic. Had it been an emergency, then it would have been a nightmare,” said Vidhi Rajan, an event management executive, who works with a PR firm in BKC.
A Kochi-bound flyer N R Murlidharan said he and his family were to board a flight at 5.55pm. But as I had booked for wheelchair assistance, the airline asked us to report two hours in advance. “We left our home in Kandivili at 2.45pm, as it takes only 40 minutes to reach the airport. But because of the traffic, we took two hours and reached only at 4.35pm,” he said N R Murlidharan.