The Times of India    09.09.2010

Corporation wakes up to parking woes

CHENNAI: The Madras high court's order on Tuesday that the Chennai Corporation and the traffic police should take action against business establishments cornering road space near their shops/showrooms to create exclusive parking lots, is seen as a welcome development, but many wonder how far the authorities will succeed in implementing it.

Chennai Mayor M Subramaniam has assured that the civic body will, as per the high court order, remove all such exclusive parking lots' of commercial establishments in the city. "Our officials have started making a list of such places where shops and showrooms occupy road space and use it as their own parking lots. While vehicles are parked on both sides of many roads, we are also making a list of roads that are more than 40ft wide to allow parking only on one side. At the same time, we propose to totally prevent parking on smaller roads,'' he said.

On their part, traffic police said they cannot not take action against the erring establishments under the Motor Vehicles Act but can book them only on charge of causing public nuisance, and recommend licencing authorities to cancel the licence of such establishments.

Additional commissioner (traffic) M Ravi said, "We have booked 1.37 lakh cases of parking violations in the city from January 1 to September 7 this year. We will go through the high court order once we get a copy and act accordingly."

Road safety experts pointed out that primary responsibility of solving the parking problems lies with the Chennai Corporation and the CMDA which, they said, should not give permission for construction of buildings unless they show adequate parking space.

"An average of 30% to 40% road space is occupied by parked vehicles. Private establishments should not be allowed to use the road margins as if it was their own parking lot and action should be taken at least on arterial roads. The practice of residential complexes not permitting visitors' vehicle inside their premises should also be viewed seriously. It is the visitors' vehicles that occupy most of the road space," said transportation engineering professor A Veeraraghavan in IIT, Chennai.

"Roadside parking of vehicles is a major problem in almost all areas in the city. It causes severe hindrance to traffic on roads like Konnur High Road, which is already too narrow to handle movement of large vehicles. Authorities should ensure that the court order is implemented in letter and spirit,'' said K Ramadoss, general secretary of Ayanavaram Residents Welfare Association.