Rain, road works cause traffic congestion across highways, toll plazas in Pune

Severe traffic congestion hit city roads and surrounding highways on Sunday as heavy rains and road works led to long queues at toll plazas and key roads. Commuters experienced slow-moving traffic at toll nakas at Khed Shivapur and Urse, along the Pune-Mumbai Expressway, particularly in the ghat section.

According to Vikrant Deshmukh, superintendent of police, Highway Safety Patrol (HSP), Pune division, the combination of weekend traffic and ongoing road work contributed to the snarls.

“As it’s a weekend, we are witnessing a significant rise in vehicles heading toward Mumbai, Satara, and Lonavla. In the ghat section of the Pune-Mumbai Expressway, continuous rainfall has made driving conditions difficult, slowing down traffic considerably. We have deployed additional police personnel across key stretches to manage the situation and ensure smoother traffic flow,” said Deshmukh.

He also added that construction work near Varve village on the Satara highway is compounding the problem.

“A three-lane highway narrows into a single or double lane in this section due to ongoing road development work. This has created a bottleneck, and we’re coordinating with the construction agencies to minimize inconvenience to commuters,” he said.

People stuck in the gridlock expressed frustration over the lack of timely updates and inadequate traffic diversion measures.

Poonam Jadhav, a citizen travelling to Satara with her family, said, “We started early to avoid the rush, but ended up spending more than one hour just trying to get past the Khed Shivapur toll. There were no clear signage or officials guiding traffic for diversions. It’s really exhausting, especially when we are travelling in a car with children.”

Another commuter, Rajesh Kalanti, who was en route to Mumbai for a business meeting, shared his experience and said, “The ghat section is moving at a snail’s pace. The rain is making visibility poor, and people are still trying to overtake, which is dangerous. Authorities need to deploy more highway patrols and better regulate the flow during such weekends.”

With the monsoon setting in, traffic officials have warned of more frequent delays in the coming weeks.