Pune: Devotees are scrambling to park their vehicles during pandal hopping, forcing many to leave vehicles on bridges and roadsides ahead of Ganeshotsav’s busiest days.Lack of dedicated parking spaces on the days leading to Ganapati visarjan, when the footfall is expected to be at its highest, has forced motorists to leave their vehicles anywhere on the bridges or on the roadside.Many places, like PMC Building Chowk, Balgandharva Bridge, and Deccan Gymkhana, have been facing frequent traffic jams for the last two days due to increased footfall and vehicular movement. Irregular and haphazardly parked vehicles then impact overall traffic flow on the narrow lanes of old city areas.Commuters said the administration should identify locations for designated parking lots to prevent people from utilising the bridges or smaller lanes for parking.“The authorities had declared the open grounds as temporary parking lots during previous Ganeshotsav. The facilities were open on the immersion day. This year a similar initiative should continue during the last five days,” said Ramakrishna Pote, who regularly travels on PMC building road stretch.The city traffic police have announced road closures for vehicles from Friday. The road users, however, said the closures would not resolve the issue of roadside and haphazard parking. Atul Lonkar, a resident of Shivajinagar, said the JM Road has been facing traffic jams every day, especially in the evening. The authorities can set up temporary parking in Shivajinagar or towards the start of the Karve Road near Deccan Gymkhana for devotees. The administration should manage the traffic manually instead of using traffic signals during rush hours, Lonkar said.On the part of management, the traffic police have deployed additional manpower at key junctions. A traffic warden, who was deployed at the PMC building junction chowk, said traffic has increased, and we were managing the vehicular flow. “People wanted to travel on their bikes to the Ganapati pandals. We were appealing to them to park their vehicles away from the junctions and pandals,” a warden said.
