Page 53 - TrafficInfraTech Dec-Jan 2019

PARKING

Coming to public parking - Mumbai too”. To measure how the amount of
has close to 150 municipal pay-and-park land that parking requires at the city
car parks. However, they are not being level has increased over the last twenty
put to good use because they require years, MESN converted the entire area
parking appurtenances, day numbering, occupied by roads, and by registered
and spring posts. Basic safety measures vehicles, into square metres. It found
are missing. that the area occupied by private cars
According to Pai, traditional has gone up from 58% to 77%, while
ground/podium/basement parking is that occupied by taxis reduced from
now making way for a multilevel stack 16% to 12%. Commercial vehicles
parking tower with CCTV-based parking – which many people find obstructive –
sensors that employs technology like lost from 18% to 7%. The biggest loser Parking is a cancer
RFID sensors, vehicle recognition and is buses, which fell from 6% to just 2%.
machine learning. He concluded by The number of people transported feeding to cities and
saying that “Parking may be a necessary by a single car per day is also reduced. solutions that we are
or unnecessary evil, but it also a way to So is occupancy of the average BEST
earn a huge amount of revenue. Most bus – from 400 to 283 people per trip. thinking are like aspirin
Indian cities are not really optimising “What it means”, Datar said “is that in instead of chemotherapy.
this revenue.” Mumbai, roughly 30 % of road space is
Ashok Datar added, “Parking is a occupied by cars, which is completely You don’t give free space
serious subject that has not been taken unpaid for.” for slums, you don’t give
seriously at all so far. Our attitude “Roads are full of parking space”, free space for housing
towards parking is lackadaisical or he continued, “but it is like what you
completely anarchic; with the number call the wallpaper effect: we see it, yet then why should you
of vehicles growing, we can no longer we don’t see it. Even the municipality give free space for cars.
afford to be like that.” has never found the time to do a traffic
All forms of transport require three count or parking surveys”. Ashok Datar
things: vehicles, fuel and the most Talking about the cost of land
important thing – space. “When we allocated to private parking, Datar
buy flats or commercial spaces, we take gave the example of 400 square feet
into account the cost of land, but when allocated to a 2 BHK for parking. “The
we drive or park, we seem to forget market price for this area is fifty lakhs,
that the land this requires costs money but it is given away for free. I don’t

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