Mumbai: In the best of times Juhu-Tara Road is infamous for its traffic snarls. Now, the stretch has become a nightmare for motorists—and traffic policemen—as thousands of citizens are thronging Juhu beach to see the stranded cargo vessel MV Wisdom. While weekends are the worst, there is a steady flow of 'tourists' every evening, say traffic officials. The traffic police has deployed additional personnelsimilar to that of the annual Ganpati visarjan bandobast.
Nearly one lakh people came to see the ship. "Slumdwellers from Indira Nagar and Nirmal Nagar as well as colonies in Andheri turned up in multitudes. The pedestrians spilled over onto the roads," said a senior traffic official. The roads cleared only by 11 pm on Sunday. "The entire stretch, starting from Santa Cruz police station to Tulip Star Hotel up to Mithibai College junction, was jammed for several hours over the weekend," he added.
Officials said the northbound arm of the Juhu Tara Road is the worst-affected. The domino effect of the traffic snarls on Juhu-Tara Road can be felt right up to Khar and Bandra. Additional commissioner Brijesh Singh said: "We have displayed signboards on Hill Road asking motorists to avoid Juhu Chowpatty. Text messages and VMS boards are being used to get the message across." What's adding to the bottleneck are curious motorists who slow down or even halt their vehicles so that they can get a better view of the ship. "We have written to the civic ward officer asking for view-cutters to be put up so that motorists' view of the ship is blocked," Singh added.
Bandobast has been tripled in Juhu. "We are co-ordinating with the local police, but it is not enough," the official said. "We request people not to crowd the beach. Motorists should avoid Juhu-Tara Road."
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