Parking without chaos, is there a way out?

What is the best way to park a car on a narrow, one way street? If the city’s Brigade Road is a case in point, here’s one suggestion to better the existing angular parking method that triggers congestion every time a car reverses from a slot: change the orientation.

But this, too, has its limitations. So does the third option to park the cars parallel to the vehicular flow.

Parallel parking is the best, says Additional Director General of Police, M A Saleem, who is also Commissioner for Traffic and Road Safety. However, on a street as short as the Brigade Road stretch, not more than 55 cars can be accommodated when parked one behind the other.

For Sharath Bhat, a freelance advertising writer, the way out is option-2, as illustrated. “You essentially back into your parking slot in the first place. When you’re doing this, you’re not interrupting traffic, but backing towards the kerb,” he explains.

The big difference, Bhat points out, is the ease with which you can move out of the parking slot. “All you do is slowly join the flow of traffic. You don’t block the flow. In the first option, if a woman driver needs to exit her parking slot, she will need help from some passerby to (navigate) back out of her slot.”

But not everyone is convinced that this is better. “In the second option, reversing into the parking slot will be problematic. When the traffic is heavy and the distance between your car and the one following it is too short, how do you stop and reverse without creating congestion?” counters a commuter.

Option-1 illustrates the current state of parking on Brigade Road, a method replicated on many streets across the city. Every time a car pulls out of its angular parking slot, it actually backs into the down flow of the incoming traffic. This considerably slows down the traffic, leading to a pile up, triggering extreme congestion during rush hours.

Motorists want to zero in on the best option before the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike implements its ‘Smart Parking’ project, aimed at curbing illegal parking. Under this project, parking spaces are to be equipped with sensors installed along the roads.

The sensors will send information on slot availability to display boards placed on streets and to a dedicated mobile app.