Parking woes in Petaling Jaya

Post date: Jan 13, 2011 10:12:9 AM

Wednesday January 12, 2011

By YIP YOKE TENG

teng@thestar.com.my

Photos by CHAN TAK KONG and YIP YOKE TENG

Inadequate parking space has become a perpetual pain in the neck for motorists in Petaling Jaya, especially at commercial areas such as New Town, Old Town, SS2, Section 14 and Damansara Utama, resulting in illegal and indiscriminate parking.

Multi-storey car parks have been made available in these areas to alleviate parking woes, but now even these car parks are filled to the brim.At condominiums and apartments, vehicles can be seen parked along the roads and ironically, the situation is worse at low-cost flats.At housing estates, vehicles are lining the roads, playgrounds or barricades of the gated neighbourhoods.StarMetro finds out if there is a problem in the standards set by local councils on the provision of parking bays or to review these standards.Time to improveTraffic consultant Dr Rosli Azad Khan from MDS Consultancy felt that the current policy imposed by the Petaling Jaya City Council needed to be reviewed because it was already 10 years old.“Local authorities have their own set of traffic requirements imposed on developers even though they follow the general guidelines set by the Town and Country Planning Department. However, the requirements are lax in several ways, this is where the system fails,” he said.He cited that local councils did not have a clear policy requiring developers to build facilities encouraging the use of public transport.Developers will not provide these facilities to incur extra costs on their projects, unless the council makes it a requirement,” he said.He added that roads surrounding commercial complexes were also not built to accommodate public transport and all these were not addressed by the existing guidelines.Mere increase not the answerLikewise, MAG Technical and Development Consultants Sdn Bhd director Goh Bok Yen felt the policy should be reviewed but emphasised that increasing parking bays was not the answer.

“Local authorities set their guidelines on parking based on demand. What is being done now is to keep increasing the number of bays as and when needed. This is unhealthy as we will soon find ourselves building car parks instead of buildings, with the extra costs imposed on the end users.

“Until now, there is no study on parking provision, no good policy and worse of all, no target,” he said.

He added that local authorities need to set the parking policy right with a clear objective — taking into consideration the social economic background, vehicle ownership and development patterns.

“Central business districts in major cities around the world discourage parking with expensive rates but our country is doing the opposite and this impedes the public transportation system,” he said.

Unpopular but effective solutions

The introduction of higher parking rates and bus lanes may happen in Petaling Jaya to alleviate parking woes.

MBPJ development planning director Noraini Roslan analysed that parking problems stemmed from high car ownership, lack of a reliable public trans-port system and the old standards.

She said one of the problems of high car ownership in the Klang Valley was manifested in the allocation of parking bays for low-cost flats, which increased from one bay for every four units (1:4) in early 1990s, then 1:2 and now 1:1 with an additional 10% for visitor parking.

“Back then, the rationale was that if an individual could not afford to own a house, he could hardly own a car, hence the 1:4 allocation. Today, one can get a second-hand Kancil at RM5,000,” she said.

The old parking standards result in commercial areas now filled up with vehicles and the presence of multi-storey car parks can no longer resolve the problem due to high car ownership.

She conceded that some of the multi-storey car parks in the city needed to be upgraded because they were old, and that rates and policies need to be revised to promote the use of these facilities over roadside parking.

She said provision for parking required by MBPJ was the highest among all local authorities in Selangor, while Kuala Lumpur City Hall had even brought it down recently.

“MBPJ’s parking provision requirement is the same with major cities worldwide, why don’t they have the problem? If we keep increasing the number of bays required, how much do the end users need to pay for the properties? Do we want our country to go that way?” she said, adding that parking space could be used for better purposes, such as green area.

As for public transport, the council was talking to RapidKL and the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) to introduce the Bus Rapid Transit to connect the city for the time being.

She added that the council was also looking to introduce bus lanes to enhance efficiency but it might be seen as a cause of congestion. Enforcement must be also in place to prevent drivers using bus lanes.

“It has to be a carrot-and-stick approach. Incentives can be discounts for public transport, single ticket for all modes and an integrated system.

“Examples of the deterrents are congestion fee in Singapore, high parking rates in New York and Paris or short parking period in London. Subsidy for the more expensive period used by the richer groups should not be so much, too. However, these are less popular approaches and may even be politicised,” she said.

MBPJ’s parking requirements:

For retail and office space :

1 bay for every 46.4sq m (as compared with 1 bay for every 92.9 sq m of office space 10 years back) + 1 motorcycle bay for every 84sq m + 2% of parking space for disabled (imposed this year)

For residential space :

Low-cost flats - 1 bay per unit + 10% extra for visitor parking (as compared to 1 bay every four units in the early 1990s)

Condominiums/Apartments :

2 bays per unit + 20% extra for visitor parking