Long queue of vehicles on the Kolhapur-bound lane of the Mumbai-Bengaluru national highway, near Shirwal, on Saturday
Because of severe traffic snarls, the journey from Pune to Kolhapur, which usually takes around four hours, stretched to eight to nine hours on Saturday.
Digvijay Patil, an IT professional from Pune, said, “I was returning to my hometown Kolhapur. Vikrant Deshmukh, deputy commissioner of police (traffic), Pimpri Chinchwad, said, “Mumbai residents who take the expressway to reach Konkan regions, as well as those within the city going to Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri or Sindhudurg for Ganesh festival, have led to a slight increase in traffic on the highways leading to and from Pimpri Chinchwad. It took me nine tiring hours to reach home from Baner, a journey that usually takes four hours. Traffic on the highway was moving at a snail’s pace. The Karad-Kolhapur stretch, which is under construction, added to the inconvenience. ” The long weekend increased the movement of traffic on Pune-Mumbai expressway as well.
Pune/Kolhapur: Traffic on the Pune-Kolhapur-Satara stretch of Mumbai-Bengaluru highway was severely affected on Saturday as a heavy fleet of vehicles, largely carrying devotees and people working in metro cities, headed towards the Konkan region for the Ganesh festival.
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The traffic has been moving, though,” said Deshmukh, advising people to check road conditions before leaving for their destination. Shivaji Pawar, superintendent of police (SP) for the Pune region under the Maharashtra Highway Traffic Police said they coordinated with the respective district police to increase the manpower during the two days. We deployed police personnel to ease bottlenecks from Friday evening, as we were expecting the rush,” said Pawar.
The long weekend, coinciding with the Ganesh festival, is expected to keep highways around the city busy over the next two days. We observed slow-moving traffic on the Pune-Satara route. Pending bridge and other construction work on the Mumbai-Bengaluru highway has put some pressure on the service roads. Download the TOI App.
The vehicle numbers are expected to increase tomorrow (Sunday). “We are expecting a slight uptick in vehicles on Sunday and possibly Monday on the roads leading towards Konkan.