New Ravi Bridge was closed for heavy vehicles and motorcycle rickshaws on Wednesday to ensure an unhindered path for buses of Metro Bus Service.
The Metro Bus Service is set to be inaugurated on February 10 and all the departments are rushing to complete their tasks before the announced date. Only cars, small vans, motorcycles and other light vehicles can use the New Ravi Bridge while trucks, buses, mini buses and all other slow moving vehicles, particularly motorcycles rickshaws, are being diverted to Saggian Bridge. Extra traffic wardens had been deployed at Saggian Bridge to control the diverted traffic.
However, traffic wardens seemed helpless to the traffic jams witnessed at Saggian Bridge.
Passengers and transporters staged demonstrations in protest and chanted slogans against the city government and traffic police.
Passengers complained that difficulties were being created for the citizens in order to make the Metro Bus Service successful.
Transporters complained that it was time consuming and expensive to use the alternative route as Saggian Bridge was quite far from the City Bus Stand. Passengers and transporters appealed to the government to take notice of the situation and called for measures to ease the passengers’ and the transporters’ miseries.
