Parking Travails may Ease Soon

BBMP's new model for on-street parking will let you check if a slot is available before you reach a location
Parking Travails may Ease Soon

QUEEN’S ROAD:Soon, you won’t have to scout around for parking, with many busy roads getting an automated facility and digital boards en route informing you of space availability.

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has recently closed bidder applications for on-street parking on 56 roads, with a total capacity of 2,500 cars and 4,000 two-wheelers.

An automated meter at each on-street parking area will record the time of parking.

“Earlier, there was a complaint that there was a nexus between BBMP officials and parking contractors. And  that the contractors would charge fees according to their whims and fancies,” said a senior BBMP official who doesn’t wish to be named. But the automated meter and the centralised vehicle monitoring system will help address transparency issues.

The digital boards on the neighbouring roads, at 25 locations in all, will reflect the space availability as the slots fill or free up, he added.

The roads have been divided into A, B and C zones, with A zone roads being the busiest and C zone ones the least busy. “We will take two more months, and hopefully by April, people can park their vehicles here,” he said.

The selected roads include MG Road, Commercial Sreet, Kasturba Road, Queen’s Road, Cubbon Road, Dickenson Road, Raj Bhavan Road, Race Course Road, District Office Road, JC Road, NR Road, Silver Jubliee Park Road, SP Road, Seshadri Road, Bashyam Road, Kengal Hanumantiah Road and Lalbagh Fort Road.

Further, the official said a single bidder has to design, build, finance and transfer to BBMP, the facilities on all these roads within the Central Business District areas, in addition to maintaining them. And apart from the digitised boards, the bidder also has to put up CCTV Cameras at all parking venues.  “This will enable us to keep an eye out for anti-social elements,” he said.

The officer also said that BBMP will extend this arrangement to other busy roads and commercial areas in phases to stop the parking mafia.

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