School early dispersal hits office-hr traffic in central & south Kolkata – Times of India

Kolkata: The first day of early dispersal from schools due to the stifling summer heat clashed with the office-hour movement on Thursday morning. As a result, cops faced a major challenge in managing traffic across several neighbourhoods of central, south and even east Kolkata.
Slow moving traffic hit important stretches like Theatre Road, Sarat Bose Road (north-bound), Ballygunge Circular Road, AJC Bose Road (south-bound), Amir Ali Avenue (north-bound) and even the Maa flyover (west-bound). Stuck in traffic across these areas, passengers and schoolkids suffered in the sultry weather even as cops on ground deputed their full strength to control the situation.
The fact that three breakdowns — two on Maa flyover and one on the AJC Bose Road flyover — took place around the same time hit traffic movement on both Maa flyover and the Park Circus Connector, adding to the pressure on south Kolkata thoroughfares.
According to police, at least two schools in the Rawdon Street-Loudon Street area took to staggered dispersal between 10 am and 12.30 pm even as two other schools located in the Park Street area sought police help to ensure trouble-free access for their board examinees.
“When schools got over on Thursday, authorities allowed students to use both gates located on Rawdon Street. Even as we managed to remove parking on Moira Street, it was not enough to manage close to 4,000 cars on the road. These were private vehicles who had come to pick the students. When the cars on Maa flyover broke down, the Beliaghata and Tiljala guards were forced to push vehicles from Bypass through Park Circus Connector,” said an officer.
But, the dispersal of two more schools around the same time on Darga Road led to the temporary closure of the road. All these vehicles took Congress Exhibition Road and also opted for Theatre Road/Park Street but got stuck in jam. “We also could not take a chance on Amir Ali Avenue as that would have broken the central-south link. This road, too, has two big schools. We were forced to hold up the movement on PC Connector,” said police.
“Similarly, the tail on Sarat Bose Road having reached close to Chakraberia, we had to allow more north-bound movement. Thus, AJC Bose Road saw slow movement between Exide Crossing and Minto Park and again between Alimuddin Street and Mullickbazar for some time,” said an officer.
Though cops quickly released vehicles on both stretches once the board exams began, there was a ripple effect. Lalbazar reported normalcy on most of the affected roads between 12.15 pm and 12.55 pm, more than two hours after the traffic got heavy in these stretches. Lalbazar said with the extreme weather, parents insisted on picking up kids from school gates.