Free parking is not a birth right, say experts

CHENNAI: With Chennai, like many other cities, running desperately short of parking spaces, experts suggest that parking should be treated as a commodity with appropriate pricing mechanisms for effective traffic management and to encourage public transport usage. According to statistics provided by Chennai City Connect, a body working on urban management issues, Chennai's vehicular traffic has grown by 8.4 per cent in 2010. While there has been an increase in the number of vehicles on the roads, there hasn't  been a corresponding increase in the space earmarked to park them, say experts.“If the Corporation of Chennai gives out gold for free, all of us would soon decry the shortage of gold and demand for an increased supply. The same is happening with parking spaces in Chennai as it is made available for free,” says Raj Cherubal of Chennai City Connect, a body working on urban management issues. “Actually every city has enough space for parking. What is causing the woes are the poor management practices by the cities,” he says and adds that it is high time the cities treat parking spaces as commodities to reduce demand.Experts addressing an international conference conducted by the Center for Science and Environment suggested similar measures to control the parking menace. “Parking controls and pricing measures need to be used to reduce parking demand and car usage and save valuable urban space for other purposes,” was the message from experts who attended the conference.  “Parking already devours close to 10 per cent of the urban land space in major metro cities; the daily addition of cars creates an additional demand for land bigger than 300 football fields. Uncontrolled and free parking encourages more car dependency,” says Anumitha Roychowdhury, Head of the Air Pollution Team at CSE. “Car parks use up high value urban land, but pay nothing or a pittance for using the land.”Pricing mechanisms must be designed in such a way that it can be hiked or lowered on a monthly basis depending on the demand says Raj. “Such methods have been tried and tested to perfection in countries like Singapore.” According to Raj Cherubal, free parking is one of the biggest enemies deterring usage of public transport. “While globally, cities are introducing good public transport and direct restraints on cars to reduce pollution and congestion, Indian cities continue to encourage private car usage by charging a pittance for road usage and for parking,” said Anumitha.  Experts say that it is recognised that the demand for parking is infinite and any amount of supply cannot fulfill it unless additional measures like controlling car usage and growth are not implemented. Major cities have been mandated under the JNNURM to reform parking policy. The guidelines from the urban development ministry have said clearly, “Introduce paid parking as a method to dissuade car use and/or raise revenue.” Chennai Corporation's efforts to introduce paid parking lots are being welcomed by experts with caution, who believe the system cannot succeed unless pricing the parking spaces is made universal across the city. “Further, the building and management of multi-level parking spaces must be left to private companies which have the resources to employ state-of-the-art infrastructure. State and civic bodies must restrict themselves to regulating free parking if the concept has to succeed,” says Raj.