Rallies, shoppers bring traffic to grinding halt

KOLKATA: A rain-free weekend, which encouraged Eid and Puja shoppers to descend on New Market, Sealdah, Burrabazar and Gariahat, coupled with two processions that criss-crossed each other at Sealdah and Moulali, brought the traffic in the central business district of the city to a grinding halt on Saturday afternoon.
Thoroughfares, such as S N Banerjee Road, Central Avenue, Lenin Sarani, Strand Road, College Street and M G Road, remained choc-a-bloc, with vehicles remaining rooted to the spot even after red lights turned green.The cascading effect was felt till Bidhan Sarani, Shyambazar, APC Roy Road and Vivekanda Road.
The police have warned that even Sunday might witness a similar snarl-up as more shoppers were expec ted to take advantage of a "dry" weekend. But with no major processions or protests scheduled for the day, commuters might still manage to get a breather.
A top traffic police offi cer said, "Things begun to turn worse on Saturday after 2pm when two back-toback processions converged into one another on Sealdah flyover. On top of that, the New Market area was teeming with shoppers by 4pm." By evening, the traffic police had to stop traffic movement at Lotus Cinema and divert the S N Banerjee vehicles towards Ganesh Chandra Avenue and Dalhousie.
Those coming from Rajabazar were the worst hit. "As shoppers descended on Kalakar Street, M G Road clogged and the entire pressure shifted to Strand Road. Vehicles from Posta and B K Pal Avenue virtually came to a standstill. Several commuters were forced to walk along College Street and Amherst Street and even M G Road to Howrah. Those headed towards Esplanade began walking from Sealdah and Moulali," said a traffic surgeant.
Commuters returning from office faced tremendous inconvenience.
"It normally takes around 20 minutes to reach Esplanade from Sealdah, but on Saturday afternoon, it took me more than an hour to travel the same stretch. It almost took me 50 minutes to reach Moulali crossing from Sealdah, hardly a 300m distance," said Rajarshi Majumdar, a daily commuter.