Festive shopping, infrastructure work on key roads, traffic restrictions for VIP movements and heightened security deployment ahead of protests combined to bring traffic across Delhi to a grinding halt on Wednesday, with central and south Delhi among the worst-hit areas.
Vehicles were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours, with long snarls reported on major arterial roads and motorists complaining of inadequate traffic management during the evening rush.
“Footfall at key markets such as Khan Market, Connaught Place, Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar and Karol Bagh has increased multifold due to festival shopping. The parking space crunch, leading to roadside parking, is also causing traffic jams, especially around major shopping hubs,” a traffic police officer from the southern range said, requesting anonymity.
Among the worst of the congestion was reported across the Outer Ring Road and Ring Road, particularly between RK Puram and Sarai Kale Khan, Munirka and Sukhdev Vihar, and on both carriageways of Mathura Road between Nizamuddin and the Badarpur border. Aurobindo Marg and the Barapullah elevated road, which connects the Ring Road with the Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway near Sarai Kale Khan, also witnessed long queues.
Among other impacted stretches in central Delhi were Sardar Patel Marg, Teen Murti Marg, Safdarjung Road, India Gate Circle, Ashoka Road, Akbar Road, Zakir Hussain Marg, Mathura Road and Subramanian Bharti Marg around Khan Market. The Pragati Maidan tunnel and roads around Connaught Place also reported snarls.
The situation compounded the mess created by the September 29 opening of Phase III of the Barapullah elevated corridor. The new stretch, intended to improve connectivity between Mayur Vihar and AIIMS, has instead drawn criticism for triggering congestion at merging points and on connecting roads across south and southeast Delhi
During the evening peak, vehicles barely inched forward on several stretches, with commuters blaming the lack of traffic personnel on the ground to regulate movement.
An officer from the New Delhi traffic range, which oversees central Delhi, said multiple VIP movements had required vehicles to be stopped briefly at different intersections. “Today, we handled multiple VIP movements for which vehicles were briefly stopped at different intersections. Keeping in view the festive rush and the proposed November 1 rally by opposition parties at Ramlila Maidan, we have decided to increase the number of traffic personnel on streets,” the officer said, requesting anonymity.
For commuters, the gridlock translated into journeys taking nearly twice as long as usual.
“I left my office near Parliament Street around 5.30pm and it usually takes me 45 minutes to reach my Taimoor Nagar residence. The traffic situation is so bad today that it will take me nearly one and a half hours to reach home,” said Amarnath Mehta, 48, a government employee stuck near the Prithviraj Road-Shahjahan Road intersection.
Shiv Dayal, travelling from Hauz Khas towards Sukhdev Vihar, said construction work near the Modi Mill flyover had caused snarls on the Outer Ring Road for several days, but Wednesday’s congestion was considerably worse. “The situation is extremely bad today, especially on stretches near Greater Kailash and between Nehru Place and Sukhdev Vihar,” he said.
