Chennaiites park woes, not vehicles

Chennai: Dwindling space, burgeoning infrastructure and a lack of proper planning in several places in the city have added to citizens’ parking woes.

Experts point out that the corporation’s idea of acceding to the rising demand for parking was only adding to the problem and that the shift should be more towards public transport. Chennaiites see parking as an issue that will concern them in days to come.

T Nagar, Parry’s corner, and Central have seen massive development of infrastructure and several places have parking in busy lanes.

Though steps taken by the traffic police and corporation officials have helped ease the flow at these places, festival time puts these measures to the test. In 2013 alone the traffic police booked close to 1.9 lakh cases of illegal parking and collected fines worth Rs19 lakh. A senior traffic official says, “Various plans for a centralised traffic programme are in the planning stages and the Metro will definitely reduce the traffic flow.”

Professor K.P. Sub­ramanian, former prof­essor of Urban Engine­ering at Anna Unive­rsity, says, “The city’s parking policy has many flaws. Parking costs need to be high and spaces earmarked for the same should be few so that it would be an incentive for people to use public trans­port.

The steps to make more parking spa­ce­s is against the Nati­onal Urban Tran­sport Policy 2006 which talks of promoting public tra­ns­port. On street parking is something that has to be done away with.

Roads are meant for traveling on, not for parking.” Several roads around Po­ndy Bazaar have their sp­aces converted into par­k­ing ar­eas. So too at Parrys wh­e­re two-wheelers line ev­ery building block in nar­row lanes.

M. Kumar, a parking attendant in T Nagar, says, “We have space on weekdays as vehicles keep coming and leaving, but during weekends the rotation does not happen, and we have to close.”

Various big stores in the area provide parking space for their customers, but more often, two-wheelers are left to fend for themselves. No­ne of the parking spa­ces allow two-wheelers, says Selvaraj K., an auto driver in Pondy Baz­aar.

Pon Muthu Ramal­ing­am, a college student, sa­ys, “ I was fined for illegal parking at Ritchie Street recently. There was no space at all for parking.”

Next: Multi-parking lots in T Nagar and Broadway pick up speed

Multi-parking lots in T Nagar and Broadway pick up speed

Chennai: While the multi- level car parking lots proposed for the city by the Chennai corporation have been on hold for long, T Nagar and Broadway could see them take shape sooner than other areas as the civic body is planning to shortly float re-tenders for parking lots in these localities.

A re-tender for the lot on NSC Bose road in Broadway is expected to be floated by December 16, and the one for T Nagar could be floated as soon as the government gives its approval, say corporation sources.

A. Swaminathan, a retired chief engineer of the corporation, says multi- level parking lots are the answer to the parking problems of the city. But he regrets that although a number of parking lots were announced for Chennai in the past, all of them have remained in the planning stage for almost five years.

“Space is hard to come by these days. Some playgrounds have been converted into parking spaces but this is not a feasible option. Also, using streets for parking in places like T Nagar will only worsen the situation ,” he warns.

Motorists in the city too find it difficult to understand what is holding up the building of the parking lots. “When several private shopping complexes are building multi-storey parking lots successfully, why is the corporation struggling to build even one one such facility?” asks K. Manivasangan, a regular shopper in T. Nagar.