[alpha1]

Poor town planning.
Why do our municipal corporations allow building of high rise building places so close to each other?

It is but obvious that the more population you are going to place per square km of land, the more issues you will have with respect to traffic, parking, congestion, availability of water etc

Why don't our municipal corp actually have buffer zones in the city (like parks) between residential areas and office areas?

[prakhar1998]

Everywhere in the world, cars are parked on the streets.
Be it London or New York, but there are dedicated spaces,
and if you park anywhere else, you will be fined.

In India, there are barely any dedicated spaces on the road,
so people consider the whole road to be dedicated for parking.
Police is mostly lenient about such issues.

What we need to consider is the fact that the worlds most densely populated country, Singapore has developed a traffic model that is sustainable and reliable.
So have various densely populated European cities.

I believe it is not the people, but the policy makers who are to be blamed here. They need to devise better methods, and rules to curb the problem today, or it'll be too late tomorrow.
Now, the catch is, being a developing nation,
the government wants the country to grow and expand,
they want more people to lead a better lifestyle.
They cut the excise duties this year, that isn't helping.
So, maintaining a balance between development and sustenance is the key,
but doing this is not an easy task.

[Chetan_Rao]

We are all missing a critical point: discipline.

A good chunk of users on our roads park haphazardly even in cases when enough parking space is available. How many times have we come across someone who parallel parks with wheels or a bumper jutting out into the traffic lane, or someone who shoves their car into a narrow lane to a shop's doorstep just so they can avoid walking a few steps?

I went to the Decathlon outlet on Mysore road last weekend, and a majority of cars were parked with wheels outside the marked slots. It may not matter there because there's a huge parking lot, but we take the same attitude to other congested spaces.

In a country like ours with such limited (and ever-decreasing) space, driving and parking discipline is of paramount importance. Like Jeroen said, it won't matter how much space we create because first, there will never be enough and second, we'll never utilize whatever we do have, efficiently.

[texmonster]

My 2cents:
Yes, here in our country-cars outnumber parking spaces, but the situation would be better if our drivers exhibit discipline.

I have seen a single car taking up two car-worth of space by parking sideways! And idiot drivers holding up a 3-car space by sitting inside car (engine switched off) just before a parking space. And street-hawkers prohibiting you to park before their shop in a parking area. This list is endless!

Please, India has enough laws-the need of the hour is a minimal citizen discipline and respect for others.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by texmonster

Please, India has enough laws-the need of the hour is a minimal citizen discipline and respect for others.

Along with this, proper enforcement by the law who really care for the public and for smooth traffic flow should be there.

It is when these guys turn a blind eye to the street vendors, illegal/wrong parking guys such things are encouraged. Fine these owners/drivers and no such offence would be repeated.

Anurag.

[MRAMAB]

My 2 Cents- parking problem occurs in 3 basic areas in any city.

Residential areas-Houses are built without any room for a car park either they did not plan on buying a car or someone gifted it to them lol. But we find cars parked in front of houses on bot sides of the road, result- crammed up street.
Solution: BBMP had come up with a plan to ask for proof of parking place before you buy a car, never took off...

Commercial Areas-When we go shopping how long do we search for a parking spot.. sometimes we just sit in the car and wait for someone to remove his car from the parking lot..
Solution multiple storey parking in Key commercial areas, though implemented in Bangalore they are too few and too far from the road we want to shop in.

Office Buildings- We had car parks in my building, it was good enough for all cars, years passed by and now the space is not enough, empty land is being hired for car park. Even then the road adjacent to the building is filled with cars on both sides as the parking area is a bit far away.
Solution-Discourage employees coming in their own transport, deny parking space after a certain limit or provide parking permits based on necessity.

Permanent solution: Why is the govt not working towards imposing curbs on the number of or the kind of vehicles that run in the city? Why is there no subsidy for Electric vehicles but subsidy for Diesel? Why is there no encouragement for progress on the EV technology? The other day on an Interview i almost fell out of my chair when a Key politician was asked "How will you end Infrastructure problems?" Answer "We will build more flyover" LOL...

Any answers for the questions above.....?

[TorqueyTechie]

We had similar issues in our street with both the sides of the road being parked with cars restricting the vehicular traffic and to top it there is a school as well. When asked with the owners they simply shrugged off that they dont have parking in their buildings and that should not stop them from buying cars.

IMHO, the need of the hour is to

a) Have a proper mass transport system covering all the major congested routes along the lines of Metro.
b) Car pooling - This is little difficult with respect to finding people in the same route and work timings but if we think this reduces the amount of vehicles on the road and also solves the parking problem atleast on working days.

But the implementation of all these also needs change in the mindset of the people. How many of us would stop using cars , walk for a bit and take the metros to work?

In my company they brought in a concept of instant car pooling where in if people want to hitch a ride back home, they can simply come and stand at a pre designated place and a person will help them find a car which goes along the route and asks them to drop .I was surprised to hear from them that nobody agrees to do for a single day even.

[Jeroen]

Maybe just to add a few things on car pooling;

Back in my home country we gave our employees that car pooled a special financial incentive to make it more attractive.

There are many countries/cities, where cars with more then two occupants have dedicated lanes. They're often called car pool lanes, because any car in rush hour with more then two occupant tends to be a car pool car.

The car pool lanes get priority at lights, junction etc and generally tends to be more fluid than the other lanes on highway too. It does require lane discipline and is often enforced with multi automatic cameras monitoring the car pool lane. If you have fewer then three occupants you get a fine automatically.

Jeroen

[joybhowmik]

There have been a few attempts to car pool in India to address the issues of increased traffic, and incentivizing people to save money.
Some companies in Indian metros encourage their employees to car-pool. But they have not been successful because it is difficult to find people who share the same residence location, same office (destination) and same timings within the company.
Sites such as easy2commute.com have mushroomed, banking on the point, that people who genuinely want to car-pool can have a platform to connect with each other.
However, in today's corporate work culture in metros , barring some professions, it's difficult to sustain a consistent return time.
Not only that, many indians look at their car as a status symbol. Not having a car, or having a small car, or only 1 car is looked at with an element of disdain.
So the craving for cars continues - and the bigger or more the better. As an example a family of 5 living nearby has 5 cars! There's a general use Innova which goes grocery shopping to the local mandi (fruits/veggies wholesale market). There's a Wagon-R which is the daughter's ride. There's a Range Rover that takes the son to his factory. There's a Honda Brio for the lady of the house. And finally there's a Skoda that is used to hold parking space on the street for the son's Range Rover when it returns.

First off : A mass transit system that works is needed.
I would go one step further to say that, once such a system is in place, the government could consider ways and means to annually tax households with more than 1 car.
Other governments (e.g. London City , Singapore, New York) have also imposed stiff anti-congestion fees - all with a view to disincentivize people from bringing their cars. Maybe once the mass transit system is in place, our metro city officials can consider bringing in these types of fees.

[fine69]

No amount of discussion is going to change anything. While public transportation is a great suggestion but there are places where one might have to walk 2-3 kms from the nearest bus stop. Not to mention one can't travel in buses in Delhi's heat to begin with as AC buses don't ply on all routes. Metro doesn't go everywhere either.

Company transport is a great idea and my office provides AC cabs free of cost but I know of 5 other companies in my complex which provides buses (non-AC) only to the nearest metro station (which is like 15 kms away) so this goes out the window as well.

Builders should build ample parking - great suggestion, only that its equal to saying government should not be corrupt.

What else, govt. putting a ban on selling cars unless you show them proof of parking, rofl. This will never EVER happen in India.

I mean why do we keep bringing up the same story over and over again. We are sitting on a time-bomb when it comes to certain things and unless and until somebody higher up in the govt. starts feeling the pain nothing is going to change. They would still pave way for their convoy irrespective of how much traffic exists so till the time it isn't their problem, its not going to be solved easily.

You see TATA wanting to shift every two-wheeler owner to a four-wheeler owner and then you complain of parking issues, not fair! Don't try and swim upstream, wouldn't get you anything, just flow downstream even if its not your destination and don't bother about the rocks you keep hitting every now and then.

[pratyush6]

Very relevant topic.

Jeroen has hit all the right notes in his comment. and I have similar views. Having traveled overseas you do feel the problem in India is going to get worse. We are all buying more and more cars and the parking spaces are a premium.

3 Points that I can reiterate to alleviate the situation - not that we will solve it, but it will surely make some impact

1. Pubic transport needs to be efficient, fastest and most economical
2. Better Infrastructure: Yes our facilities are hopeless - but until it gets better have some legislation around people buying a car, actually have a proper space to park; opening a new showroom/business - have enough slots; plan ahead and create more centralized parking spaces
3. Make illegal parking very expensive - The fines right now are puny, if someone has parked wrongly fine them heavily

A point about Congestion tax/similar measures: The government does not have a leg to stand on this without providing proper Public Transport. Fining the citizens for the fault of the govt. is not justified.

Finally, let our administrators start using the knowledge available in this country and implement the best practices from round the world, And for the God's sake, plan for 25 years ahead, not 5.

Cheers!

[Bh.P]

I see quite a few Samaritans pointing fingers at the town planning authorities. While part of that may be valid, should we not think of the indiscipline of the users and private authorities.

1. I see quite a few street areas marked as No Parking. But do we follow it? People do not want to park a little far from their destination and walk. They find it easier to park at a no-parking zone rather than park on a bye-lane and walk, which would cause less trouble to the users of the main road. And I see very well dressed, seemingly educated folks do this. So, who is to blame here?

2. Do the makers of commercial spaces provide for parking? Even in the OP pictures, the area seems to be a huge office premises. But people park on roads, indicating the company creating the office space did not plan for enough parking space. They pretty well know how many people would be coming to the office based on the office spaces they create. Why not provide the requisite parking space.

So, I believe 60-70% of the problems are due to lack of discipline, and 30% could be due to poor planning. This holds true for parking problems and even more so for traffic jams. Every one wants to squeeze through to save 30 secs and create a jam for 30 mins!

[nda992]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

There is a very noticeable shift these days in car ownership in the western world. Young people don't care about cars, as long as they have good public transport obviously. None of my three children have a car and the eldest is nearly thirty and has an excellent job. It just doesn't have his interest. Few of his friends and colleagues do either. They will hire one when needed, but they are simply not interested in owning one. Very different from the situation here in India where many aspire to own their first real car. Call it decadent or progress, but societies do go through different phases. And probably, car ownership, or the ability to have your own car, is extremely relevant for millions of Indian. Probably partly because of inadequate, perceived or real, lack of public transport and partly because it is just something you want to have. I can certainly remember the first cars I bought and how proud I was. Drove it all over the Netherlands to show everybody. We are talking late 70's so long before Facebook. So you actually had to go to see family and friends to tell them, rather then to take a picture and put it up for 500+ friends to see it on your FB page.



Jeroen

The only persons who can make the difference are our National Leaders. The public transport system in all, and I mean all, cities and towns needs to be made more frequent, convenient and safer for the public.
True, we Indians associate car ownership with status, but who's to blame? It is shown in the same manner in our movies and when we see the cavalcades of our Ministers, it only serves to reaffirm the belief.
India must make buying and running costs for vehicles more expensive and consequently, revamp the public transport system.
The Calcutta metro is an example and there are people who started their jobs using the metro to ferry themselves, and have retired following the same schedule, simply because it's so convenient.
Let's hope there are more such transportation systems in our country soon.

[fine69]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

There are many countries/cities, where cars with more then two occupants have dedicated lanes. They're often called car pool lanes, because any car in rush hour with more then two occupant tends to be a car pool car.

The car pool lanes get priority at lights, junction etc and generally tends to be more fluid than the other lanes on highway too. It does require lane discipline and is often enforced with multi automatic cameras monitoring the car pool lane. If you have fewer then three occupants you get a fine automatically.

Well we are nearly there then, because we have the cars and the lanes, only the implementation part remains.

Its not that people who have authority don't know what needs to be done but we believe that when one has authority to do something, never do it for free . Even if the govt. is paying you salary on time don't do it unless your boss tells you to or you get an incentive from an innocent tax payers pocket.

[Blue_V]

The government could build a secure MLCP close to 'the' area. Make it illegal to park on street. Provide some sort of valet service and charge a nominal amt for parking in MLCP. Cars don't have to bear the sun shine and rain. They could also provide car wash facility.

Rises questions: What about visitors' vehicles?

So back to square one, its all about town planning.