Dehradun: Kilometers on end. Inching bumper to bumper. Cars of all shapes and size, thrown in with a few hundred bikes and scooties have choked the Mussoorie-Dhanolti bypass, even before the season’s first snowfall settled.
It started yesterday morning. As the first flake danced to the ground, vehicles snaked their way to Dhanolti and Mussoorie from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana. Arriving in droves, as little as one year olds to people in their late seventies came to town, to get a feel of the ‘Real Thing!
For shopkeepers big and small, from Dehradun to Mussoorie and even Dhanolti meant good business. The local administration stepped in for the safety of visitors by diverting traffic at various entry points. Though the strategy of limiting entry worked well yet, led to tipping point as the vehicles kept pouring into town, late into the night.
Mussoorie SHO Vidhya Bhushan Negi has had a busy weekend. Talking to Newspost he said: “Due to snow, traffic was diverted from the Jaypee bend to Mussoorie to ease traffic snarls along the Dhanolti-bypass. Police force has been deployed at important landmarks such as Battaghaat, Lal Tibaa, Library Chowk, Barlowganj. Tehri and Dehradun police are working in sync and diverting traffic time to time to ensure there is no untoward incident,” he added.
As for local residents, the enthusiasm of tourists to take their vehicles along with them has caused, “pure mayhem. Rental bikes and scooties are rage of the day, tourists refuse to walk and enjoy themselves,” Smarty Singh from Landour Bazaar tells me, as he sorts out, yet another traffic jam on the sharp incline.
The waltz of the snowflakes is once in a lifetime experience, but it comes with its own share of peril for those who refuse to dance in harmony with it.
