[vinaydas]

this seriously needs to be implemented here in Bangalore.
With the increasing number of car buyers every day. There seems to be very little space on roads to travel on.

[baluundertaker]

Conceptually a good idea and makes a lot of sense in cities. If people say buying a car and parking it on the roadside is their right(which it is currently), what about your neighbour who built parking inside his house(and hence lost some space for his hall or bedroom) - Can he use 15 x 6 feet of road (the space he lost) for his private purpose. He is after all paying taxes too and deserves same thing as you.

The rule of course cant be implemented for people already owning a car. It is for people going for a new registration to prove that they own a parking space and this can be implemented in the long run ( am sure it wont be ..but just a hope). For people in rented spaces, they need to find a house/apartment with parking for available. It ll be costlier than normal till every new house comes with parking built in.

[vishwas]

This is a fantastic proposal at least in intent if not in practicality. It will lead to corruption in some cases, with multiple people claiming to own a spot, but it is a good start, to push home the point that there is no free parking. "Free" Parking on public roads is a huge cost borne by everybody else, who are trying to use the road for mobility or the pedestrians whose right to safe passage is harmed.

This should be coupled with a general ban on over-night parking on smaller roads and a complete ban of parking on major roads. This will ensure that visitors are not harassed in day time by parking on side roads. It is hard to implement initially, but there is no alternative in Indian cities, with roads being clogged up with parked vehicles.

In Bangalore, for example, is a trend of encroaching the footpath by designing a gate that folds outwards - this way a spot designed for a M-800 will fit a Honda Civic. An Example: Illegal Extension of Parking Space | Bangalore Metblogs. More such examples here: FOOTPATH ENCROACHMENTS - Not just a 'pedestrian' problem

The loss of "free" street parking will lead to viability of private parking structures. See this opinion for a more comprehensive look at why minimizing parking is good for healthy cities: Slate-There's No Such Thing as Free Parking: How eliminating parking spaces could make cities more nimble and efficient.

Of course all of this is fair only when coupled with effective public transport, where the increased cost of owning a car, will be mitigated by easy to use and ubiquitous transport.

[rohan_iitr]

We are all discussing the after effects of congestion. Why doesn't anyone think about the root cause of the problem ?

When the government gave permission to these IT companies to set up their offices in Bangalore, which employ lakhs of IT professionals, why didn't the government take any steps to provide residential localities to these IT employees near to their work place ?

Why were SEZs like electronics city and ITPL developed which have only offices not homes ? Why couldn't they have planned proper townships which include office, residence, parks, hospitals, schools, shopping complexes, community centres etc ?

Because of the lack of vision of the government, most immigrants have to stay in rented accomodation (without parking space) which is away from their work place and commute to office in their private vehicles because of lack of a good public transport system.

It is equally fair for a person to buy a car without a parking slot as it is for a big company to employ thousands of employees without providing them residence near to their workplace or decent transport facility.

Rohan

[Zombie69]

I'm not sure why some people here are merging to topics! Garage and cars / Traffic congestion! How many times have you guys seen a traffic jam in a residential area with cars parked on the roads? Well I agree with encroaching the road/footpath is illegal, but how sane is it not to register a car because he/she doesn't have a garage. Forget the IT people for a moment and think about a poor guy who wants to own a car (bank loan of course) and wants to use it as a taxi/travels. Does he also have to have a garage? I have seen it personally some of their homes are as small as the garage where the whole family lives!
Lets not relate traffic congestion with the cars parked outside in residential areas.

Cheers!
Z

[alpha1]

In fact what govt should do is to ban the sale of cars.

What is the public transport there for?


--x--

I didn't believe that ppl, atleast on this forum, would fall prey to these absurd measures; but I was wrong.

Ppl try to prosper in life inorder to gain certain things - house, vehicle, luxuries.
What right do you have to stop them?
And if you believe you have - why not turn the clock back and make this a communist country where all the policies of YOUR life is dictated by someone else.

[wildon]

Hm... I don't know who is making this rules here

Instead of this they have to make it,

If you build a Single story house - Single Car Parking space is a must
If you build a Double Story House - Double Car parking space is a must

This can be in the underground basement also. At present in Bangalore you can't construct a underground basement parking for a 30*40 site.

[Aroy]

Delhi government is tackling the parking issue on two fronts

1. Rs.2,000/ is charged towards purchase of new car as Parking/Improvement charges

2. The building bylaws are changing. I learnt recently that all new constructions have to have "stilt" parking facility. The number of parking slots depends on the plot size, any where between four and eight at present, but soon to be increased to some thing like 3 units per floor. At present it is implemented in larger plots - 300 sqm onwards, but the law is soon to be modified to include all plot sizes.

Internationally both Hong Kong and Singapore amongst others, restrict vehicle purchases to those who can show parking both at home as well as the office. So let us face it, India will also follow. What is lacking is an excellent and dependable public transport system which runs most of the day. One cannot expect to take a metro in Delhi to attend a party. Metro closes much ahead of the Bars and Hotels!

[Cesc]

This law (if it is implemented) will be a joke. I can get 10 cars registered by showing the same garage and nobody is going to question. Or else bureaucracy will get richer and touts will make merry.

For Bangalore - if we can spend 30 minutes negotiating 1km in a commercial area (a la Brigade Road) which has cars parked by the roadside (sometimes on both sides) then why the fuss about cars parked by the roadside in residential areas? The city government has for years collected the highest amount in road taxes that this country has seen. Where has all that money gone? In fact what is the rational behind the high road tax in the city? It has spectacularly failed to check congestion and at the same time the city government has not put in place a worthwile infrastructure with all that money. The fault lies not with people who can't shell out 10k extra per month for a house with parking space on top of 15% shelled out by way of road tax to the government. The fault lies with the lawmakers. A vast majority of people are not buying cars to show-off - they are buying cars out of necessity.

[shankar.balan]

If Bangalore had a halfway decent public transportation system with good connectivity across all the various areas, then people would not feel the need to keep buying more and more cars and this will help bring down multiple cars in the same house too.

Hope they increase Volvo routes and I sincerely hope the Metro comes to life soon. It should take some pressure off the roads.

Congestion charges are essential nowadays. The entire area in the city centre for a radius of 4-5Km needs to be cordoned off and made a congestion charging zone.

Along with this, implementation of dedicated Bus and Auto/ Public transport lanes, would help a lot. Can be policed by CCTV/ Speed Camera type tech and a hefty fine to be charged to people breaking the lane discipline.

However, nothing can happen without an empowered traffic police force and proper political will.

This is particularly true of the fact that almost none of our roads in this city are properly lit at night. and most of the roads surfaces are broken.

Unfortunately we are by nature quite an indisciplined and unruly bunch of chaps and hence, pay scant respect to rules and regulations.

The combination of all these circumstances have caused traffic systems in Bangalore to literally grind to a halt - especially during peak hours and during the weekends from late morning onwards.

Looks like the same vicious cycle will continue.

Best we can say is that atleast we havent (yet) experienced a traffic jam like the one in China which has remained at a standstill for the last 10 days and is expected to continue for the next 10 days atleast!!

Originally Posted by Cesc

This law (if it is implemented) will be a joke. I can get 10 cars registered by showing the same garage and nobody is going to question. Or else bureaucracy will get richer and touts will make merry.

For Bangalore - if we can spend 30 minutes negotiating 1km in a commercial area (a la Brigade Road) which has cars parked by the roadside (sometimes on both sides) then why the fuss about cars parked by the roadside in residential areas? The city government has for years collected the highest amount in road taxes that this country has seen. Where has all that money gone? In fact what is the rational behind the high road tax in the city? It has spectacularly failed to check congestion and at the same time the city government has not put in place a worthwile infrastructure with all that money. The fault lies not with people who can't shell out 10k extra per month for a house with parking space on top of 15% shelled out by way of road tax to the government. The fault lies with the lawmakers. A vast majority of people are not buying cars to show-off - they are buying cars out of necessity.

[jp1]

A poll was done on parking space consideration before buying a car is there on this link
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ting-cars.html

It is becoming a big nuisance in many places where both sides of the roads are occupied for parking cars, and thus creating complete chaos in many residential areas.

[kvish]

Forget cars, tempo travellers, trucks, private buses, and even autos have made roads their parking spaces. They should start with commercial vehicles too!.

In all a great idea. A step in the right direction.

[srishiva]

This discussion is going haywire and traffic congestion is being discussed which has nothing to do with people parking their cars in front of their houses.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by Cyrus43

The place is godforsaken. With a tiny number of cars on the road one can afford to do stuff like that. But you cant implement something like this in bombay.

That is not so. As far as I recollect, you cannot park on the road in Central Kolkata. It is moot point that a car parked there over night will disappear! In fact you have to find a parking place - own garage, petrol pump or friend's garage.

It may be difficult initially but in due cource the law will have to come if we want a better quality of life.

[aby]

Originally Posted by srishiva

This discussion is going haywire and traffic congestion is being discussed which has nothing to do with people parking their cars in front of their houses.

I beg to differ. The root cause of congestion is simply too many vehicles jostling for space in too little roads.

Additionally the problem of people parking of roads also contributes to traffic congestion because simply in a 30' road. So many times it can be seen that traffic piles up in a residential street where cars are parked on both sides of the road. And if the street joins a main road, it is natural that the chaos spreads to the main road too.

What are the solutions?
1) Build better roads with no guarantee of results, as number of cars will increase even faster
2) Better public transport - It takes ages to complete and costs money which would mean higher taxes on everyone. It is a long term solution, but I think we cannot wait for improvement
3) Last option would be to Restrict ownership of cars.

Coming to restricting ownership of cars? Is it fair. Not in an ideal world, where there is no congestion and land is aplenty. But then it is Indian cities we are talking about, so some stick is necessary.

So if I have to do it, is it not fair that people who cannot provision for parking and end up hogging public space (Roads) should be the FIRST TARGET?

All the claim of rental people getting affected is another hogwash. The fact is that houses/ apartments with car parks cost more to rent. So is it fair that the rest of the city pay for the fact that you cannot/ don't want to incur that additional cost? Isn't this a case of implicit subsidization of car ownership. Yet the same folks will gladly oppose other form of subsidization.

They might claim it is unfair and they too pay taxes, but it is just plain unfair on the person who has built a parking lot and parks his/her vehicle. He has spent money on building/buying the parking space and also losing in terms of opportunity cost of not using the space. Average parking space would be 15' x 9' or a 135 sq.ft. What would be the rent of an average room of that dimension in prime areas.