Finding a place to park a vehicle in the city is a
major task as the number of cars here are on the rise against the decline in availability of space. Taking an example of Khyndai Lad (Police Bazar), the entire stretch from the old High Court premises to the junction is filled with cars parked on both sides of the road that often leads to traffic congestion.
Commenting on the issue, Additional Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Herbert Lyngdoh said, “This is a big menace here and we try our best to ensure that wrong parking is avoided.”
The state government had removed the tourist taxi stand from the Wards Lake Parking Lot premises in 2010 to ensure additional parking space for the busiest commercial area of Shillong. However, despite the efforts, many people prefer to park their vehicles on the roadside for reasons best known to them. When asked about the action being taken against the violators, the official said, “We either issue summon slips or tow the vehicles if they park in a wrong manner.”
In another example, though there is no official parking lot in Butcher road, the area is often converted into a full fledged parking space with vehicles parked on both sides of the road. The same situation applies in Paltan Bazar besides many other areas of the city where wrong parking often leads to huge traffic chaos.
Besides this, commercial buildings without proper parking facilities also add to the problems. Despite the mandatory provision in the Meghalaya Building Bye Laws, 2010 where commercial complexes should have a proper space for parking of vehicles, almost none of the commercial houses comply with this provision of the law.
The problem is not restricted to the commercial complexes constructed years back but even the recently constructed ones do not reserve space for parking.
Earlier in the month, the traffic branch of the police department had notified the road from Rap’s mansion going towards new High Court building at IGP as “no-parking-zone” in order to curb the existing traffic congestion.
Meanwhile, the larger problem that the city faces is the inability of the four existing parking lots to accommodate the growing number of vehicles. To ease the congestion, the government is planning to construct a few more parking lots. But finding a land for public projects in Shillong has always been a herculean task for the authorities.
Under the circumstances, cooperation between the state and the common public is a must to negate the existing traffic menace. More initiatives like the recent coordination between the Dorbar Shongs and the Traffic Department have to be taken up more often than not. (By Aafaque Hussain)