COIMBATORE: Coimbatore is all set to become the second city in the State, after Chennai, to formulate its own parking policy. According to Coimbatore corporatiom, currently there are around 26 lakh vehicles in the city.
The Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) in collaboration with the police department and resident welfare associations will chalk out a parking policy for the city which includes earmarking certain roads as no parking zones and paid parking spots. Currently, only a handful of cities including Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai and Ahmedabad have their own parking policies, sources said.
In view of this, CCMC Commissioner M Prathap along with mayor Kalpana Anandakumar, City Police Commissioner V Balakrishnan, people’s representatives and other corporation officials took part in the road design and parking policy meeting on Friday.
Speaking at the meeting, Prathap said a parking policy for Coimbatore city was thought of in 2017 and a draft was prepared by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). “The need of the hour is an integrated policy approach, and we have collaborated with police to implement the policy. We are planning to chart an integrated policy for which we have roped in two NGOs for drafting out the final parking policy,” he added.
Speaking at the meeting, CoP Balakrishnan said, “Around 80,000 new vehicles were registered in Coimbatore till September this year and the number would have easily crossed 1 lakh by now. The police alone cannot control the traffic and need the cooperation of people.” Taking out the encroachments on the roads will be one of the first tasks that we would concentrate on to chart the parking policy for the city,” he added.
Deputy Commissioner Dr M Sharmila told TNIE that the Urban Design Collective NGO will study vehicle movements, on and off-the-road parking spots, suitable locations for setting up MLCPs or parking spaces, fixing the parking rates, fine amounts for violations and other details for the RS Puram area which primarily includes the DB Road.
She added that Street Matrix NGO will be conducting a similar study for the parking policy for the Race Course area. The study will be completed in three months at a cost of Rs 20 lakh.