Chandapura sees hours-long traffic jam as weekend return rush peaks

A heavy Monday morning rush brought traffic on the Chandapura stretch to a standstill for several hours, with vehicles returning to Bengaluru after the long weekend adding to the congestion. Office-goers said they were stuck from around 7 a.m., while some school students reached school nearly three hours late. 

Many people who had travelled towards Hosur on Friday night for the long weekend began returning to Bengaluru on Monday morning as offices and schools reopened. This added to the usual morning rush on the already congested stretch. 

Rajesh K., a resident of the area, said he left home at 7 a.m. expecting traffic but was still delayed by nearly two hours. “Even two-wheelers had no space to move,” he said. 

Residents told The Hindu that the stretch has been seeing heavy traffic for some time due to ongoing road work and poor road conditions, which have slowed down traffic. The situation was worse on Monday morning, they said. 

School students were also caught in the traffic, with some having examinations on Monday. Residents said school buses and vans were stuck for hours and could not take other routes. The traffic was further affected by the narrow stretch near the railway track, where police and civic workers were clearing stagnant rainwater. The work took up part of the already narrow road and added to the traffic. 

Traffic police were deployed to regulate the movement of vehicles and clear the bottleneck. The police said it took more than two hours for traffic movement to return to normal. 

A traffic police officer said the existing two-lane stretch near the railway track needs to be widened to four lanes to prevent traffic from building up. “Widening the road from two lanes to four lanes at the railway track would significantly ease traffic movement and prevent such bottlenecks,” the officer said.