Hours-long traffic snarls hit commuters hard

Commuters had a harrowing time on roads across Doha and some neighbouring areas yesterday, as traffic snarls were reported from a number of arterial roads.Social media was flooded with posts on massive queues of vehicles and extremely slow traffic movement along clogged roads. Many motorists had to spend hours on the road as they tried to reach their destination.With traffic restrictions put in place along the Doha Corniche, roads leading to the area as well as some other key stretches saw severe congestion yesterday, especially since the afternoon.  The congestion lasted for several hours and only started easing - in some places - from the evening, it was learnt.Residents had already experienced heavy traffic over the last couple of days owing to restrictions along the Corniche, and expected similar conditions yesterday. However, many of them felt that yesterday’s traffic was particularly bad.Long queues of vehicles were seen on C-Ring Road, D-Ring Road, Msheireb, Mansoura, Najma, Mamoura, Shamal Road, parts of Salwa Road (especially towards Doha), and between Al Wakrah and Doha International Airport, among others.For those coming to Doha from the Al Wakrah side, it took more than two hours to cover the distance in the afternoon while it took around the same time - or more - for commuters coming from Daayen (Shamal Road) or the suburbs to reach the city centre.Buses carrying schoolchildren were among the worst affected as some of them were reportedly caught in traffic jams for hours. A resident said a school bus carrying students from an expatriate school in Mesaimeer took more than four hours to drop all the children home.Expressing their views on social media, commuters said they had never witnessed such traffic in Doha and recounted how they spent hours on the roads as traffic crawled in several areas - with one person saying it took her four hours for a ride that normally takes 20 minutes. Another Twitter user said it took him two and a half hours to drive 5.7km from work to home.