Rain, road cave-in and protest bring Lucknow traffic to a crawl

Senior police officers step in to manage gridlocks across major junctions in state capital; office-goers report massive delays

LUCKNOW A relentless daylong drizzle, compounded by a sudden road cave-in, a fallen tree and a student protest, turned Monday’s commute into a nightmare for thousands of residents across the city. The cascading disruptions choked multiple key arteries, forcing senior police officials to take to the streets to manage the mounting vehicular pressure.

Traffic chaos near Polytechnic crossing in Lucknow on Monday, (HT Photo)

With traffic building up rapidly during the morning and evening rush hours, multiple inspectors were deployed to clear bottlenecks. DCP (traffic) Raveena Tyagi reached heavily congested stretches to oversee the traffic management. Police personnel were seen regulating movement at major intersections, including Hazratganj, Loreto crossing and the busy Faizabad Road.

The disruptions struck at a time when vehicular movement was already sluggish due to the continuous wet weather. On Faizabad Road, heavy congestion severely affected movement toward the Kamta, Polytechnic and Chinhat areas.

The evening return journey proved particularly gruelling for office-goers, many of whom spent considerably longer than usual time on the roads.

“I usually take around 30-40 minutes to reach home, but today the traffic kept building up at different points. Just when one stretch opened up, another bottleneck appeared,” said an office-goer. Another commuter said the rain itself was manageable, but the combination of weather and multiple disruptions made the journey difficult. “There was no single reason for the jam. Traffic was slow at one crossing, then there was congestion somewhere else. By the time we crossed one point, another stretch was blocked,” he said.

“In Vikas Nagar, traffic was affected after a portion of the road caved in near Gulachin temple. LMC teams reached the spot and began barricading the affected portion, while traffic police remained deployed there,” read another traffic update on X.

At Balaganj crossing, traffic movement was hit after students of Jai Prakash Narayan School staged a protest. Police advised motorists to avoid the stretch unless necessary and take alternative routes.