Traffic crawls on 15-km airport-UPCC office stretch
LUCKNOW: Commuters had a tough time reaching their destinations, as thousands of Congress workers and supporters came out on streets on Monday to greet party president Rahul Gandhi and general secretaries for UP east and west, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Jyotiraditya Scindia.
The 15-km stretch from the airport to the UP Congress Committee office was choc-a-block. Traffic restrictions posed further problems, especially for those heading towards the airport and the Charbagh railway station.
Rishi Gupta, a commuter caught in the traffic jam, posted on Twitter: “I was hoping that the Lucknow Traffic (authorities) would facilitate commuters, but they faced nuisance on the busiest route because of the roadshow. Congress supporters should have used a VIP road, which could have saved people from getting stuck in the traffic jam.”
As the roadshow reached Hazratganj at around 2 pm, students returning from schools were the worst hit. A few institutions had changed their timing on the day, anticipating the rush. One among these was the La Martiniere Girls College, where students studying in classes up to 4 got free by 1 pm.
People complained that the situation was worsened by commuters jumping the barricading despite the presence of traffic cops. “They wanted to save time, but jumping the barricading eventually led to a standstill. In fact, many of those in a rush ended up taking wrong routes,” said a resident of the area.
JP Singh, a retired engineer who was caught in a traffic jam in Hazratganj and struggled to reach Polytechnic, said, “Such traffic jams seem quite unreasonable. Mostly commuters are themselves responsible for this kind of a chaos.”
Long queues of slow-moving vehicles were also seen on the Shaheed Path.