Chennai Municipal Corporation

Parking is a big issue

Some of the Parking lots are not manned in the mornings

The Greater Chennai Metropolitan Corporation has not at all contemplated any thought over the Parking of Cars,three whealers, Two whealers in any area of the City. This Corporation has not set up any special areas for parking of vehicles, like assigned areas, or built up construction for parking of vehicles etc. Only thing the Corporation has done is erected a post to indicate that certain areas of the Road has been earmarked for Corporation Paid parking and collected fees through contract agents. Without making any contribution for parking, the Corporation is collecting fees in Market, Bazaar, business areas as lot of cars are parked there.
Apart from this, it is commonly seen that most of the car owners have more than one car, generally in the present free area crisis they have hardly space/garage/portico for one car only. If they have second car or 3 or 4 cars they park cars on the roads.
Apart from this, many city dwellers live half a ground 1200 sq.ft land or 800 sq.ft land on which they construct houses and hence hardly have any space to park car and many such house owners have car(s) of their own. Such Owners park their car on the sides of the roads.
Moreover, many owners of Auto Rickshaws, commercial Vans, mechanized Three whealers, commercial Lorries, commercial Buses, Tempos etc are parked only on Road sides as their owners do not own any specific land to partk them with in the city. Such parking of commercial Vehicles are always causes Traffic problems and bottlenecks for free flow of vehicles and also pedestrians. To solve these eternal problems which are persisting for several decades and worsened due to increase of vehicle strength , the following must invariably be done:
1.All vehicle owners must be directed to park their vehicles, on on the Road sides but only in their own land or in the open land hired by them for the said purpose.
2.If vehicles are found to be parked in any road for hours together should be dragged and fined by the Traffic Police heavily. Vehicles should not be parked at the Road/Street corner as such acts cause accidents to other vehicles.
3.Only in areas where Parking of vehicles are admitted vehicles could be parked. The Corporation should decide the area. Not all parking areas are to be charged just because they keep some persons to monitor or given contract to Agencies.
4. Corporations must Erect or construction parking Areas in vertical form (as seen in the area for CHENNAI SILKS, at Usman Road, T.Nagar, Chennai)..That system is wonderful.
5.Registration of new vehicles must be given only to the owners who authentically show proof that they have parking area for the vehicle they propose to buy. Otherwise no registration should be done by the RTO.
6.On the HIGHWAYS of any State, any one can see line of lorries , Vans, Buses, are parked on the service lines of the Highways leaving no way for the tired motorist who are travelling for miles together The owners of these public Transports treat the road Side Service Lanes as their parking area for days together till they get commercial job.
If these suggestions are carried out the PARKING MENACE could be solved.

------- Edited on 2017-06-29 -------

Parking Management needs to be done in co-ordinated manner by 1)Municipality, 2)City Traffic Police and 3) the cooperation of public. The parking on road is done by 1) many of the residents of the area as they do not have parking area of their own, 2) visitors who come to the individual houses /Apartments, and 3) persons who come to Private Schools to drop or pick up their wards, 4) persons who go for purchases in bazaars , go for Banks etc, In these places the people parking their vehicles have no civic sense and do not mind that their vehicle may be hindrance to others. The Traffic police do not bother about the happazard parking, and the municipality do not bother to make any arrangements to provide parking lots to these vehicles in appropriate places. All these should be ensured to regulate the parking vehicles.

In my opinion, no thought is being given to the aspect of parking at Chennai.
The parking is at most haphazard. There is absolutely no discipline in parking their vehicles on the roads. This could be due to lack of awareness and a lack of consideration for others. But, I feel, Chennai is better as compared to other cities within TN as well as outside the State.
Worst offenders are two wheelers, MTC buses, who resort to irregular parking and double/triple parking thereby obstructing other traffic on the roads.
In some of the areas, roads are occupied by the Company pick-up and College buses. Some way has to be found to regulate their haphazard parking.