the story So Far…
The Chennai Corporation during its council meeting has passed a resolution to increase the parking rate for four wheelers to Rs 60 and for two wheelers to Rs 15 on Thyagaraya Road in T Nagar alone. The cost of parking at the corporation’s Multi Level Car Park (MLCP) in the area would be ₹20 only, the council resolved. The increase in parking rates is an attempt to get more people to use the facility and ensure that people do not park their vehicles haphazardly on the main road or internal roads in T. Nagar.
Why MLCP in this area?
The corporation came up with the idea of developing a pedestrian plaza after the 2015 floods. The work of creating a new experience was painstaking and meticulous. A study conducted to understand how people used it found that during peak hours, a small 700-metre stretch of Pondy market saw a gathering of about 5,000 people, ranging from safety pins to wedding trousseau, restaurants And there were even shops selling everything up to a vintage hair salon. , In fact, shopping at Pondi Bazar completed my trip to Chennai. There was a jam on this road, due to which the movement of vehicles was also not easy.
This took care of the need for the construction of a Multilevel Car Park (MLCP) facility in the area, and the huge number of vehicles plying in the area.
The Pedestrian Plaza was inaugurated on November 14, 2019 by the then Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and his cabinet colleagues with much fanfare. However, the commissioning of the MLCP got delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The parking system was supposed to arrive from Wuhan, China, in November 2019, but was delayed as that country closed its borders due to the pandemic. It arrived sometime in early 2020 but technicians could not come to install the equipment. Work on the installation began in July 2020 and was opened for public use on February 27, 2021.
What is MLCP?
The multilevel car park at the junction of Thanikachalam Road and Thyagaraya Road, intended to serve the visitors to Pondi Bazar, is a seven-storey structure. The complex was built at a cost of Rs 40.79 crore to accommodate over 200 cars and 500 two-wheelers and has separate entry and exit gates with boom barriers. It is open every day from 9 am to 9 pm. To park, vehicles have to enter the premises from Thyagaraya Road to Lakshmikanthan Street and exit from Thanikachalam Road. The entire parking process is automated and controlled by sensors. It is monitored by 56 cameras. No person can enter the MLCP, including its employees. Only a trained technician can enter in case of malfunction.
Once a car enters a fully automated facility, the driver disembarks, hands over the vehicle keys to the parking attendant. An SMS alert is sent to the mobile phone of the driver with the details of timing and allotted parking slot. The driver can track the speed of the vehicle on video inside the console at the entrance of the MLCP.
Meanwhile the parking attendant drives the car, swipes an access card to open the elevator doors. The car is driven to the lift console and the driver disembarks. As soon as he exits the console, the lift gets powered up. The car key is returned to the vehicle owner. The entire process takes 90 seconds – from the owner getting off to getting the vehicle to stand in the allotted slot. When the owner comes back to retrieve the vehicle, it is brought down via a lift as soon as the fee is paid. The parking attendant brings her out of the lift.
There are three sections for cars. Two are used to park and one to exit.
There is a separate entry for parking of two wheelers. Two wheeler users provide their mobile number on which an SMS alert is sent. The user is then allowed to enter the facility and park the vehicle. Before getting the vehicle the user pays the parking fee and takes possession of the vehicle. People can install an app on their phones and register for slots as soon as they enter the plaza.
A car owner pays ₹20 per hour while a two wheeler owner pays ₹5 per hour.
Why do people stand on the street?
Considering the volume of vehicles entering Pondi market, a conscious decision was taken to allow on-street parking as well. However, the cost of on-street parking is high enough to encourage people to use MLCP. Its purpose was to get people to use the facility voluntarily. The on-street parking fee was initially fixed at Rs 20 for cars and Rs 5 for two-wheelers. This was then increased to ₹40 but people were allowed to park in any vacant slot for only two hours. On Tuesday, the civic body announced that it has increased the price to 60. For two wheelers it is now ₹15.
The employees of the shops say that the cost of parking in MLCP is very high and this will make a huge dent in their monthly budget. Corporations, MLCP contractors and merchant associations held several rounds of meetings to come up with a viable alternative like monthly passes, but nothing has emerged as of now. Most people say it’s convenient to park on the street, get your work done and leave. But the new price structure may force them to use MLCP.
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