By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter

Many areas in Doha and suburbs experienced moderate to heavy traffic on Sunday as schools reopened after the summer break. Independent schools as well as most of the expatriate schools started the new academic session with more than 300,000 students resuming their studies after a break of over two months.

Different parts of the city, especially Abu Hamour, Mesaimeer, the Old Airport Area, and College of the North Atlantic - Qatar Roundabout at Duhail among several others, witnessed heavy rush in the morning hours. Long queues formed at several interchanges and roundabouts in these areas.

However, several motorists were of the opinion that the rush was not a very difficult one to handle. Most of them had been prepared for the scenario while others took it for granted. Several others had followed the instructions provided by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) as well as the media outlets. Gulf Times had, well in advance, provided a number of tips to ease the traffic congestion, quoting a minsitry officiaI.

The road from Abu Hamour Interchange which connects to the interchange on Mesaimeer Road was fully packed with vehicles as the area has a number of schools. It took quite sometime for the people to pass through the road and clear the signal. Several motorists had to wait for more than 10 minutes to pass through the interchange.

One of the motorists said: “This is a big problem for us. There are several schools in this locality and the flow of vehicles in the area is very high. Moreover, the signal duration from this direction is very short and makes us wait for very long time. Maybe the authorities should do something to add additional time for the signal from this direction at least in the peak hours.”

Several other areas of the city also had similar problems. Old Airport Area was one such location which witnessed traffic congestion as several infrastructure developments are taking place. Many of the pocket roads in the area are closed, making the traffic difficult to handle. Midmac Roundabout as well as the Immigration Roundabout also had high traffic in the peak hours.

One of the motorists said he started quite early to avoid the heavy traffic. "I had anticipated heavy rush today and had read tips to avoid the rush. Therefore, I started early and reached the school of my children well in advance. I could also reach my office very much on time and could avoid the heavy traffic to a great extent."

Meanwhile, many people pointed out that a good number of students had not attended the school on Sunday. One parent said several families in his neighbourhood are yet to return after the vacation though they have school-going children. They might turn up sometime this week or next week. In addition, there are many parents who had left for vacation quite late and they will be coming back only after Eid Al Adha which falls in the fourth week of this month.

“Several of them would like to spend their time during the festival at home. Moreover, it is a matter of 10 days of classes and if the students are in the lower classes, it does not matter much. So the real test will be when the schools resume after the Eid al Adha holidays,” added another parent.