The city witnessed unusual traffic congestion on Saturday (May 16, 2026), leaving hundreds of motorists stranded on major roads for hours. The weekend rush, coupled with ongoing road and metro works, caused the gridlock, according to the police.

Civil Line Road and the Palarivattom-Kaloor stretch were among the worst affected. Commuters said the journey from Thripunithura to Palarivattom via Vyttila took nearly two hours in the evening, while the Kakkanad-Palarivattom stretch took over an hour, against the usual 30 and 15 minutes respectively.

Private buses took over an hour to cover the nearly 5-km stretch from Lissie Junction to Palarivattom. According to passengers, several commuters got down at Kaloor Junction midway through the journey and opted for the metro instead.

Traffic police sources said culvert work at Desabhimani Junction triggered the traffic snarl between Palarivattom and Kaloor, while metro works worsened congestion along Civil Line Road and at Padamugal Junction, where the merging of parallel lanes delayed traffic towards Palarivattom.

The congestion spilled over to several arterial roads as well. “There was an unusual volume of vehicular movement across the city throughout the day. The weekend rush, with only two weeks left for the summer vacation to end, could have triggered the heavy traffic flow. Culvert work at Desabhimani Junction and metro works along Civil Line Road worsened the situation,” a senior City Traffic police officer said. A U-turn near the culvert work site created a bottleneck, forcing the police to shift it to another point to ease traffic.

The officer added that additional personnel were deployed at key locations to manage traffic. The situation eased by 9 p.m.