The capital city is facing an acute shortage of parking space while the growing population and the number of vehicles registered in Islamabad is adding to the situation.
It has become almost impossible to find a parking stall, particularly in Blue Area, F-8 Markaz which houses the district courts, Karachi Company, Aabpara Market, Jinnah Super Market, Super Market, and F-11 Market etc.
Similarly, finding a parking space in other shopping centres and markets is not an easy job. One has to roam around the Centre for quite a long time to grab a parking stall.
Advocate Ehtisham Raja told APP that parking lots in F-8 Markaz get filled very quickly in the morning. “I never get a parking space for my car in F-8 whenever I reached my office located inside the Katchery after 9:30 a.m. in the morning.”
On the other hand, about 1.3 million vehicles have so far been registered in Islamabad. This indicates that the city, which has a population of 2.6 million, is under an unprecedented burden of vehicular traffic. This load of vehicular traffic will increase manifold in the coming years as some 2,500 to 3,000 more vehicles are registered every month in Islamabad.
Explaining about the growing number of vehicles, an official of the Islamabad Excise said multiple factors were increasing the need for personal vehicles such as the limited public transport and expensive cab rides. Besides, he added, “A large number of people have leased cars from banks to register them with online cab services.”
To tackle the situation, Capital Development Authority (CDA) is working on constructing six multi-story parking plazas in different areas of Islamabad. However, according to the inside information, construction work on the Blue Area parking plaza has not been started yet.
