The lingering problem of Dhaka's illegal parking
Amid the nationwide movement for road safety, many people in Facebook had been complaining about the problem of illegal parking in Dhaka. Many people shared photos of illegally parked cars and motorcycles on the footpath and on the road in different parts of Dhaka city. These photos showed that due to illegal parking on the road, in some areas, the capacity of the road has been almost halved, while in some areas illegal parking on the footpath has partially or even completely blocked the footpath.
Illegal parking on the road causes traffic chaos and even congestion, especially in a city like Dhaka, where road space is severely inadequate compared to the demand. Illegal parking on the road makes the traffic situation even worse as it reduces the road capacity even more.
Due to parking of vehicles on the footpath, pedestrians are forced to walk on the road. This causes a serious safety concern for the pedestrians as they risk themselves being hit by oncoming vehicles. In addition, pedestrians walking on the road leads to road capacity being reduced even more, causing traffic chaos and congestion.
When visiting someone's house in Dhaka by personal vehicle, the visitor often finds themselves in an awkward situation as they realise that the residence does not allow visitor parking. People often face a similar situation while visiting shopping malls, markets, offices, educational institutions, financial institutions and hospitals with personal vehicles in Dhaka as most of these places do not provide adequate parking space or in some cases do not provide any parking facilities at all for visitors.
Although most people realise and understand that illegal parking on the road or on the footpath causes traffic mayhem, when they go to a place with their vehicle which does not offer any parking space, they have no choice but to park their vehicles illegally on the road or on the footpath. Some may argue that people should not visit places with personal vehicles that do not provide parking facilities. However, that is easier said than done.
Parking is a necessary component of any city's transport system. It is needed to allow for the safe storage of vehicles while they are not in use and enables its riders to undertake their intended activity at their destination. It forms an interface between the road network and other land uses.
When designing a structure, the engineers and planners have to determine the number of parking spaces needed to fulfil the parking requirements of the visitors and/or residents of that structure. One of the methods used to determine the appropriate supply of parking for a structure is known as the "Supply Based on a Forecast of Actual Demand."
In this method, the supply of parking is determined by conducting parking demand surveys at the site under investigation or at other sites that exhibit similar characteristics such as similar type of development with similar transportation facilities and that would be visited by people with similar socio-economic characteristics.
In most countries, prior to building a multi-storey development or any large commercial, residential or multi-purpose development, engineers and planners have to submit their parking study for that development as part of their Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) study to the city authorities. If the city authorities feel that the development has not provided adequate parking space, then it requests the designers to revise their design to do so.
It seems that the parking study for most of the multi-storey and large-scale developments in Dhaka and other big cities in Bangladesh has not been done correctly as most of these developments do not provide adequate parking space for their visitors and residents.
Although the cost of car parking space is a huge expense to a developer, in a city like Dhaka where most developments do not provide adequate parking space, parking space adds value to the development because it would attract more clients.
There is no doubt that the city severely lacks parking spaces which is one of the contributing factors to the city's traffic congestion and the fact that the city is not a walkable one. These are just some of the reasons why Dhaka is considered to be one of the least liveable cities.
Dhaka is a fast-growing city. It is one of the most congested cities in the world. New high-rise developments are sprouting throughout the city quickly. To ensure that traffic in Dhaka does not continue to worsen due to illegal parking, the city authorities may consider making it mandatory for every multi-storey and large-scale development to provide their parking study to the city authorities as part of their design plan. The city authorities should also rigorously study the parking plan to ensure that adequate parking has been provided for in the development.
To address the existing parking issue, the city authorities may consider developing multi-storey parking areas in major economic activity centres such as in Motijheel, Dhanmondi and Gulshan. This will definitely help to improve the traffic flow and walking conditions in these areas, which will also improve the city's liveability.
Ridwan Quaium is a transportation engineer based in Australia.
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