Rajpur Road having seen a huge traffic jam on the evening of Christmas on Friday, the people should brace themselves to face a similar ordeal on the roads in the coming days as a large number of people are swarming Mussoorie to celebrate the upcoming New Year’s Eve.
An auto-rickshaw driver Sanjeev says that the traffic snarl seen on the Christmas evening was huge. “The commuters had to suffer a lot as the vehicles either remained stuck bumper to bumper for a long time or moved at a snail’s pace negotiating the congestion,” he adds.
He ascribes it to the narrowness of Rajpur Road. “What we are seeing is that nowadays the volume of traffic is increasing immensely after 5 pm because many are going up to Mussoorie to be part of the New Year Eve celebrations. Besides, there can be hardly any respite from the ordeal even on normal days as the number of vehicles keep rising by leaps and bounds. Now, things are particularly grim as the traffic has increased by 70% in just two days. The vehicles are reaching destinations at least an hour later than the time they normally should. Seemingly in a tearing hurry, the people drive through spaces they should not, aggravating things for all,” said Raj Goswami, a resident of the town.
Nandita, a college student, says that returning from Rishikesh to Dehradun has taken her an hour more because of the traffic congestion. “This is very irritating,” she adds.
The traffic policemen Rajeev seen posted at Dilaram Plaza when asked about the measures being taken considering the increase in traffic due to Christmas and upcoming New Year Eve says that there is no requirement of having extra traffic policemen deployed to man traffic.
“But it is true that snarls are occurring due to the increasing volume of traffic and inadequate width of the roads to cope with it,” he says.
He further says that they are stopping traffic from every end for a short while so that traffic runs in small lots.
“Traffic policemen would be deployed at every jam-packed point on December 31 to clear the congestion if and when they occur,” he says.
Rajendra Singh, another officer posted at Rajpur police station, says that the tourists swarming into Dehradun mainly bound for Mussoorie are causing the traffic jams being witnessed nowadays.
“Things would continue till January 1. We will demand for a force on December 31 to control the traffic flow. We face problems the people in inebriated state cause on that night. We would take measures to stop drunk driving. We would deal with such cases stringently,” he adds.