Coimbatore Corporation, urban mobility consultant ITDP and Race Course and Neighbourhood Association members held a meeting here on Wednesday to explore the possibility of introducing a paid parking system in the area.
Team ITDP that gave a presentation said it was engaged in a preliminary study to map the area - from Puliakulam in the east to Goods Shed Road in the west and from Avinashi Road in the north to Trichy Road in the south, vehicle density, number of parking lots required, challenges in implementing the system. The Team also spoke about its experiences in implementing such a system in Pondy Bazaar and Besant Nagar in Chennai and a few other States.
The team said the proposal included dividing the Race Course streets into three categories – roads with high, medium and low parking demands and introduce paid, no parking and free parking system on those roads.
The civic body should go in for a fully automated system of paid parking with rights to the parking lot contractor to clamp the vehicles that violated the parking plan in the area.
Corporation Deputy Commissioner M. Sharmila said introduction of such a system had become a necessity in the city, what with the exponential increase in number of vehicles in the city. There were several cities that had successfully implemented paid parking system and Coimbatore could do so now.
Central Zone Chairperson Meena Logu, Town Planning Committee Chairperson T. Santhosh and Race Course residents participated in the meeting.
