VASCO
Thousands of vehicles were stranded for hours along the Siridao-Cortalim-Verna stretch of the highway on Saturday, leaving motorists fuming at the traffic jam.
Speaking to The Goan, a motorist who was proceeding from Panaji to Margao said he took over two hours to travel between Siridao and Cortalim Junction.
“There were six lines of vehicles proceeding from Panaji towards Margao and the traffic jam began right from Siridao. Police were seen only at the Cortalim Junction. On the other side, vehicles were held up in a traffic jam right from Cortalim to the Toyota showroom at Verna,” the motorist said.
When contacted, sources in the Vasco Traffic Cell said the traffic jam had begun by Saturday afternoon, as a large queue of vehicles were seen across all sides of the Cortalim circle, towards Verna, Vasco and even along the Agassaim bypass.
“There was a heavy flow of vehicles due to the Novena of St Francis Xavier at Old Goa and many vehicles were moving from all sides towards Agassaim and Pilar to attend the Novena. To make matters worse, we also had the football match at Fatorda stadium, which added to the traffic,” said a source.
“Besides, being the weekend, we had a large number of tourists moving in rent-a-car vehicles and there was a huge movement of taxis coming from the airport side and finally later in the evening, we also had people leaving offices.”
“There were also minor accidents and breakdowns reported at the Zuari bridge and other locations along the Cortalim-Panaji road,” the source added.
