If Delhi can do it, why can’t Panjim? Ever since Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal announced the move to allow cars having odd and even numbers on alternate days of the week, making it the first such initiative in the country, Panjm’s SMART city stakeholders have started thinking aloud if this could be of value to the city’s mobility plan.
The sheer vehicle density to parking spaces and other parameters is so shocking that even allowing three divisions of vehicles every third day will not solve Panjim’s congestion or parking. Therefore the town’s mobility plan has to look at alternate transport modes and make Panjim mainly vehicle free.
“We have not studied the Delhi concept but it has worked in many of the cities abroad. For Panjim we have to make public transport efficient so that people will keep their vehicles outside the city and prefer traveling by public transport in Panjim city. You cannot ban all vehicles inside the city, it is up to the people to choose,” said Siddharth Kuncalienkar, MLA of Panjim.
“I have not studied the Delhi concept but the concept which is proposed by CCP for establishing a loop system in which public transport will be improved will work well for Panjim to de-congest the city. The parking should be developed in a phase manner,” the mayor of Panjim, Shubham Chodankar mentioned.
Here is the story in numbers
1) 85,000 vehicles enter Panjim (from Porvorim, Ponda, NH 17 from South Goa) using the Patto bridge, while 5000 enter the town from other directions (the Bambolim, Dona Paula highway and the internal roads).
2) Panjim has 2500 four wheeler parking spaces. It has 6000 two wheeler spaces. Thus for 90,000 vehicles entering the town there are 8500 spaces. Even if 50 % of the incoming traffic has private residential parking, Panjim still needs to have space for 45,000 vehicles.
3) If Panjim opts for the odd and even number plan and halves the number of vehicles entering the city (45,000), of which 50% has private parking, you still need space for 24,000 vehicles when you have only 8500
(*This is taking into account all variables. Assuming 50% vehicles have private residential parking covers situations whereby many vehicles won’t be in the central business district and move to the peripheral areas)
