indianotes

India is in the midst of a massive infrastructure boom. Cities are aggressively building new roads and flyovers, widening and resurfacing old roads. Greater Mumbai alone spends upwards of ₹10,000 crores annually (including projects funded by the Centre). Delhi is not far behind. The top 10 cities probably spend close to ₹50,000 crores a year.

And then we allow these roads to be taken over by hawkers, rubbish dumps, and parked vehicles.  

A few years ago, I spent the better part of two days in cabs, travelling across Mumbai city and suburbs. Needless to say, traffic crawled most of the time.

Having little else to occupy my time, the math part of my brain got into a game of estimating the percentage of roads that were not usable.

There are no official figures, but transport and mobility studies estimate 25% to 55%, and often higher in crowded areas during rush hour. My own back-of-the-envelope calculations came in at 40%. Lose two lanes on a four-lane road, and half the carrying capacity disappears.

Mumbai is no exception; we see this all over India.

The culprits: encroachment, hawkers, rubbish, road digging, taxi/auto stands, and pedestrian overflow, given the lack of pavements.

This is crazy. We spend thousands of crores on building new roads, resurfacing and widening old roads, and don’t do anything about utilising what we already have.

Parking is one of the big culprits. We don’t have enough off-road parking, and keep buying more cars and two-wheelers. Regulations are still stuck in an era where very few had personal vehicles.

In Pune or Mumbai, a commercial property of 100 sq.m. might seat ~20 people, but requires only 1 car park. Mumbai buildings with small flats need only have one parking space for 4 flats. Large flats (>70 sq.m.) require only one slot.

Other cities have similar inadequate norms, and ostensibly, the reason is to discourage people from buying cars!!

So what happens? We park on the road.

In most cases, parking is free, and even if charged, the rates are nominal. At Nariman Point (Mumbai), they charge up to ₹70 per hour.

Now real estate in Mumbai costs a bomb. Nariman Point land might sell for upwards of ₹20 lakh per sq.m. A parked SUV would need ~25 sq.m., including circulation space. Effectively, the land value of that space is ~ ₹5 crores.

Maybe South Mumbai is an extreme example. I did a similar exercise for Ferguson College (FC) Road in Pune, and came up with a figure of ~₹75 lakhs.

If we factor in these costs, parking charges need to be at least 10-20x what they are currently. Effectively, this serves as a huge hidden subsidy for the rich and middle class (including 2-wheeler owners).

Any move to raise parking rates ends in protests, and a vocal minority holds politicians to ransom. The majority of the population simply suffers quietly. In economics, this is known as the Free Rider problem.

We need to charge much (much) higher rates for parking, which will also incentivise private parking facilities. Simultaneously, pavements and roads must be cleared of encroachment. Unfortunately, given the current populist mood, I doubt this will happen anytime soon.