Parking woes will increase at rly station

Parking woes will increase at rly station
S Lalitha, Bangalore, Nov 19, DHNews Service

The problem of finding parking space at the City railway station is set to get aggravated. For, the four-wheeler parking lot of the City railway station located at the second entry (popularly referred to as Malleswaram side) is quietly being closed down by the Railways to create infrastructure to house other passenger amenities.

This land, running into an area of 1,500 square metre, is being barricaded and vehicles will be banned from parking here in a couple of days. A piece of green patch running into roughly 1000 square metres near it was hastily identified on Wednesday (November 18) to be converted into a parking lot.

A top railway official said he was not aware when the new parking lot would be ready to permit parking of vehicles.

"It is an undulated green patch presently. The new space is definitely smaller than the lot that will be shut down and we are also looking at getting more space elsewhere for parking the vehicles," he said.

What this translates into is that cars which park at this side of the railway station will be temporarily forced to park in the already congested four-wheeler parking lot in front of the main entrance. Another official said, “The main parking lot was constructed over 15 years ago and is already bursting at its seams due to the ever increasing vehicular population in the City.”

This parking stand will end up having a major problem if additional vehicles which were housed at the second entry parking lot too land up there, he added. Another official divulged that a multi-storeyed complex to provide amenities for passengers was being planned at the parking lot.

“A reservation booking centre, waiting hall and a restaurant will be among the facilities we will provide for passengers here,” he said. There were plans to provide them inside the station earlier but that plan has been dropped due to space constraint inside the station.

The board, '24 hours parking,' has not been removed from the spot yet. “We are allowing vehicles to park there now but will be barricading the place shortly. The drawings for the proposed complex are ready,” an official said.