{"id":5134,"date":"2025-11-26T17:59:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T17:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/?p=5134"},"modified":"2025-11-26T19:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T19:17:12","slug":"city-gridlock-persists-despite-e-rickshaw-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/2025\/11\/26\/city-gridlock-persists-despite-e-rickshaw-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"City gridlock persists despite e-rickshaw ban"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Srinagar, Nov 26:\u00a0<\/strong>Nearly a week after the ban on e-rickshaws along Srinagar\u2019s two busiest stretches M.A. Road and Residency Road, the traffic congestion continues unabated during peak hours, raising serious questions about the effectiveness of the move and the city\u2019s traffic management system.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, around six days after the ban, long queues of vehicles choked both sides of the corridor near Women\u2019s College Srinagar during the 3\u20134 PM rush hour.<\/p>\n<p>Frustrated commuters continued to honk amid near-stationary traffic. Even as traffic police personnel remained deployed along both MA Road and Residency Road, vehicular movement struggled to stay regulated.<\/p>\n<p>The traffic lights installed along MA Road and other key intersections remained largely non-functional, sometimes flickering erratically, sometimes with timers malfunctioning and often going completely dark. The much-hyped Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) also appeared ineffective, as no challan data has ever been made public since its installation.<\/p>\n<p>Firdous Nazir, a commuter from Nishat and a student at Women\u2019s College Srinagar, said they were told that banning e-rickshaws would ease traffic, but nothing has changed. \u201cIn fact, it seems worse now. Every day, we spend nearly 30\u201340 minutes just waiting for a Smart City bus and when it finally arrives, it\u2019s overcrowded. It\u2019s complete mismanagement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Other commuters and students walking alongside him said that despite the deployment of traffic police, the malfunctioning of traffic lights and the lack of adequate public transport have rendered the measures ineffective.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmart City boards are visible everywhere, but what\u2019s smart about spending 30 minutes on a 3-kilometre stretch?\u201d asked a student. He said the traffic lights installed years ago barely function and ITMS cameras \u201care good for nothing,\u201d as no challan data has ever been made public.<\/p>\n<p>Students already hit by the e-rickshaw ban said the traffic mess has made commuting even more stressful. \u201cIf the goal was smooth movement, the results are the opposite,\u201d said Shaista Mehraj, another student .<\/p>\n<p>Residents also complained that the city\u2019s lofty promises have remained confined to paperwork. \u201cFrom Smart City projects to ITMS, everything looks good in press releases, but on the ground, it\u2019s still the same old Srinagar,\u201d said a motorist stuck in traffic near Pratap Park.<\/p>\n<p>As peak-hour gridlocks persist, frustrated commuters are now asking: Where is the city really heading?<strong>\u2014(KNO)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Srinagar, Nov 26:\u00a0Nearly a week after the ban on e-rickshaws along Srinagar\u2019s two busiest stretches M.A. Road and Residency Road, the traffic congestion continues unabated during peak hours, raising serious questions about the effectiveness of the move and the city\u2019s traffic management system. On Wednesday, around six days after the ban, long queues of vehicles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5136,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5134\/revisions\/5136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirthunder.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}