Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Project to develop parking lots on M.G. Road

Photo: S. Gopakumar

CHOCK-A-BLOCK: Absence of parking facilities leads to chaotic traffic conditions at Pazhavangady in the city. —

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city Corporation has initiated moves to acquire land for a project to develop off-street vehicular parking facilities on congested stretches of M.G. Road.

The standing committee on Town Planning is learnt to have identified six vacant plots that will be acquired for the project. The committee has written to the Revenue Department requesting the land records and the survey sub-numbers.

Committee chairman R. Satheeshkumar said the idea was to develop multi-level parking facilities with private participation.

A previous attempt to develop off-street parking facilities on the road failed to take off following the government’s failure to sanction funds from the Capital Region Development Programme. Under the proposal that was mooted in 2002, the civic body planned to acquire land and hand it over to private parties for construction of multi-storeyed or underground parking plazas under a BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) scheme.

The acute shortage of parking space in the city is a major problem for road users. The development of parking areas has failed to keep pace with the increase in number of motor vehicles.

Diversion of parking lots and encroachment by hawkers have compounded the problem. Parking bays in the busy market areas are filled to capacity during peak hours, forcing vehicles to waste fuel in taking circuitous routes to find other slots.

More than 20 per cent of the road space at major junctions and commercial centres is appropriated by cargo vehicles, autorickshaws and taxis. Efforts to restrict haphazard parking of taxis and autorickshaws have met with severe resistance from drivers’ unions.

With the traffic police taking stern action against illegal parking, motorists are now forced to park their vehicles away from the commercial centres. The pay-and-park facility at the Gandhi Park, the parking lot of the Railways on Power House Road and the private parking lot at the Tutors Lane offer little relief.

The advent of high-footfall hypermarkets in congested locations has compounded the problem. In the absence of parking facilities within the premises, vehicles bringing customers spill out onto the roads, choking traffic.

Some years ago, the Corporation had prepared a scheme to introduce a pay-and-park system at 20 locations. The proposal was designed to organise parking in the most congested locations but it failed to take off.

The Thiruvananthapuram Development Authority had also toyed with the idea of constructing multi-storeyed parking-cum-commercial centres. Its plan was to construct multi-tier parking lots equipped with ramps in the Medical College, Pulimoodu and Secretariat areas. However, this scheme also fell through for various reasons. Development of parking facilities is not a priority item in the ongoing City Roads Improvement Scheme.

Urban development officials maintain that off-street parking lots are the only long-term solution to the traffic congestion in the city. They are of the opinion that the project would have to be subjected to a thorough feasibility study to attract BOT partners from the private sector. They warn that the Corporation would find itself burdened with idle investment if the project is launched without adequate planning.

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