Of bulging traffic, shrinking space

Chennai's vehicle boom threatens to skid out of control, as the CMDA, the Corporation and police fail to come up with an integrated strategy to prevent accidents and provide more parking, says S. Shivakumar.

CHENNAI, FEB. 23. In many global capitals, the parking fee over a full year for a car is more than the value of the car itself.

Chennai's road space is cheap, and more and more vehicles are appropriating it, frequently causing a gridlock that paralyses commercial and residential areas alike. The police have to bear the consequences.

Owning a car is easy, what with several finance options available off the shelf. Driving and parking it, however, is not. If the condition on city roads is deteriorating, several agencies share the blame.

Each government agency - be it the Corporation, CMDA or police - shifts the blame to the other. There is no scheme to solve the parking problem, while road conditions grow worse by the day. There are also judicial injunctions which stop some of the official measures, and official machinery which does not oppose such injunctions.

Over 50 per cent of the 12 lakh vehicles apart from the three lakh which enter the city everyday are parked on the roads. Most of the inner lanes in the city have been totally taken over for parking, affecting the quality of life for residents.

While studies have revealed that most accidents in the city are caused by rash and negligent driving, the reduced carriage way because of haphazard parking is increasing the risk.

Two school children were thrown off a two-wheeler in front of a newly opened hospital on New Avadi Road near Pachaiyappa's College on February 21. The driver of an autorickshaw hit them from behind when he had to negotiate a narrow carriageway with vehicles of visitors parked on the road. With at least one accident being reported near the hospital everyday, there is now a board in front of it directing visitors to park their vehicles on an adjacent street.

This is not an isolated incident. Residents and motorists are finding it increasingly difficult to travel, as owners of commercial and residential complexes ask visitors to park their vehicles on the road. At the root of the problem is the systematic violation by most builders, who convert parking space in the plan into commercial or residential enclosed property. The CMDA collected a cool Rs.90 crores from over 16,000 applicants during the regularisation scheme, ignoring the more expensive long term damage that the scheme caused to the civic conditions in Chennai.

Of this, over 1500 applicants including 500 commercial applicants had converted their parking space for occupation. Feeling the impact are the police and other road-users, points out a traffic planner. For instance, a supermarket in Anna Nagar which initially had earmarked its basement for parking had now converted it into a godown. With its other parking area converted into popcorn stalls, visitors have to park on the main road, congesting the area. Ditto is the case of a commercial complex on Arcot Road opposite Meenakshi College, where the parking space has become a hotel, flouting not only building norms, but also Fire and Corporation regulations.

If encroachments have reduced pavement space and road margins, the worst affected are pedestrians who are at the mercy of vehicle drivers, most of them not trained in road rules.

Last year, totally 692 persons were killed and over 2000 greviously injured in road accidents. The dead included 226 pedestrians, 219 cyclists and 135 two-wheelers, according to police statistics.

A senior CMDA official said the agency conducted regular drives against illegal structures and encroachments. Irregularities were detected in over 16,000 cases during the past few years and demolition/stopwork notices have been issued.

However, from the policing perspective, the regularisation scheme has wreaked havoc, because it threw city planning norms to the winds.

Apart from this, during the last two years about Rs.three crores which had been collected as security deposit had been forfeited by builders, who prefer to sacrifice a small deposit and earn several times more by selling the deviated construction. The regularisation scheme legalised deviations and, in fact, provided opportunity for fresh deviations including parking violation, over several months, in crowded commercial areas last year. No protest was raised by the police, who would bear the burden of traffic chaos.

When contacted, the CMDA authorities said they plan to go on a ``major operation'' against defaulters, with help from the other agencies including the police. ``This is empty talk in an election year, and the regularisation scheme appears tailored only for big money interests who promoted commercial structures'', says a consumer activist.

Valuer and architect, Mr. C. H. Gopinatha Rao, charges that lack of foresight by planning authorities, poor enforcement of rules and the rigid attitude of some officers to suggestions from public were the main reasons for the sorry state of affairs.

He suggests that 30-feet roads could be converted into 40 feet roads by making residents offer five feet on either side and allow them to construct two more floors ensuring there was ample parking space. He also wanted prompt action by authorities on complaints from the public.

The CMDA, which has been promising multistoreyed parking lots, is yet to deliver for more than a decade. On the contrary, it brought in a regularisation scheme that has worsened the parking crisis.

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