The Hindu             27.11.2013

There should be no free parking in city: expert

There should be no free parking in the city, according
to T.G. Sitharam, chairperson of the Centre for Infrastructure,
Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning (CiSTUP) of the Indian
Institute of Science (IISc.).

Speaking at the one-day
workshop on “Urban Transport – Mobility Strategies for Bangalore” here
on Tuesday, he said that as the number of vehicles in the city had gone
up from 3.65 million in 2009 to 4.5 million in 2013, it becomes
imperative that we should seriously do a rethink on providing parking
spaces in the city. According to him, parking of vehicles should be
banned on major roads. However, on some roads, it could be restricted to
just one side. And, there should also be restriction on registration of
vehicles. “If no parking provision has been made available at an
individual’s house, he/she should not be allowed to register the third
car,” he said.

While parking of vehicles should be
totally banned in areas such as Majestic, which gets a lot of footfalls,
in some other areas it should be restricted. And, instead of providing
parking spaces in huge, big places, we should identify smaller places to
create parking spaces on public-private partnership basis. That will
make parking spaces easily accessible to the people.

Bhaskar
Rao, president and chairperson of the Centre for Symbiosis of
Technology, Environment and Management (STEM), stressed on the need for
planning for “housing of vehicles.” He said that with on-road parking,
the motorable space available on roads had naturally reduced. “Mobility
planning should look at important micro issues such as how much space is
available for use to park vehicles on the roads and footpaths,” he
added.

It is pertinent to note that in September this
year, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council recorded
the government’s decision to reintroduce pay-and-park system in the
city, which was scrapped in 2005. Mayor B.S. Sathyanarayana had then
maintained that the civic body would try to implement the system soon.
The BBMP is yet to frame the rules and officials are yet to decide on
the roads to be included in the three packages proposed by the
Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT).

The rates proposed by DULT too will be reduced as the BBMP does not want to burden the citizens, sources in the civic body said.