The Hindu 28.12.2010
Solution to unregulated parking not yet in sight
Ajai Sreevatsan
— Photo: S.S. Kumar
Long way ahead: Unregulated parking is the order of the day in many
places. A scene on Arcot Road in Vadapalani on Monday.
CHENNAI: For people like Gaurav Kumar, parked vehicles are a
nightmare. He lives right next to a multi-specialty hospital in Kilpauk.
Getting in and out of his home is an ordeal. The side street on which
he lives is taken over by an array of cars and two-wheelers on most
days.
“The concept of public space has become a joke in the city. Every
inch is taken over. My children find it difficult to even step out and
go to school,” Mr.Kumar says.
A two-storeyed underground parking lot was inaugurated on Sunday at
the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) to provide relief to motorists
using the terminus, but a citywide solution to the problem of
unregulated parking seems distant.
Chennai still lacks a parking policy and the absence of demarcated
parking zones has resulted in motorists taking over even pedestrian
space, making the city unwalkable. A study ‘Parking requirements of
Chennai Metropolitan Area’ undertaken by Wilbur Smith Associates in 2003
says that haphazard on-street parking leads to an average loss in road
capacity of over 40 per cent.
The government’s answer is to build multi-level parking facilities.
Chennai Corporation Commissioner D. Kathikeyan said: “Our approach is to
build as many multi-level car parks as possible.” After years of delay,
the Corporation has commenced work on two such facilities. But is the
government adopting the right strategy?
Parking is a subset of the congestion problem that the city is going
through. The number of private vehicles in the city per 100 residents
increased eight-fold between 1981 and 2010.
G. Malarvizhi, professor at the Transportation Engineering Division,
Anna University, who has done a study on parking problems in the city’s
central business districts, says that the demand for parking is infinite
and the city cannot keep building multi-storey facilities. “Parking has
to be priced at a premium. The city’s Development Control Regulations
must reflect time-specific and locality-specific changes.” For example,
according to current regulations, a hospital based in T. Nagar is
mandated to have the same amount of setbacks and parking space as one in
Washermenpet.
Ms. Malarvizhi says that most of the measures being taken to address
the issue are focussed on demand management, instead of policy
intervention. “Parking must be used as a tool to control the movement of
private vehicles. Instead, we are allowing demand to go up by providing
free parking on most city roads and then we change standards when it
becomes difficult to enforce,” she adds.
Her projections indicate that parking demand in T. Nagar will
increase five-fold by 2016 if restrictions on entry of vehicles are not
imposed. Globally, it has been proved that parking fees can indirectly
incentivise public transport. Shenzhen in China recently tripled parking
charges and parking demand immediately dropped by 30 per cent.
A recent Asian Cities Parking Study done by the Asian Development
Bank across 14 cities finds that most of the cities are adopting an
auto-centric parking strategy that has now been discarded by Western
cities. It shows that a surprising proportion of parking is free for
motorists, even in dense cities with high property prices.
Bhure Lal, Chairman of the Environment Pollution Control Authority
(EPCA), a committee set up by the Supreme Court to monitor public policy
in the National Capital Region, says that 9-10 per cent of Delhi’s area
is required to provide adequate parking for vehicles.
“The existing policy perpetrates hidden subsidy to rich car owners as
the cost of using up scarce and valuable urban space for parking are
not recovered through proper pricing and taxes,” he adds.