The festive Dhanteras rush in the jewellery street of Hyderabad near Somajiguda sent traffic haywire across the city. By afternoon, the 2.7 km stretch between Harley Davidson showroom to CM’s camp office was chocked with travel time spiking to 22 minutes at 4 p.m. The normal time is between three and five minutes. A little later, the bumper to bumper traffic sent commuting time out of whack with 45 minutes between TDP office and CM’s Camp Office, a distance of 3.5 km. While this was the average time, commuters had a harrowing time with some stuck in the traffic for more than an hour and a half to cover the short distance in the evening.
“It has taken us one hour and forty five minutes to reach here from Kondapur. Traffic is bad between TDP office and Somajiguda junction. We took 45 minutes on the bike,” said Chary, driving a two-wheeler at 7.50 p.m. The fate of car drivers was even worse as they took longer to negotiate the traffic. “My left leg is aching with the constant shifting between the brake and clutch. I would have burnt so much more fuel due to this traffic mess,” said another commuter.
“Stuck in traffic for an hour. Google says 40 more minutes. Sigh. #Hyderabad,” tweeted S. Sudhi Kumar at 8.09 p.m. At 8.41 p.m., the car user travelling between Jubilee Hills and Somajiguda tweeted again: “Still stuck near Muffakam Jah College. More than an hour. Snail’s pace is an understatement.”
Traffic flow
Half a dozen traffic police officials at a jewellery shop near Somajiguda junction couldn’t do much to help the traffic flow as they brought the signboards about ₹1,000 fine to the middle of the road and directed traffic into the shop. “What can we do? Talk to our senior officers who are standing there,” said a hassled constable standing on the road.
The official Hyderabad Traffic Police handle tweeted about the blockage between Bible House and Patny Junction and blamed festival shopping: “Traffic slowdown at CTO, Paradise and Ranigunj towards Rochabazar due to Festival Shopping.”
And again: “Traffic slowdown from Madina Junction towards Nayapool, Afzalgunj, S.A. Bazar due to Festival Shopping, take alternate (sic) route at Madina Junction towards backside High court, City College Road.”
But studiously avoided the mention of Somajiguda junction which was the real bottleneck.
At 6.43 p.m., the real time traffic map showed 54-minute commute time for the 3.5 km distance between Jubilee Hills and Somajiguda. The red line of the traffic map backed up all the way to L.V. Prasad Eye Hospital and beyond as the office crowd began returning home and got caught in the traffic jam.
