Christmas takes ‘nightmarish’ turn as Bengaluru residents flock to malls: ‘Abandoned vehicles to walk for 3 kms’

Bengaluru appeared to usher in the Christmas spirit with a visit to the mall on Wednesday — leading to chaos in several parts of the city. Social media users dubbed it a “traffic nightmare” with many forced to abandon their vehicles and walk for several kilometres to reach Mall of Asia and other hotspots. Repeated warnings and updates shared by the Bengaluru Traffic Police indicate similarly congested scenes prevailed at other venues in the city — including Phoenix VR and Forum malls.

“People had to leave their vehicles and walk 3 km to reach Mall of Asia. Yesterday was a traffic nightmare for commuters,” wrote one X user.

Netizens have since blamed inadequate parking and the unfortunate location as reasons for the chaos. The situation was also chaotic inside the mall with very little space for visitors to move. Half of Bengaluru, one X user joked, appeared to be spending Christmas at the Yelahanka mall.

“Bad location. There are huge malls in Dubai, USA, but no malls have access from main roads and highways. It’s always from the rear side, rear roads, with dedicated ramps to the car park,” wrote one user.

“This is the only reason every year that we hear about the Mall of Asia,” added another.

“Whoever permitted this mall at the airport road, must be jailed! Now decades will suffer due to this! Chaos on airport road!” fumed a third.

The massive outlet had also made headlines last year after it was asked to close for 15 days around this time last year for causing severe traffic congestion. The mall management had later approached the High Court and assured they would tackle the traffic issue.

Several key areas in the city are seeing heavy footfall and consequent traffic jams ahead of New Year — including Church Street, MG Road, Indiranagar and Koramangala. Officials had also shared a traffic advisory ahead of Christmas urging commuters to choose alternative routes.