CHENNAI: Roadside parking violations continue across Anna Nagar, with vehicles frequently occupying footpaths and narrowing carriageways. As the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) prepares to roll out an area-level parking management project in the neighbourhood, questions remain on how parking practices in residential streets will be addressed.
While commercial establishments along arterial roads have contributed to haphazard parking, residential stretches are no exception. On 16th Street in Anna Nagar East, for instance, a dispute over street-vendor encroachments near the Bougainvillea Park area led to their eviction, but cars continue to line both sides of the road along long apartment stretches.
A study conducted by the Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) found that in some parts of Anna Nagar, over 60% of available road space is encroached due to unregulated parking.
The proposed Area Level Parking Management Plan (ALPMP) seeks to regulate on-street parking by treating Anna Nagar as a single planning unit rather than a collection of individual streets. According to the tender, the project proposes marked parking bays, paid parking, digital monitoring and enforcement, and caps total on-street parking in Anna Nagar at 2,100 equivalent car spaces, largely across commercial streets. However it does not spell out how parking in residential streets will be planned.
Where are the cars supposed to go, especially when most houses don’t have dedicated parking?
continues to echo among the residents.
Explaining the phased approach, Sangami, an urban planner with the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) involved in the ALPMP exercise, said the initial rollout focuses on commercial corridors where parking demand and turnover are higher.
Of the roughly 45 km road network in the area, around 25 km of primarily commercial streets are being taken up in the first phase. Commercial streets have higher turnover and demand, and that is where the immediate need for regulation is,
Sangami
Under the plan, each commercial street will have a limited number of paid bays, aimed at encouraging rotation and discouraging long-duration parking. Vehicles parked outside designated bays or in no-parking zones would be treated as violations.
In residential streets, planners acknowledge the challenge is more complex. They say the neighbourhood parking cannot be regulated in the same way as commercial streets, as it involves legal provisions and policy decisions such as permit systems and proof-of-parking concepts, which would need to be introduced carefully and in phases.
They also pointed out that the arrangements such as more rental parking spaces in nearby private properties, sharing unused slots within neighbourhoods could be more viable. “Residential parking measures are still being worked through and have not yet been finalised,” said Sangami.
Residents, however, say the absence of clear near-term measures leaves a gap. “If enforcement begins on commercial streets alone, vehicles will simply move deeper into residential lanes,” said Rajasekaran, a resident.
While public roads cannot continue to function as default storage space for private vehicles, alternatives remain limited. Residents suggest that more parking arrangements across the within walkable distance is necessary, so that residential streets are not left bearing the spillover as the project takes shape.