Record road congestion hits hard this week as Bengaluru grapples with heavy rains

Bengaluru: Traffic congestion seen on the first two days of this week has been among the highest since the beginning of August. 

Congestion on city roads is measured by congestion length, which is the total length of all roads seeing a high number of vehicles beyond their capacity, thereby leading to congestion. 

According to data shared by the Bengaluru Traffic Police, the first half of each day in the beginning of the month saw below 1,000 km of congestion length, ranging from as low as 111.5 km on August 4 (Sunday) to 824.27 km on August 6 (Tuesday). 

This increased to 1,149 km on Monday (August 12) and 1,058 km on Tuesday (August 13), both as of noon each day. 

However, the 24-hour figures were far higher. 

The city’s roads recorded a total 2,184 km of congestion length on August 12 (Monday), nearly 12% more than the previous Monday (August 5), and 2,367 km of congestion length on Tuesday. 

Data until Wednesday noon (August 14) showed a 50% reduction in the traffic congestion lengths compared to the previous two days. 

These heightened levels of congestion, which many netizens termed “unusual”, were primarily due to waterlogging and poor road conditions, noted M N Anucheth, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic). 

While several roads had flooded following heavy rains on Monday morning, Tuesday’s traffic could be attributed to roads riddled with potholes, broken service roads, and dug-up roads due to metro or other infrastructural works, according to the traffic police. 

Among the most affected stretches were the Manyata Tech Park-Hebbal Junction stretch and Silk Board-Lowry Junction on the Outer Ring Road. 

Siri Gowri, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic, North), pointed out that the service roads in the north were a “pathetic mess” due to huge potholes and heavy waterlogging. “Last week, Nagavara Junction was fully clogged because of zero desilting of the drains. My officers were working till 4 am to clear it one day,” she said. 

Traffic cops expect the situation to be a little tricky until August 19. 

Cut-off box - Commuter gridlock As of 6 pm on Wednesday the city’s roads saw a congestion length of about 1534 km with the line graph peaking at 249 km at 5 pm likely due to the fact that many people were moving out ahead of the long weekend. However Anucheth said tech park vehicle data indicated a 60% reduction in vehicles compared to Tuesday.  Slow-moving outbound traffic was seen near Majestic KR Puram Hebbal Yeshwanthpur Mysuru Road Satellite bus stands and Silk Board Junction.