SHIVANI SINGH

The lion’s share of Delhi’s road space belongs to the city’s 9.8 million cars and two-wheelers. A large part of this massive fleet does not even need to ply to occupy road space. That is why the authorities, directed by the Supreme Court two weeks ago to free walking spaces of encroachment, had no choice but to target the illegally parked cars.

The multi-agency Special Task Force, which has been assigned the job of clearing Delhi’s public land of all encroachments, has in the past nine days, impounded or fined the owners of over 1,000 cars for parking illegally. The car owners were not happy and many complained how authorities had not provisioned for enough legal parking spots in the vicinity.

But can a city ever have enough parking space? Abundant parking is anyway a misnomer. As the theory of induced demand goes, the more space you provide on road or for parking, the sooner it gets filled.

Many urban centres in the United States, Canada and Australia have an oversupply of parking spots. Creation of excessive parking not only took up precious chunks of land in inner cities but also, show studies, led to increased drive-alone commutes.

In Delhi, parking already takes up an estimated 10% of the urban land. In some neighbourhoods, as much as 45% of circulation area is under parking encroachment, a study by Centre for Science and Environment reported a few years ago. Illegally parked cars occupy pedestrian space and fill up half the carriageway, squeezing traffic on arterial roads all through the day.

Vehicle owners in Delhi have always considered public parking space an entitlement.