Private car owners and drivers often find themselves in a tight spot while trying to find parking space in Dhaka.
Although the fines for illegal parking are steep under the newly implemented road transport law, the authorities are yet to provide cars with adequate parking spaces.
Under the new law illegal parking will result in a fine of Tk 5,000 but with the steadily shrinking space in the capital, 80 percent of the cars are parked in chaos.
According to experts, the authorities, mainly the city corporations and Rajdhani Unnayan Katripakkha (RAJUK) must draft and implement policies to resolve the problem.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) Department of Urban and Regional Planning Professor Dr Sarwar Jahan says that RAJUK hasn’t been able to ensure 100 percent parking arrangements for the residential and commercial areas.
“There’s no such thing as parking in the city. People don’t know where the parking area is,” he said.
The city corporation did build a multi-storied parking space in Dhaka’s Motijheel with the capacity to accommodate 370 cars. Moreover, the 37-storied City Centre right beside the building has a capacity for 500 cars.
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Traffic Division and the city corporation has also created parking spaces on some wide roads but it was nowhere near enough.
“The way the problem is being dealt with is not enough. There needs to be a specific policy for parking,” said Professor Jahan.
He says that not only are citizens in lack of safe parking spots, the police keep changing the rules which confuses the drivers.
According to a research by United Kingdom-based organisation Democracy International, the six percent of private car owners in the capital occupy 76 percent of the roads. Urban planners put the statistics at 65 percent.
BUET Accident Research Institute Professor Kazi Md Saifun Newaz says that one factor behind the problem is building owners don’t keep parking space in the buildings.
“They do show it in the plans to get approval from RAJUK but don’t stick to it. Instead they build shops in the parking spaces,” he said before adding that the development authority must monitor the situation.
RAJUK member Shamsuddin Ahmed Chowdhury says that they regularly conduct mobile courts in the buildings to monitor whether parking spaces have been turned into shops.
Saying that they have plans for more parking spaces, he added that there are currently two in Gulshan and Hatirjheel.
Zakir a private car driver who had to move the car in a hurry when traffic sergeants decided to fine cars parked along the busy New Market road, says, “None of the shopping malls have parking arrangements. Where will people park cars?”
“There are no parking spots and only fines,” an irate Zakir told Bangla Tribune.
Another driver Md Salam echoed and complained that even standing beside the road for a little while in absence of parking spots lead to fines.
DMP Additional Commissioner (traffic) Md Mofiz Uddin Ahmed says that there aren’t parking spots in the buildings despite them writing to RAJUK over the matter. “People are forced to park on the streets which leads to traffic.”
He said that people can arrange for parking spots on specific roads with the city corporation’s permission.
DNCC mayor aspirant Atiqul Islam didn’t respond to Bangla Tribune’s calls or messages for comments over the matter.
Dhaka North City Corporation allocated 13 parking spots as per the police’s requirement but permission for nine of them were cancelled. Dhaka South City Corporation has six spots but not on the roads marked by the police.