Cochin Smart Mission Limited (CSML) is planning to rope in educational institutions and others with open spaces in the vicinity of smart roads which could be spared for use as pay and park facilities, after regular working hours, official sources said.
While CSML can ready such spaces for parking by laying tiles and installing lights, such institutions will benefit from parking fee collected from motorists. It will help prevent haphazard and often obstructive parking on smart roads that the agency built after renovating carriageways, footpaths, drains, and medians.
Display boards mentioning availability of vacant parking slots at such facilities will be put up to help motorists. Such a system is any day cheaper than multi-tier parking lots which entail huge expense, take years to build, and leave substantial carbon footprint, the sources added.
Encroachments
Similarly, the possibility of planting trees and installing planter boxes on renovated footpaths is being considered. The aim is to prevent vendors who have encroached on footpaths that were recently done up by CSML. The help of the Kochi Corporation and the police will be sought to weed out encroachers from public spaces, a senior official of the agency said.
Dozens of such vendors have encroached on the neatly paved footpath of Abraham Madamakkal Road that links High Court Junction and the first Goshree Bridge.
A densely populated city like Kochi which has very limited public spaces and even lesser number of wide roads, vis-a-vis cities like Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode, cannot afford to tolerate encroachers. CSML will also shortly ready dedicated cycle lanes on smart roads, having analysed traffic patterns through such roads and temporary lanes painted green, the sources added.
