Shillong, Feb 6: The state’s first Automated Multilevel Car Park built to ease traffic congestion was opened to commuters along Vivekananda Road near Additional Secretariat in Shillong on Friday.
Inaugurating the car park, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said the initiative is part of a multi-pronged strategy to decongest the city of Shillong.
Admitting traffic congestion as one of the biggest problems of the city, he said, “A multi-pronged strategy was developed to slowly and steadily decongest the city and to address the problems that lead to the problem of traffic.”
“The multilevel car park that we are inaugurating today is just one part of the solution,” he said.
He also informed that there are about nine more multilevel car parks in the pipeline that will create parking spaces for about 1300 vehicles.
To create more parking places, the Chief Minister also informed about the parking policy where individuals with lands can partner with the government to create parking places where the land owner can collect revenue from the parking space.
“Different aspects are being looked into and one of the factors that lead to traffic is because people park randomly,” he said but added that people have to be given designated parking spaces where they can park their cars.
Highlighting the different government approaches to ease traffic and decongest the city, the Chief Minister said creating of parking spaces for public buses and taxis at Khyndailad, relocation of hawkers from the roads, expansion of the road from Umshyrpi to 7th Mile, an elevated or a four-lane road from Rhino Museum Point till Civil Hospital and Barik and shifting of administration to New Administrative City, are among the key solutions.
“All these proposals are at an advanced stage and are being taken up in a manner to ensure ease of traffic movement not only for immediate traffic relief but for the next few decades,” he said.
