Traffic logjam returns to Kolkata school zones on Day 1 as all institutes reopen

KOLKATA: After a two-month break from early morning and afternoon traffic snarls, the city returned to bumper-to-bumper traffic in school zones in south and central Kolkata on Monday.
On Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Darga Road, Rawdon Street, Loudon Street, Moira Street, Theatre Road and a section of AJC Bose Road, 8am seemed like 10am with cars reduced to crawl much as it happens during office rush-hour.Police said the car count surged by 20% with personal vehicles making up the bulk of additional vehicles on the road. In the Park Street-Loudon Street-AJC Bose Road belt, the vehicular surge was 30%.

Motorists who weren’t aware that all schools would open today were in for a shock as they got stuck in traffic snarls in the morning. Those heading through south and central Kolkata school hubs in afternoon were caught in snarls.
In addition to reopening of all schools, irregular parking, construction activity, breakdown of buses and potholed roads contributed to the slow-moving traffic. Police said they would deploy more personnel and rejig plans to ease the situation on Tuesday.
With school buses and pool cars also held up in traffic, schools received anxious calls from parents. While there were jams in school zones in the morning when vehicles came to drop the students to school, it was worse during the pick-up in the afternoon with slow traffic movement on Park Street, Shakespeare Sarani, Sarat Bose Road and AJC Bose Road during dispersal.
“AJC Bose Road and Sarat Bose Road got hit between 1 pm and 3 pm. Syed Amir Ali Avenue was hit twice — around 12 noon when a school dispersal was pushed back by half an hour and again about two hours later when dispersal from two schools hit traffic on Darga Road and Suhrawardy Avenue that slowed down Syed Amir Ali Avenue traffic,” said an officer.
On AJC Bose Road, traffic was hit by encroachment of road space between Ripon Street and Lord Para where triple parking was the order of the day on either flanks.
On Kasba connector, there were choke points around Gitanjali stadium with students alighting from buses on the main road and then making their way to their schools. In Kidderpore, there was again triple parking with one motorist parking the vehicle right in the middle of Hasting-bound flank of DH Road.
At Netaji Nagar, a bus breakdown hit traffic near a popular school. Along Salt Lake Bypass, Metro construction saw all vehicles being diverted via Broadway. There was slow traffic movement on College Street, too, that houses two major government schools.