It seems Thane residents' relief from traffic snarls was temporary. Though the traffic congestion at Mulund toll naka was eased out in October, the situation has worsened on Ghodbunder Road due to metro work on the highway, coupled with Thane Municipal Corporation laying down a pipeline on adjacent service roads. After a breather of barely two months, Reny Varghese, a resident of Ghodbunder Road, Thane, is again struggling with traffic jams on the highway. Varghese works in Mumbai and commutes by car. "My commute time has gone up by 30 minutes, one way, from Thane to Mumbai and vice-versa," he said. This has been the situation since the last week of December when MMRDA put barricades from Teenhathnaka to Ghodbunder (GB) Road for Thane Metro work. TMC has dug up the adjacent service road to lay pipelines for drainage and water. "As a result, the four-lane highway has been reduced to two lanes, due to which the traffic spills on the internal roads," he added. Another resident, Thomas Sequeira, agreed to Varghese. "Anandnagar signal at GB road remains choked, so does the stretch from Kapurbawdi to Kasarvadavli," he said, adding that the stretch from Ovala to Vijay Garden Society also remains blocked. "As vehicles from the highway get into internal roads to take a shortcut, they drive on the wrong side which further adds to the congestion," Sequeira said. There are times when Sequira has volunteered to manage traffic on GB Road during peak hours. The situation gets out of control, especially during weekends. "Last to last Saturday, the traffic jam started at 3 pm and went on till 9.30 pm on GB road," said Varghese. TMC Commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal has already asked his officials to ensure that no two service lanes on the sides of the road are dug up at the same time. He also asked MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) to reduce the size of barricades where necessary. The residents, however, said this will not be enough to bring the traffic situation under control. "Mumbai Metro and MMRDA should deploy traffic warden 24x7 and increase their numbers during peak hours," said Sequeira. Varghese added: "A practical solution would be to ban the entry of heavy vehicles on those lanes of the Eastern Express Highway where metro work is on."

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