Mumbai’s parking problem

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Mumbai resident owning a car must be in search of parking space. The hunt for car parking is, of course, not limited to Mumbai, but is the common frustration with which most major cities of the world grapple. But we are concerned with Mumbai, which looks like drowning in a sea of cars.

This city has circumstances which exacerbate the problem further, being an island as well as a commercial hub, making for an exaggerated density of  both humans and vehicles. Compound that with the public assumption that the government and city corporation are our mai-baap and must provide free parking space to all vehicle owners, and you have set the stage for an urban nightmare.

Look at the statistics: there are over 15 lakh cars on Mumbai’s roads, but common parking space for only — hold your breath — 8,000, thanks to the 100-odd pay-and-park areas across the city. The city’s vehicular density is 591 vehicles per square metre, compared to 163 in New Delhi and the international average vehicular density of 300. Not surprisingly, this leads to crises and conflict on a daily basis.

While some residential and office complexes have car parks, the average middle class citizen, who can today afford a car, has nowhere to park. For most, therefore, the solution is to park on the streets, sometimes double and triple parking. This obviously makes life difficult for drivers and for the traffic police who are unable to clear congested roads, making traffic jams inevitable.

On the other hand, there is little improvement in mass transport systems. As environmental activists have pointed out, only 9  per cent of the 14 million people in the city use cars and  two-wheelers, but over Rs10,000 crore will be spent over the next few years on road projects.

Therefore, a two-pronged strategy must be employed to tackle the problem. First, we must accept that the government and BMC can and should charge for parking vehicles in the streets, as they do in many cities worldwide. Second, private enterprise must be encouraged to build car parking tower  blocks across the city to ease the problem.

Meanwhile, the BMC itself has been most sluggish about developing the huge amount of vacant land it has acquired over the years, specifically reserved for parking. Hopefully, it won’t need court rulings to get us parking space.