Bengaluru traffic is as notorious as it is infamous-- in 2022, it was ranked the second-most congested city in the world. In fact, when comedian Trevor Noah reached the venue for his show late and eventually the show got cancelled (due to technical reasons), netizens joked about how the comedian would now have material to write about the city's traffic.
On Wednesday, the traffic situation in the city was so terrible, that, a man shared on the social media platform X, that his children reached home after school post 9 p.m.
This is a disgraceful statement from the government. Instead of making excuses, maybe admit that Bangalore has no public transport, terrible drainage, badly maintained roads and poor city planning. My children returned from school at 9 pm, and these guys are blaming the citizens. pic.twitter.com/v9FvImQBHQ
— Ritesh Banglani (@banglani) September 27, 2023
"This is a disgraceful statement from the government. Instead of making excuses, maybe admit that Bangalore has no public transport, terrible drainage, badly maintained roads, and poor city planning. My children returned from school at 9 pm, and these guys are blaming the citizens," wrote Ritesh Banglani.
Banglani also shared a screenshot of a message, reportedly from the Joint Commissioner of Traffic. It stated double volume of vehicles after the bandh, the upcoming long weekend, waterlogged roads due to rain, potholes on the road and vehicle breakdowns as reasons for the jam.
Baglani's tweet was viewed 98,000 times and received close to 1,000 likes. Several netizens replied to Banglani's tweet. One of them wrote, “Terrible drainage, bad roads, poor planning isn't something which got discovered today only. These problems exist for a very long time. So, if such a traffic jam happened for the first time, it can't be due to usual everyday problems.”
The congestion at Outer Ring Road (ORR) stretch and surrounding areas that consist of major tech parks faced major congestion, leading to a great deal of frustration among commuters. Reportedly the number of vehicles on the roads reached a whopping 3.5 lakh as of 7:30 pm on Wednesday.
Heavy rains in the city, caused waterlogging in several parts, resulting in vehicular breakdowns, causing more traffic jams. One user wrote on X, “Cab stuck at Whitefield, we decided to head to the nearest metro station, took nearly 2 hours. Seetharampalya to K.R Puram by metro, running in the rain, we caught a bus to Tin Factory, then another to Baiyapanahalli Metro. Nearly 5 hours later finally home.”
