Shortage of parking spaces in the city's most high-rise commercial and residential buildings forces the car owners to illegally occupy a significant portion of public places.
Such illegal and haphazard on-street parking of vehicles is adding to the woes of commuters facing severe traffic congestion in the city.
On the other hand, there are some parking arrangements like multi-storey parking lots and on-street parking facilities, but most of these facilities remain unused, making it almost difficult for city dwellers even to move freely.
During visit to various parts of the densely-populated city over last several weeks, the FE correspondent found the sorry state of poor parking management.
While visiting several commercial and residential areas, a good number of multi-storey structures were found non-compliant in terms of minimum space available for parking of vehicles like car, bike, jeep and microbus under the Building Construction (BC) Rules.
Besides, high-rise commercial and residential buildings, educational institutions, shopping centres and even hospitals lack such facilities in areas like Old Dhaka, Motijheel, Banani, Gulshan, Dhanmondi, Malibagh and Kathalbagan.
Unauthorised parking on open spaces, streets and even on footpaths in the areas is forcing the pedestrians to walk along the main roads.
Cars are being parked illegally on Abdul Gani Road near the Secretariat in the city on Tuesday due to shortage of parking space in high-rise commercial buildings nearby — FE photo
A total of 58 multi-storey buildings were found on both sides of the road from Dainik Bangla Intersection to Shapla Chattar, but only six of the buildings have enough car parking facilities.
In addition, there were 36 buildings on both sides of the road stretching from Shapla Chattar to Ittefaq Intersection, but no basement or parking space was found at those buildings.
The buildings include 22-storey, 15-storey, 12-storey, 11-storey and 10-storey structure.
Due to acute shortage of parking spaces, the people who work at those buildings have no alternative but to go for unauthorised on-street parking around these structures.
Preferring anonymity, an official of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) said most of the buildings keep enough parking spaces in design, but later convert them for commercial use due to poor monitoring by Rajuk.
Most of these structures in and around Motijheel areas were built before 90s when the issue of car parking was not taken into consideration with due importance, he added.
Rajuk member (development control) Abul Kalam Azad has admitted that building owners gradually convert parking space into commercial use.
He said they have identified a number of such buildings which use parking space commercially. "We are carrying out drive there on a regular basis."
He added: "Rajuk cannot alone change the situation…other stakeholders like city corporations, traffic department, house owners and car users should come forward in this regard."
The road stretching from Shapla Chattar to Ittefaq Crossing and Gulistan Mazar to Zero Point is a perfect example of illegal parking on both the sides of the 65-feet wide road.
According to international standards of car parking, a private car usually requires an eight-feet wide and 16-feet long space. It means that 32 feet out of the 65-feet road are occupied for unauthorised parking on both sides.
Also existing road spaces further narrow because of the movement of pedestrians on the road for not having access to footpaths, illegally captured either by roadside vendors or shop owners on the ground floors of respective buildings.
The scene was almost the same in other parts of the capital like Banani, Dhanmondi, Mohakhali, Malibagh and Old Dhaka.
According to the latest Building Construction Rules 2008, a semi-detached residence for accommodating a single family in a space of less than 200 square metres will have one car parking facility while the space for parking minimum two vehicles is mandatory for over 200 square metres building.
For multi-storey apartment having gross space of more than 200 square metres, minimum one car parking facility for each of the units was made compulsory. Minimum two car parking spaces for three flats each having gross spaces from 140 to 200 square metres were fixed.
One car parking space for each of two units was fixed as minimum car parking benchmark for multi-storey flat with gross size in between 968.4 square feet and 1506.4 square feet.
For commercial use, one car parking space was a must for shops/departmental stores/offices with gross area of 200 square metres each and restaurants having 100 square metres, according to the BC rules.
As per the regulations, hospitals and clinics operated by both public and private sectors will compulsorily keep one parking facility for each of five beds for patients.
In terms of educational institutions like kindergartens, schools, colleges and universities, such establishments will have one car parking facility for 200 square metres of area each and will have smooth dropping bay (4.25 metre wide and 25 metre long) underground floors.
To discourage unauthorised parking, the government and private sector built off-street parking facilities but most of multi-storey parking lots remain almost unused.
During visit to multi-storey parking lots, nearly 60 per cent of these sites were found vacant. Only an eight-storey parking space having the capacity of 450 vehicles by Sadharan Bima Corporation (SBC) was found full of vehicles.
While two others - one by Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) at Motijheel and another by Rajuk at Gulshan having the capacity of 500 and 223 vehicles respectively - were found with less number of cars and bikes.
Talking to the FE, Mohammad Nahid, who was appointed by DSCC to register incoming cars at multi-storey parking lot in City Center of Motijheel, said nearly 250 vehicles, on an average, receive service a day.
"It is less than half of the capacity of this parking lot although parking charge is very low (Tk 30 a day). I don't know why people are not interested in using this facility."
He also informed that if traffic police launch drive against illegal parkers, the number of occupants surprisingly increases.
Only few numbers of cars were found parked on some roads designated for parking like Eskaton Garden Road, Dhaka University Campus and Katabon.
Expressing concern over such space-constraints for parking vehicles, traffic and structural experts suggested a holistic parking policy with an auto-restriction provision alongside redevelopment activities in those buildings.
DMP joint commissioner (Traffic-south) Mofiz Uddin Ahmed said the number of cars keep increasing over the years though road spaces are virtually shrinking in the form of illegal parking and unauthorised occupation of spaces by roadside vendors and shop owners.
The construction work of the metro rail project significantly reduced existing road spaces, he said, adding that shoppers and office-goers come to street simultaneously, making it very difficult for them to handle traffic.
"Lack of parking space is one of the major reasons for nagging traffic jam in the city," he said.
Dr Shamsul Hoque, teacher of Civil Engineering Department at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), said redevelopment of the buildings is required and it should be allowed by the existing policy.
During the regeneration process, apart from parking space, more attention should be given to loading and unloading facility so that no car can hinder smooth traffic while getting in and out from direct road.
He also recommended introducing a designated department like urban regeneration authority as many countries facing same problem did to take care of the redevelopment process.
