‘Find a basement to end parking woes’

‘Find a basement to end parking woes’
By H Rajasimha
The Times of India


All Indian cities face parking problems. With a large part of the already inadequate roads being occupied by parked vehicles, the road width is further reduced.
Parking in nearby areas is also impossible as there are hardly such roads. Hitherto, the only solution was multi-level parking facility. But such facilities may not solve future demands. Road widening will need huge funds.
A novel idea would be to create a large parking in the basement level by creating a basement parking space just
below all important roads at least to the full length and breadth of these roads.
How do you like the idea of banning all parking on such important roads and making all the available road widths for vehicular movement?
We may create a down ramp on the left side of the road at the beginning of the road for vehicles to reach the basement and at the terminal end of the road create a ramp to reach to the existing road level. We may provide lifts or stairs for commuters to go in and come out of the basement with small openings.
How to create basement:
With box jacking technology, we may create a basement without disturbing the traffic on the road. What is required is an open space of about 15x20 metres on one side of the road to create a shaft. From this shaft, concrete boxes could be fabricated and pushed forward by means of jack and the earth could be simultaneously scooped to create an opening. Once the first box is pushed, a new box can be fabricated and pushed forward. This operation could be continued till we reach the desired length of boxing. Later, by pushing these boxes in a similar manner in the longitudinal direction, perpendicular to the earlier direction, we can excavate through the entire length and breadth of the road and replace the existing earth with hollow concrete boxes to create large parking area.
The second option would be diaphragm walls or touch pile and grade slab technique. This requires partial, say one third of the road to be closed for traffic during a short period of pile driving and grade slab construction. This is a tested technology.
The third technique would be soldier beam jacking and boarding technique which again does not require the traffic to be closed. This technology is based on horizontal piling concept.
In all these techniques the structures could be so designed as to carve out large and adequate spaces required for parking and they could be designed to resist earthquakes. In cities where metros are planned, we may plan the parking facility in such a way that these basements would not foul with proposed metro routes.
Multi-directional box jacking has not been attempted till now. In western countries, basement shopping complexes are common. But all these are done by open excavation and construction of basement.
Why not Bangalore or Chennai or Hyderabad or Mumbai or Delhi or any city which is facing acute space problems for parking and road width implement this system and become a trendsetter?
If implemented judiciously, these techniques can solve the parking problems in these cities for many coming years.
The writer is general manager, IDBI, Mumbai. On deputation to Bangalore Mahanagara Palike as chief engineer (Infrastructure)