To mitigate the traffic problems being faced by the Karachiities, City District Government Karachi (CDGK) is going to make three main arteries prohibited roads for parking. Beside the increasing vehicles on these congested roads, the unplanned parking by the commuters is the main cause of gridlocks.
According to sources in the Transport and Communication Department of CDGK, three main roads like Dawoodpota Road, Mansfield Street and Peer Karam Ali Talpoor Road where the commuters face traffic jam daily, have proposed to be declared as no parking zones. For approval of the no parking areas, they said, a resolution has recently been submitted in the City Council, and as soon as the resolution is passed in the council the parking would be disallowed to any vehicle on these roads.
They said the city government is also going to introduce charge parking on at least 13 main roads of the city to discourage the haphazard/wrong parking and safety of the vehicles. Through a City Council's resolution (NO 185) passed on April 18, 2007, the 11 roads like Abdullah Haroon Road, Zaibunnisa Street Sadar, Tariq Road, Bahaduabad, Park Tower Clifton, Impress Market Sadar, National Bank area of Queen's Road, Mumtaz Hasan Road, Hasrat Mohani Road, Bumint Road, Aga Khan-III Road and Road between Shown Circle and Boat Basin have already been allowed charge for parking. But, interestingly, the city government was yet to start charging the parking fee on many of these roads.
The sources claimed that the move of charging the parking fee was only to secure the vehicles from any theft and stop the wrong parking. By checking the wrong side parking and charge the parking fee, they said, would not only improve the traffic system on these routes but also thousands of jobless youths would get the job opportunities. According to other sources the vehicles parking problem across city, has rapidly increased in the last seven years due to lack of proper planning to provide space for parking in the construction of shopping malls, commercial and residential buildings.
Until the CDGK manages enough parking plazas and specified location alongside the ever-congested roads, the move to charge or stop parking was an attempt in futile, they added. However, according to the sources in the Transport and Communication Department, the 4,386 Sq, Yds car-parking plaza at Lines Area near Sadar Dawakhana, was likely to be open for public in the current month. The seven storey-parking plazas have the capacity for parking around 410 cars at a time.
They said that the construction work at four other parking plazas like Multi-storied Car Parking Plaza in Civic Centre Premises, Multi-storied Car Parking Plaza at Khwaja Shahabuddin Market adjacent to Empress Market, Saddar, Under ground parking Plaza at Faizee Raimeen Arts Gallery, near Arts Council, M R Kiyani Road and Underground parking at Baradari, Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road, adjacent to P C Hotel on Bot Basis, was also going on.