Bid to Reduce Traffic Congestion in City
'Introduce multi-storied parking garages'
Cars parked on Kamal Ataturk road in the city's Banani create traffic congestion yesterday, as most of the buildings lining the road have no car parking facilities.Photo: STAR
Reconditioned vehicle importers yesterday demanded that the government introduce multi-storied parking garages in the capital to reduce congestion. "Thirty percent traffic congestion can be reduced using parking garages," said President of Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicles Importers and Dealers Association (Barvida) Abdul Mannan Chowdhury at a press conference held at the Jatiya Press Club. The Barvida leaders also suggested that "My Car's Weekly Holiday" be introduced to reduce traffic jams. The Barvida president said it requires only 625 square foot of land to set up a multi-storied parking garage where 50 vehicles can park. He said the cost of building such garages would be around Tk 2.45 crore excluding the value of land. The government can lease land to private entrepreneurs for this like the previous government has done for setting up CNG filling stations, he added. After the leasing out of land, it would take three to five months to build the parking garages, he claimed. The garages will be automated and a car can get in and out of it in under two minutes. The government should make such parking system compulsory for commercial buildings, educational institutions, hospitals and shopping centres that do not have enough parking space, Mannan said. On “My Car's Weekly Holiday” Mannan said if a car owner does not take his or her car out onto the street one day, of one’s own choice, a week, it would reduce traffic on the street by 20 percent. Abdul Hamid Sharif, secretary general of Barvida, said there could be colour coded stickers on cars telling law enforcers which day of the week the car should not be on the street.
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