Hello WCFC Members, Besides other issues, I had invited your attn., in my earlier postings, about the rapidly increasing CHAOS in the PARKING SPACE in CHENNAI ROADS. When I discussed this with a few of my friends, some of them agreed with me that this could snowball into an unprecedented crisis in CHENNAI. Some also felt that the PARKING SPACE scenario was far better in CHENNAI, when compared with other cities. My question is this. Cities in the hinterland always have the fortune of growing in all directions. Examples: BANGALORE, HYDERABAD, PUNE, AHMEDABAD AND DELHI. What happens is this. These cities have the pull factor of developing satellite colonies/towns around them. This is not the case with COASTAL CITIES. This constraint becomes more felt, when a coastal city like CHENNAI has its borders with neighbouring states. Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka borders are very close to CHENNAI. So, CHENNAI cannot grow in all the directions. A lot lot more planning is required for CHENNAI to survive. The PARKING SPACE problem is not something that affects only the Motor Vehicle owners. It affects navigation. It affects the road pavements. It makes even broad roads into road-strips. Yes, it becomes a definite cause for more road-accidents. Besides, you are going to witness the frontspace on the road, just before your house or your apartment, getting converted into a de facto PARKING SPACE. Yes, you cannot take even own vehicles out. You can also park your vehicle on the road itself, just to ensure that you are not struck! I am sharing with you, a relevant news clipping that appeared in THE HINDU today. Some of you have asked me, "Well, what can we do? How can we intervene in these issues effectively?" I have only one answer. No habitat can survive, if its natural members don't care for it. I am building up the opinion in this Group. I request you to join me in this opinion building. When we all meet, there should be a few solid issues on which we should all have no second opinion or debate. We should have done the debating and discussing by that time. The time is NOW. Govind Srinivasan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.3 million vehicles, but no place to park By Our Special Correspondent CHENNAI, OCT. 1. At 80, Vasudevan is an unhappy man. He can hardly step out of his home. The street on which he has lived almost his entire life in T. Nagar has turned into a make-shift garage for taxis, cars, two-wheelers, tempos and light commercial vehicles. The situation is no different in West Mambalam, Ashok Nagar or K.K. Nagar or Adyar, Egmore, Puraswakkam, Velachery and Madipakkam for that matter. Welcome to Chennai's new reality: cash-rich people buying snazzy automobiles costing lakhs, while the middle classes, lured by low-interest loans are shifting from two-wheelers to entry-level cars. But the biggest challenge is to find parking space. Every night hundreds of cabs, vans and private taxis are found parked along the back streets and by-lanes. House-owners who try to object are either ignored or frightened by goon squads. Added to this is the huge fleet of buses owned by the nearly 100 colleges in and around Chennai. The massive vehicles are parked in any available space, irrespective of whether the area is residential or commercial. A city with 1.3 million vehicles, over 100 commercial locations and dozens of business districts, has no parking policy worth the name. The city's civic bosses have not tapped the five architecture and urban planning schools. The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority does have a draft parking policy. Once the draft, which has just been prepared, is approved by the Government, city planners hope to identify a suitable agency to prepare a detailed project report to implement the recommendations and periodically update the Comprehensive Traffic and Transport Study. Officials hope to receive the World Bank assistance to fund parking infrastructure. Long-term needs The draft policy aims at defining a long-term policy for accommodating all vehicles. Experts involved say a survey showed that 30 per cent or more of the carriageway on several roads is taken away by on-street parking. Residential and commercial complexes need to create more parking lots. Inter-modal transit/parking needs to be encouraged. "We need to encourage private providers to build and operate multilevel parking lots, automated with separate access ways," says a retired urban planning teacher. Special areas The policy also speaks of regulations for creating parking lots at railway stations, and special areas such as temples and monuments and heavily congested business districts. It covers licensing and cost of parking including heavy fees for parking in crowded areas to discourage private vehicles, clear signage and definition of where the parking lots begin and end. It propounds a separate agency for parking management, under the civic body with representatives from planners, police force and private parking lot operators. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Private Reply to Govind Srinivasan |