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Pressed for parking space
Authorities are fighting a losing battle with parking lots in the city, with many commercial establishments and residential complexes failing to provide adequate space for them. The much-touted multilevel parking lot projects are yet to take off
By
migrator
migrator
Chennai
Recently, the Madras High Court had ordered the Chennai Corporation and City Police to close down restaurants and eateries that do not provide parking space for their customers. In a study conducted by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in 2007, they had found that 64 buildings in T Nagar, together had provided parking provision for only 86 cars, although they were law-bound to provide 2,611 parking slots.
The Chennai Corporation, CMDA and Chennai City Police have all found buildings that had been violating the building rules blatantly and not providing parking slots for their customers. However, all these three agencies prefer not to raise a finger against these violations, and the city roads are pressed for parking slots.
When ADGP Karan Singha took over as the City Commissioner of Police, the first order he issued was to clear all vehicles that are parked on the sides of roads and in no-parking zones. The policemen pulled up their socks and started cracking down on unauthorised parking. Ironically, the policemen are now instructing the two-wheeler riders to park their vehicles on footpaths instead of on roads, in order to avoid being towed away.
All agencies are engaged only in firefighting and are not ready to address the core issue, which is violation by commercial establishments, which fail to provide car parking for their customers. A multistoreyed private supermarket in Pondy Bazaar does not even provide a single car park to their customers. There are many such buildings in areas like T Nagar, Parrys and Purasaiwalkam, where customers are forced to park their vehicles on the road.
While the problem of parking has been growing in the city proportional to the increase in vehicle population, the agencies involved are reluctant to book the violators. However, they are now trying to come out with plans to provide more parking places at the expense of the government.
“The entire parking policy of Chennai Corporation is going to be changed and we are in the process of regulating parking in a better way,” Chennai Corporation Revenue Officer, M K Divakar told DTNext. The Chennai Corporation has now engaged a private agency to study the parking requirements in the city and to identify areas where parking could be provided.
“We are also helping the agency in identifying the areas. We have already started identifying wider roads to draw yellow lines and allow parking beyond that line. We have been cracking down on illegal vehicle parking in the city and on an average, up to 20 cases of car parking violations and 30 cases of two-wheeler parking violations are booked daily per police station,” Deputy Commissioner of Traffic, South, P Aravindan said.
He said a multilevel car parking project has already been sanctioned for T Nagar, but it is yet to be constructed. He said the idea of the Chennai Corporation is to identify designated parking areas in all parts of the city, to cut down on unauthorised parking that choke the traffic flow. It should be noted that the CMDA had come up with the idea of multilevel carparking in key areas, as early as 2003, after conducting a study on parking requirements in Chennai Metropolitan Area.
The study had suggested construction of multilevel carparking in areas like T Nagar, Parry’s Corner, Anna Nagar, Adyar, Anna Salai, Nungambakkam and Velachery. CMDA had also spent a lot of money by engaging a consultancy firm, Mecon Ltd. to prepare a detailed feasibility report for the development of multilevel parking complexes at these six locations.
The government had also decided to implement the project at three of the six locations and had given permission to the Chennai Corporation to take up the project in Corporation lands.
However, none of these projects took off and Chennai’s traffic requirements have gone up considerably in comparison with 2003. Now when the police book parking violators, city roads have become a nightmare for vehicle owners who have no place to park their cars.
SLOT SNAG
- 86 parking slots provided for 64 buildings in T Nagar. CMDA rules stipulate 2,611 slots for same
- Not a single parking slot in a multistoreyed supermarket in Pondy Bazaar
- Chennai Corporation engages an agency to identify areas that could be converted into parking space
- At least three studies conducted by private agencies, on instruction from CMDA and Corporation, have gone waste
- Wilbur Smith Associates (P) Ltd., when commissioned, had identified six multilevel parking spots in the city
- 20 car parking violations and 30 two-wheeler parking violations booked in each of the 132 police stations in the city, on an average daily
47,57,822 Total number of vehicles in Chennai in 2016
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