Tate Modern Museum - CC Simdaperce
When talking about parking as traffic demand management, I often quote the example of the Tate Modern in London. Their site tells you how to get to the museum by boat, underground, bus, train, bike, taxi and car (in that order). And this is what it says about getting there by car: “There are no parking facilities at Tate Modern or in the surrounding streets. Public transport is the easiest way of getting to the gallery. More information about parking provision for disabled visitors <http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/information/access.htm>.”
This is quite a contrast with how Indian decision makers see the need for parking (for personal vehicles) as something not only essential but one that needs to be increased drastically. No one seems to understand this is a losing battle. The city of Pune, India, for example, is adding 30,000 cars a year (the annual percentage growth of cars is now higher than the percentage annual growth in two wheelers). The city will need over 250 acres of parking space each year even when calculated on the basis of only one parking space per vehicle. What will this cost? And do we have so much land to waste for the needs of the personal auto vehicle? Our leaders avoid looking at these problems, but shouldn’t we as citizens ask, “How much longer is the city going to subsidize the personal automobile”?
Sujit Patwardhan
One Comment
Please don’t get too excited about this. The car ownership rate of the UK is very high, and still growing rapidly. Between 2005 and 2009, the number of cars in Britain grew from 26 million to more than 31 million. That’s a growth of 20% in just four years in a country which already had rather too many cars.
If you want to see how to encourage people to own fewer cars, even though they can afford them, there are much better places to look than Britain.