Every metropolis has a menace — some have more than a few —and one that is particularly nerve-wracking in this beautiful city is the menace of car parking. Karachiites seem to have forgotten how it was when cars were parked properly and the roads were used for leisurely drives.Parking your car in the metropolis is an experience that every driver has gone through.

Tariq Road used to be one of the busiest (and most nightmarish) places for those behind the wheel, but that problem was solved because the road was made one-way for entry, and the parallel Khalid Bin Waleed Road was used for exit. But is that enough in a city where every busy road has the same issue? Not really.

Be it the busy I.I. Chundrigar Road, the always-engaged Regal Chowk or service roads in residential areas, car parking is a major hassle due to the administrators’ lack of vision and people’s indiscipline. In a city where owning a car is now a necessity rather than being a luxury, there is just one multi-storey car park (which, too, is not being properly utilised), when their numbers should have been in the scores.

Incidentally, the lack of proper parking plazas is helping corrupt policemen earn some extra cash for chai paani as well as the thekeydaars who charge between Rs10 and Rs20 just to stand there and do nothing while your car is parked. If more multi-storey car parks were built, the thekeydaars associated with car parks would have to resort to some other business, or offer better service.

This writer visited Saudi Arabia nearly 25 years ago and was fascinated by the multi-storey car parks that made Makkah and Madina convenient to walk as well as to drive in. I am sure the Saudis have improved their parking plazas now, whereas we are in the same position as we were back then. In fact the situation has deteriorated further considering the number of cars on the road and the limited space.

Most traffic jams in the city occur because of illegally parked cars. Someone has to fetch something from a nearby location and leaves his or her car on the road parked haphazardly. It can be a shop, a cinema, a friend’s place or anywhere else, there’s just no excuse to disturb the flow of traffic. It is strange that traffic police officials don’t act in such situations, mostly because they are busy in disturbing those who haven’t done anything wrong.

There are many ways to solve the issue of parking. Improving the local public transport system — be it through putting more buses on the road or resurrecting the Karachi Circular Railway — is one way, while penalising violators of parking rules is another. Of course, the best way to ease the parking menace is to require all buildings to have adequate parking space.—OA