Kathmandu, March 14

More than two years ago, Kathmandu Metropolitan City had claimed to build advanced parking lots inside the metropolis to address parking woes, however, KMC has not been able to do anything towards this end mainly due to lack of space.

One of the agendas of KMC Mayor Bidhya Sundar Shakya’ during local level elections was to ease traffic woes in Kathmandu. After formation of the local government, KMC had publicly said that it would manage underground parking lots and various multi-storey automated parking systems.

In November 2016, KMC had proposed to construct three multi-storey automated parking systems at New Road and Lainchaur. It had also proposed to construct underground parking in New Road. In 2017, it had proposed to build multi-storey parking systems in Khulla Manch and in Thamel area at a cost of Rs three billion.

Again in November 2017, it promised to build a multi-storey automated car parking system in Dharmapath with the capacity to park 200 cars at a time. In early 2018, it had proposed another plan to construct multi-storey parking building at Teku at the office of KMC’s Department of Environment Management by removing the adjoining army barrack.

But, no plans of KMC have materialised so far drawing criticism from all sides.

Meanwhile, Mayor Shakya has asked all the existing 32 wards inside KMC to provide information about open space available in their areas that can be used to build parking lots.

Mayor Shakya asked the ward chairs to provide information about space at a programme organised by engineers to unveil a plan to build DoEM building at Teku.

Basement of the building will be used as a parking lot that can accommodate 80 four-wheelers and 100 two-wheelers at a time. “Unless we build separate structures for parking vehicles, the parking woes cannot be addressed.

I request all the ward committees to propose places where such infrastructure can be built,” Shakya said.

According to Saroj Basnet, head of the Department of Urban Development, lack of open spaces in core business areas has created problem for KMC to implement its plan.

“For instance, we had to face backlash from the locals after we proposed to build a multi-storey automated car parking system at New Road. Locals did not allow us to use the open space due to which we had to scrap our plan,” he added.

There are 104 public parking lots in KMC and Lalitpur metropolis. Majority of such parking lots are on the roadside.

Roadsides cannot be used as parking lots in the long term. Parking woes in core areas of Kathmandu is getting worse with every passing day as the number of vehicles is increasing.

Designated parking lots are largely occupied by the vehicles of shopkeepers all day-long making it difficult for private vehicle owners to find parking space.