The Tambaram Municipality has embarked on a massive and ambitious ‘multi-level parking facility' to bring a permanent solution to problems associated with parking of vehicles.
Tambaram continues to be the most important commercial nerve centre and rail-cum-road hub in the city's south, serving more than 60 mother villages and hamlet villages.
Parking of vehicles has always been a problem here due to space constraints, according to a cross-section of residents and elected representatives.
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On Thursday, there were heated exchanges between persons who had come to a nationalised bank on Rajaji Salai to pay the term fee for their children.
They had parked their motorcycles outside the bank only to realise on their return that their vehicles were either towed away or locked around the rear wheels.
Parents confronted the traffic policemen and asked them why they had taken such an action when there weren't any ‘no parking' boards on the stretch. D. Vijayraghavan of West Tambaram said that in the absence of designated parking lots for two-wheelers and cars, finding a space to leave their vehicles in a safe spot was becoming a big problem in Tambaram.
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To address this problem, the Tambaram Municipality has initiated steps to create a multi-level parking, reported to be among the first of its kind by any urban local body in the city's suburbs.
A resolution was adopted unanimously at a recent meeting of the 39-member council at Tambaram. M. Karikalan, Municipal Chairman, said the resolution was adopted to float tenders seeking contractors for preparing a detailed project report for the multi-level parking facility.
“It is still in the preliminary stage. All that we can say now is that the 5-storey facility will be designed in a manner to accommodate around 1,000 vehicles. Designs, estimated project costs will be known only after the DPR is prepared,” Mr. Karikalan said.
An official of the Department of Municipal Administration and Water Supply said that only the principal clearance was obtained for the project. It was proposed to construct the multi-level parking facility at the existing Anna Bus Terminus. It could be recalled that many efforts in the past to create adequate parking slots never took off. In the absence of adequate space, the only way out was multi-level parking facility.
Residents and traders of West Tambaram were of the view that the facility was long overdue. A representative of the Tambaram Small Shops Merchants' Association said that due to absence of parking lots, drivers parked their vehicles at will, often leading to confrontation. Most of the shopping and commercial activity in West Tambaram was restricted within a few blocks between Gandhi Road and Murichur Road. Shanmugham Road, also called as ‘Ranganathan Street of Tambaram' was the lifeline of petty shop owners and pavement vendors apart from housing huge textile stores and commercial establishments. “I think creating a multi-level parking facility will put an end to these problems,” said S. Revathy, helping her husband in a pavement shop on Shanmugham Road.