With Deepavali festival round the corner, shoppers are out in large numbers in the city’s commercial hubs to buy new clothes for their family members. But the frequent traffic snarls due to absence of a public parking lot has made shopping an unpleasant experience for many.
Though traffic snarls during the last few days prior to Deepavali is understandable, the main commercial thoroughfares experienced worst traffic jams on Sunday and Monday. West Boulevard Road, N.S.B. Road, Singarathope, Big Bazaar Street, where a number of small and big textile showrooms are located, were choked with cars and bikes parked along the roadside.
N.S.B. Road, Singarathope and Theradi Street on Big Bazaar are considered a textile hub in the city. A few more areas such as West Boulevard Road have been added to the list, with a few leading textile groups setting up showrooms. Moreover, several new sweets and confectionery stalls and restaurants have come up at important converging points in the city.
Except a few, most of the new showrooms and restaurants have not provided space for vehicular parking. Many feel that the parking space provided by the new showrooms is insufficient to cater to the need of customers.
Many of the old showrooms located on important thoroughfares have absolutely no space even for two wheelers, making motorists to park their vehicles at their will on available space on roads. More than 95% of the shoppers, who came to shopping complexes and textile showrooms during the last five days, faced nightmarish situation as they could not find space in the designated parking lots.
Many of them could not find space on the roadside too, as cars and bikes were lined up in large numbers from Madurai Road to Chathram Bus Stand and from Maris Theatre road to Main Guard Gate.
Many motorists could be seen arguing with staff members of showrooms, who denied entry to the cars citing lack of space. With motorists struggling to find space, and vehicles parked indiscriminately on roads, traffic moved at a snail’s pace from morning to night.
The situation was no better during the non-peak hours too.
“It has been the worst shopping experience for me. Despite the long wait, I could not find space for parking at a textile showroom. I lost the mood to shop after the exasperating search,” said V. Mahalingam of Karumandapam, who came for shopping on Monday.
Over the past few years, temporary parking lots were been created to ease the pressure. But this year, no such arrangement has been made so far.
While expressing dismay over the failure of Tiruchi Corporation in establishing public parking lots in the city’s main commercial area, the shoppers said that the situation could not be allowed to continue. It was time to find solution to the issue, they added.
