The parking dilemma

The garrison city faces massive traffic, uncurbed encroachments on the busiest streets

Parking in safe spaces has been a growing concern for the citizens and city traffic police. A good parking plaza solves the traffic mess by facilitating those who come from within and outside the garrison city for shopping and trading.

Unfortunately, owing to a lack of funds which haven’t been allocated for over a decade, Rawalpindi’s plan for a six-storey parking facility could not materialise completely. After the construction of a three-storey structure in 2010, the plaza remains as it is.

Like all major cities, Rawalpindi is also facing the urban dilemma of massive traffic congestion.

The problem turns worse in downtown markets where roads are relatively narrow and crowded with uncontrolled encroachments.

On top of it, the absence of adequate parking facilities in these markets further aggravates the situation, leaving the visitors of these markets to face the ordeal of long traffic jams throughout the day.

Although Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) had constructed a three-storey parking plaza at Fawara Chowk junction of five main markets including Raja Bazar, Bara Market, Kashmiri Bazar, Ganj Mandi and City-Sadr Market, it is a small parking facility insufficient to carry the load of motorists visiting these wholesale markets in the downtown.

Central traders leader of one of these markets, Sharjeel Mir, stated that these markets not only cater to the needs of the residents of twin cities but the traders from Azad Kashmir and Hazara Division came here for shopping exacerbating traffic congestion in these markets.

He, however, admitted that encroachments in these markets are also adding to the traffic problem and held both traders and the Metropolitan Corporation officials responsible for it.

Admitting it as a big problem, the officials in the Engineering Department of RDA explained that to overcome the parking problem in the inner city, the markets have devised both long and short-term projects.

The short-term projects mainly include the construction of another three storeys to the existing parking plaza at Fawara Chowk which would double its parking capacity by 500 to 600 vehicles at a time right now.

The RDA officials added that actually, the plan of a six-storey parking facility was approved but due to a ‘shortage of funds’ they had constructed only a three-storey structure in 2010.

These officials said that although the construction of additional three storeys would not fully resolve the issue, it would at least help ease the long and troublesome traffic jams in these markets caused due to parking of vehicles on the roadsides of these markets. Mohammad Zaman, a teller at the Fawara Chowk parking plaza, stated that the car parking has the capacity of housing 600 vehicles at a time and the addition of three floors would enhance it to 1,500 at a time.

“Daily we are providing service to over 4,000 to 5,000 vehicles on average, the parking time of a vehicle oscillates between one to two hours,” he explained. However, there were vehicles which remained parked for the whole day, he added.

He admitted that usually during rush hours, the parking facility remains packed to its capacity and they have to refuse service to a lot of people who have no choice but to look for parking along roadsides in these markets, resulting in the huge massive traffic jams.

According to the statistics provided by Rawalpindi traffic police, an average of Rs60,000 to Rs65,000 vehicles entered these city markets per day which included rickshaws and other public transport vehicles. But mainly the vehicular traffic comprises those coming here for shopping.

Sheikh Aftab, a trader in Narankari Bazaar, a wholesale market of imported food and a host of other items, said that due to the traffic congestion and parking issues, their business is ‘shrinking’ and only wholesale buyers, who have no other choice,  came here while the regular customers have stopped visiting these markets.

He was critical of the indifferent role of civic authorities who are not taking any action against the growing encroachments, mainly resulting in the traffic congestion in these markets.

Sharjeel Mir said that besides adding three storeys to the existing parking plaza at Fawara Chowk, Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation should build a parking plaza at the site of defunct Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation offices vacant since the shifting of the offices of the civic body to new premises at Liaquat Road in 2003.

He also said that the multi-storey parking plaza in the area spread over around 20 kanals of land will resolve the parking issue in the inner city markets permanently.

Sources in the Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation told Bol News that the project of building a parking plaza on a public-private partnership basis was first envisaged in early 2000 but it could not see the daylight and remained dumped in the paperwork due to the reasons best known to the people at the helm of affairs.

These sources further said that the feasibility report of the project was made during the days of the local bodies’ setup introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf and the structure of the defunct Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation was also demolished for the construction of the project, but later it was shelved.

Official sources also said that initially, there was a plan to include the adjacent buildings of Tehsil and CIA offices in the project with which the total area of the project had increased to 37 kanals of land.  But later the idea of including the offices of Tehsil and CIA was dropped and the last feasibility of the project was confined to the area comprising the offices of defunct RMC.

Under the initial feasibility, the ground floor of the parking plaza would be dedicated to commercial activity while three to four floors would be allocated for parking.

Meanwhile, the top three floors would be used for residential flats.

The construction of this parking plaza would ‘completely’ resolve the parking issue in the inner city markets as it would house well over 3,000 vehicles at a time, the sources added.