Mumbai: Beginning August 30, five prime roads in the city will be marked as “no parking” under the BMC’s new no parking policy. The roads in question are: Gokhale Road and Maharshi Karve Road in the city area; Lal Bahadur Shastri Road in the eastern suburbs; and Swami Vivekananda Road and New Link Road in the western suburbs.
The total area of these roads is 14 kilometres and the new policy will be implemented on a pilot basis with the help of the traffic police.
Apart from these five roads, an area of 50 metres on both sides of all BEST depots will also be marked as “no parking”. Vehicles found parked on the appointed stretches will be fined as per revised charges ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000.
In stage one of the no parking policy, parking will not be allowed within a radius of 500 metres of the 26 public parking lots. To decongest the roads further, the stretches of the five prime roads that see maximum traffic flow, will also have only authorised parking on both sides.
The stretches to be kept free of parking include Churchgate to Opera House on Maharshi Karve Road; Portuguese Church to LJ Junction on Gokhale Road; Kalpataru to Nirmal Lifestyle on LBS Road; Juhu Airport to Oshiwara river on Swami Vivekananda Road; and DN Nagar metro station to Oshiwara river on New Link Road. There will be signages put up at these areas for the knowledge of the public.
The Mumbai Parking Authority is also bringing various organisations on board to build a network of off-street parking and a city parking pool.
It is proposed that there will be common mobile application to identify spaces through government agencies, commercial and residential complexes which can be opened for parking. Mumbai’s vehicle population is 4,77,042 and available parking space is comparatively less.
