The Pune-Mumbai expressway experienced a 12-km-long massive traffic jam, leaving thousands of vehicles stranded on the road for hours. The traffic jams were caused by the influx of tourists heading to popular destinations like Mahabaleshwar and Goa for the Christmas and New Year holidays.
From Wednesday itself, a significant traffic jam was reported in the Khandala Ghat section, with vehicles queuing up for about 10-12 kilometres on the Mumbai-to-Pune route, leaving tourists stranded.
The traffic jam situation prompted immediate action from the traffic and highway police, who came down to the rescue and halted heavy vehicles to ease the congestion. Notably, this measure helped to the great extent to ease traffic.
After the traffic jams, vehicles from the Mumbai lane was diverted into the Pune lane. However, queues was too long as the number of vehicles from Mumbai was huge.
The development comes as the people in Mumbai were heading towards Lonavala, Khandala, Kolhapur, Mahabaleshwar, Panchgani and Konkan to celebrate Christman and New Year. They were travelling in private vehicles and a large number of private vehicles entered the Expressway and the old Pune-Mumbai Highway, resulting in traffic jams.
Moreover, several vehicles were breaking down and were adding to the chaos. Finally, the police appealed to tourists to leave home after planning their journey in the next 10 days. Police said the tourists should take care that they do not get stuck in traffic jams and waste their time and should follow traffic rules and should not add to snarls by violating them.
Some of the commuters took to social media to express their frustration, with many reporting being stuck in traffic for over two hours.
