Traffic crawls as Delhiites step out to celebrate X’mas

Commuters in many other parts of the city found themselves travelling at unusually slow speed considering that Monday was a holiday.

Traffic crawled in many parts of Delhi as thousands of people thronged public places and malls to celebrate Christmas on Monday.

Heavy crowd at India Gate and Rajpath Road on Christmas. (Sonu Mehta/HT PHOTO)

Vehicles crawled in places such as Connaught Place, Gol Dak Khana, Saket, Vasant Kunj and Raja Garden. Commuters in many other parts of the city found themselves travelling at unusually slow speed considering that Monday was a holiday.

The police had earlier warned of possible traffic jams around churches in central Delhi on Christmas.

Vehicles moved unusually slowly on many other routes such as BRT towards Press Enclave Road, Malviya Nagar towards Saket Court Road, MB Road towards Mandir Marg and Raja Garden towards Tilak Nagar, the Delhi Traffic Police said on its Twitter handle.

The traffic police said they had deployed a large number of personnel around all churches as well as outside prominent malls such as Select Citywalk Mall in Saket and Pacific Mall in Subhash Nagar. But commuters took to social media sites to complain about the absence of police personnel at many choked points.

“It took me thrice the usual time to reach the mall in Saket. Traffic policemen were not visible at many intersections on the way,” complained Nitin Kumar, a resident of Vasant Kunj.

“The footfall in markets and malls was unusually high. The jams continued for two consecutive days. The long weekend encouraged people to come out of their homes in large numbers,” said the officer.

Apart from the mall crowd, an increase in devotees visiting the city’s churches contributed to the jams, said the officer. The haphazard parking around many churches contributed to the chaos.

The traffic police had earlier warned of traffic jams around three churches – the Sacred Heart Cathedral at Gol Dak Khana, the Free Church at Sansad Marg and The Cathedral Church of the Redemption on Church Road.

The roads around the three churches were chocked despite the police designating multiple stretches of roads as parking spots.