Ghaziabad: Traffic on NH-9 was disrupted for the second day in a row on Tuesday as its central Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME) section remained closed to regular vehicles, with police allowing access only to kanwariyas. On a working morning for lakhs of people, this spelt another day of commuting misery as travel between Ghaziabad, Noida and Delhi got derailed.Police indicated they could open the expressway to regular traffic by Wednesday morning, but any decision will depend on the volume of kanwariyas in transit. If the volume remains high, DME will stay shut and daily commuters will be forced to rework their travel plans.Lack of coordination between UP and Delhi Police in chalking out the diversion plan compounded congestion on NH-9. Though UP Police had reserved DME for kanwariyas, camps for pilgrims on the Delhi side were set up next to NH-9, holding up traffic and triggering long snarls. The irony of a choked NH-9, with an empty DME adjacent to it, was completed by a kachori seller parking himself on the empty Ghazipur flyover, transforming a piece of the expressway into a food vending area.Preeti Singh, a resident of Ghaziabad, said it took her two hours to reach her office in Delhi, even though she left home 30 minutes earlier than usual. “Delhi has become traffic jam capital,” an exasperated Preeti said. “The expressway is shut down whenever there are student demonstrations or farmers’ protests. Each time, it is residents of Ghaziabad who suffer while govt fails to provide an alternative route,” she added.The closure of DME had a cascading effect on roads leading up to it in east Delhi, particularly in and around Anand Vihar. Jams were also reported from different parts of Delhi because of parked or slow-moving kanwariya trucks that held up traffic. “Utter chaos on Delhi roads because of unregulated kanwar trucks and triple-riding bikers. No sign of traffic police. Stuck in traffic for an hour,” a commuter posted on social media.“Stuck on Meerut Expressway sidelines for around five hours. Zero accountability, no traffic police, not even a single cop. Ambulances stuck, we’re late for office,” another commuter posted from near Anand Vihar flyover, tagging Delhi Traffic Police and Delhi Police.In Ghaziabad, long queues of vehicles were reported at Lal Kuan, GT Road, Hindon Elevated Road, Rajnagar Extension main road and Shahberi Road Extension, among others. Heavy traffic congestion was also reported from Kalindi Kunj, where a commuter described the situation as “chakka jam”. Commuters asked why service lanes were not used to reduce pressure on main carriageways and why traffic management measures failed to prevent bottlenecks.Working from home helped some office-goers avoid morning rush-hour chaos. “WFH today due to traffic diversions and road closures,” Avinash wrote to his colleagues at an MNC on Tuesday, a day after a nightmare commute from his Noida office to his home in Delhi. Several colleagues made the same choice, unwilling to risk another long spell on the road.But there were many who did not have the option of working from home or taking the day off. Arjit Singh, a resident of Crossings Republik, said he had reached office an hour late on Monday, while on Tuesday the delay stretched to an hour and a half. “DME is the main route used by lakhs of people travelling to Delhi for work, business and other purposes. Closing the expressway is creating problems for residents who pay taxes. It’s not a good solution for kanwariyas either,” he said.In South Delhi, crossing Lajpat Nagar flyover took time. “A vehicle broke down and kanwars were walking, slowing down traffic. Due to diversions in NCR areas, border commuters have been affected,” a Delhi Police officer said, adding that 2,000 cops were on the ground in the capital to ensure smooth traffic movement.The UP section of DME was closed on Monday morning and reserved exclusively for kanwariyas. Vehicles travelling from Ghaziabad towards Meerut were diverted from Dasna to Hapur via NH-9. Due to the heavy traffic volume, jams stretched for more than 5km on NH-9 near Dasna.Commuters taking the diversion from Dasna to Hapur via NH-9 had to travel around 28km, followed by another 34km from Hapur to Meerut, considerably increasing their travel time. The Meerut-Dasna stretch of DME is about 32km, while the Dasna-UP Gate stretch is around 18km.Ghaziabad additional CP Varun Kumar Singh said traffic moved slowly during the morning peak hours and more than 900 traffic cops were deployed on roads to manage the situation. “We are checking the numbers of dak kanwariyas entering Ghaziabad from Meerut. We can open DME by Tuesday night, but only if the number of pilgrims drops,” he said.
