Traffic in several parts of the city crawled on Wednesday due to heavy rain. Although the rain subsided by afternoon, commuters returning home from work took longer than usual to reach their destination.
Stating that traffic moving towards Dhaula Kuan was particularly heavy, the traffic police asked commuters to avoid the stretch from Moti Bagh to Dhaula Kuan flyover. Traffic from Moti Bagh to RTR flyover was also heavy in the evening.
‘Missed flight’
Vidushi Aggarwal, who left for the airport from Noida at 11.30 a.m., said she took over two-and-a-half hours to reach the airport.
“I took outer Ring Road to reach the airport but got stuck at a flyover near Munirka just 6 km from the airport for over half-an-hour and missed my flight,” she said.
The traffic situation failed to ease up by late evening, with commuters headed towards Gurugram after work in central Delhi complaining that it took them twice as long to reach home.
Another commuter travelling from Dwarka to Connaught place at noon said the journey, which usually takes 40 minutes, took over an hour.
“I could not take the metro as there were long lines at the station. I took an auto instead. Either way, I ended up taking the same amount of time.”
The traffic police kept tweeting all day, listing stretches to avoid and areas where DTC buses had broken down.
The Safdarjung weather station, the official reading of the city, received 28 mm of rain between 8.30 a.m. and 5.30 p.m., nearly the same amount the city received on Monday, which caused jams due to festive rush on Rakhi.
However, rain had greater impact on traffic on Wednesday, which was a working day. Areas under Lodhi Road, Palam, Ridge and Ayanagar recorded 31.3 mm, 2.4 mm, 15.5 mm and 24.2 mm of rain in the same period.
Light rain forecast
The city remained sultry during the day, with humidity oscillating between 97% and 78%. The maximum temperature settled at 32 degrees Celsius, two notches below the season’s average. The minimum temperature was 28 degrees, a degree above normal for this time of the year.
The weatherman has forecast overcast skies along with possibility of light rain on Thursday. “The maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to hover at 33 and 27 degrees respectively,” the weatherman said.
