Mumbai-Pune Expressway Gridlock Intensifies Over Weekend
Weekend gridlocks have become a recurring nightmare on the Mumbai-Pune expressway, with this Saturday witnessing another severe traffic surge that brought the crucial corridor to a virtual standstill. The ghat stretch was particularly choked by lumbering trailers and heavy vehicles, transforming peak-hour movement into a sluggish and exhausting ordeal for thousands of commuters.
Election Travel and Heavy Vehicles Fuel Congestion
Officials pointed to election-related travel as a primary factor behind the traffic surge. This bottleneck emerged just days after a 32-hour ordeal caused by an overturned propylene tanker near the Adoshi tunnel in the Khandala ghat on Tuesday, which had previously triggered a massive snarl stretching up to 50 kilometers.
A highway police official explained, "Due to the zilla parishad and panchayat samiti elections, many people are travelling between villages and cities. Heavy vehicles that were stalled for the past two to three days following the tanker accident have also started moving at once, exacerbating the congestion."
Commuters Face Significant Delays and Frustration
Travellers stuck in Saturday's congestion reported substantial delays, with travel times increasing by over an hour on multiple sections of the route. Pradeep Malpote, chief executive officer of KP Travels, noted, "Traffic stayed sluggish throughout the day, and people are still taking unusually long to reach their destinations. We had more than 25 cars travelling from Pune to Mumbai, and the trip ended up taking over five hours."
Malpote blamed heavy vehicles for the expressway's traffic gridlock, stating, "Trucks and containers are responsible for most of the congestion. Many of them straddle multiple lanes, leaving hardly any space for smaller vehicles to move. This isn't an isolated incident; the ghat section stays jammed late into the night."
Police Implement Measures Amid Ongoing Delays
Police officers confirmed that intermittent traffic blocks were being enforced to regulate vehicular movement. An officer said, "Traffic is moving, but we are taking 10-minute blocks on the Mumbai side to ease Pune-bound congestion. Commuters should expect delays, with motorists advised to plan for at least two additional hours depending on ghat congestion."
The usual Mumbai-Pune travel time of around three hours saw a significant spike. Ashwin Trivedi, director of Pluto Travel India Private Limited, observed, "A Pune-Mumbai trip normally takes 3 to 3-and-a-half hours, but today it stretched to 4 to four-and-a-half hours."
Cab Drivers Report Widespread Slowdowns
Cab driver Sadiq Babu Sayyed described long queues after the food mall stretch, saying, "I left Mumbai for Pune at 11am and reached around 3.30pm-4pm. What should have ideally taken three-and-a-half hours took 4-5 hours. Traffic was slow from the food mall up to the Lonavla exit, with heavy vehicles spread across all lanes and breakdowns adding to the chaos."
Another cab driver, Mayur Bunage, highlighted that even the Pune-Panvel section was unusually slow, noting, "We usually reach Panvel from Pune in about one-and-a-half hours, but today the entire journey took nearly four hours. I left Pune at 11am and was still short of Panvel at a time when I should have reached Mumbai airport."
