Traffic chokes Bengaluru roads on Christmas Eve

Traffic choked and chugged along in several parts of the city on Sunday, the eve of Christmas. 

Although the traffic situation was poor leading up to the weekend, Sunday saw a huge rush of mall goers choking up traffic outside Rajajinagar's Orion Mall in the west, Mahadevapura's Phoenix Marketcity in the east, and Byatarayanapura's Phoenix Mall of Asia in the north. The latter was the worst, said the traffic police, with vehicles piling up for hours on the Ballari Road's service road. 

Both the Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), M N Anucheth, and the Bengaluru Traffic Police's official handles on X issued a traffic advisory saying that the huge influx of public to the mall and the parking being full led to a massive traffic jam on the service road. 

"The parking at the Phoenix Mall of Asia became full in the evening, with a pile-up of vehicles up to 2 km (as of 9 pm). Vehicles are taking about 90 minutes to get inside. Parking space for the crowd is grossly inadequate," said Anucheth. The mall authorities hadn't conducted a traffic impact assessment nor obtained a no-objection certificate from the traffic police. 

Although outbound traffic on Tumakuru Road, Hosur Road and Ballari Road moved slowly on Sunday evening, Anucheth said that outbound traffic was not an issue on Sunday as it was much higher on Saturday and is an expected phenomenon around this time every year. 

A similar situation was observed in and around MG Road, Richmond Road and Church Street, with the traffic on Kasturba Road from Kanteerava Stadium all the way towards Trinity coming to a standstill. To avoid pile-ups, traffic police prohibited parking on Brigade Road and requested commuters to use alternative routes.