KARACHI, Dec 20: Thousands of commuters along almost all major thoroughfares in the metropolis experienced unendurable air and noise pollution for many hours on Thursday due to exhausting traffic jams with vehicles emitting hazardous gases and intermittently blaring out pressure horns.

The increased movement of vehicular traffic was obviously due to the transportation of sacrificial animals on a big scale and the Eid rush in markets and bazaars. Wrong parking by the shoppers who failed to find some space at the designated parking places was another contributing to the traffic congestion.

Soon after mid-day, long queues of vehicles were seen moving at a snail’s pace on Sharea Faisal, M.A. Jinnah Road, Shahrah-i-Pakistan and S.M. Taufiq Road whereas the rest of major thoroughfares were rendered clogged with vehicles by the evening. The worst-hit areas appeared to be Bahadurabad, Tariq Road, Shaheed-i-Millat Road, Tipu Sultan Road, NIPA, Rashid Minhas Road, Jauhar Morr, Water Pump (Federal B Area), Aisha Manzil, Tahir Villa, Sohrab Goth, Mohammad Ali Society, Allama Shabbir Usmani Road (Gulshan Chowrangi), Shadman Colony and Nagan Chowrangi.

All efforts by the traffic police to regulate the vehicular movement in these areas met with failure as commuters in many cases had to spend several hours in their stuck up vehicles. Several roads, otherwise providing an alternative route, are lying closed owing to the development work under way for weeks.

Vehicles in a large number could not move for hours in the evening after getting stuck on the recently-opened Stadium Flyover due to the ongoing work for the widening of Stadium Road. The project had been undertaken some two months back and is yet to be completed.

A similar situation was witnessed on at least six major arteries. One track of each of these roads has been closed to vehicular traffic for development work. The roads are: University Road (between Central Prison and Civic Centre), Altaf Ali Barelvi Road (between Sindhi Hotel and Askari Park), Shahrah-i-Pakistan (between Aisha Manzil and Sohrab Goth), Shahrah-i-Orangi (between Banaras Chowk and Orangi Town No.5), Valika Road and a busy road between Aisha Manzil and Tahir Villa.

Traffic jams of long duration were also witnessed on different sections of the city’s prime artery, Sharea Faisal, particularly between Aisha Bawany College and Regent Plaza. The often busy thoroughfares, M. A. Jinnah Road, and all roads leading to Saddar remained packed with stuck up vehicles in the evening rush hours, making shoppers’ access to all main markets in the town extremely difficult.