On Wednesday, Bengaluru saw heavy traffic, which left many vehicles with breakdowns stranded on the road for hours. People stated that they had been stranded there for more than five hours, and this region of the city along the Outer Ring Road (ORR) was the hardest affected.
The change occurred the day after the Bengaluru bandh, which was called by the umbrella group of Kannada and farming organisations known as “Karnataka Jala Samrakshana Samiti.” The bandh was called in opposition to Tamil Nadu’s receipt of water from the Cauvery River.
Several users complained about spending hours in traffic on the way to or from their offices on X, formerly known as Twitter. They advised others to not leave the office before 9 pm or avoid using the ORR, Marathahalli, Sarjapura and Silkboard routes.
“+1. 5 kms in last 3 hours. It’s horrible!,” a user wrote. Meanwhile, another user said that it took two hours to cover 1 km.
An X user also claimed that a school bus dropped kids home from school at 8 pm, owing to massive traffic in Bengaluru. Sharing screenshots of a chat, he wrote, “Not to forget kids. Some school buses dropped kids at 8 pm!”
Several Twitter users were angry at the administration for the traffic. “Absolutely horrendous traffic today, took 5 hrs to commute to and fro for office. Bangalore traffic at it’s peak!” a user wrote.
“Traffic congestion at Bellandur leaves no place for pedestrians. Two wheelers riding on both sides on the footpath. What actions are you taking to penalise the bikers?” asked a user, sharing a video of two-wheelers moving on the walkway for pedestrians.
There could have been a number of causes for the Wednesday’s extraordinary increase in traffic in Bengaluru. Comedy performer Trevor Noah, who was scheduled to perform in Bengaluru along the Outer Ring Road, had his gigs cancelled as part of his India tour.
He apparently took more than 30 minutes to get to his location because of the gridlock.
Many Bengaluru citizens who had purchased tickets for his performance had left their offices early in order to attend. Additionally, this increased the amount of automobiles travelling to his event on the ORR. To get to the site, commuters had to wait for two to three hours.
The amount of traffic was twice as much as the typical number of vehicles, which was estimated to be between 1.5 and 2 lakh. However, the IBI traffic data states that as of 7:30 pm today, 3.59 lakh vehicles were on the road.
Additionally, the extended weekend led staff to request a leave of absence on Friday and leave the city for a vacation.
Rains were partly to blame for the traffic because they flooded a number of interior routes. There were numerous car troubles between 3:30 and 5 o’clock.
Most areas of the city had Ganesh Visarjan processions, which added to the traffic on the roads.
