The Parking Lot

One day when I entered my Medical College premises with my two-wheeler, parked it inside humming a tune to myself “jeena isika naam hai…” and bouncing my short hair and confidently marching towards the foyer, got a call from behind…it was the security personnel. “Madam”- “please park your vehicle outside the gate”
“Huh”…”Why so” I asked. Thought inside, probably a new security man. I adjusted my I-card, yes, it was in place and swallowed my pride and identified myself, “I am Professor of Biochemistry”.
He ignored the identification part and said, “Madam only cars are allowed to be parked inside”.
And I was thinking about coming to work by Bicycle every day. But No, Professors should own a car and the Medical College Professors should own a real big car with bigger brands.
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I came across this picture which shows Vertical parking to mitigate parking problems. Yes, very welcoming project for Metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai where population is most dense, lot of space crisis and frequently people get palpitations while visiting malls as to where to park their precious darling, their prized vehicles.
But shouldn’t we think of restricting vehicles and promote public transports instead of doing adjustment of parking?
With much pomp and ceremony, the “Mo cycle” project was laid down but now all cycles are rotting on the roadside. Cycle lanes were painted red and I was so happy that finally some respect for the cyclists!
But alas! Within no time it is occupied by two-wheelers and at times even by 4-wheelers as there are hardly any cyclists to be seen.
Why the good things failed…any root cause analysis was done…I doubt if done any.
I have a few questions to raise:
1. We always hear that our economy is failing badly and yet cars of Mercedes range and the likes are thronging every day on the road.
2. Do we have some regulations as to how many cars should be made and released per year?
3. I see vehicle registrations of OR days to OD era. Do we have any regulations to discard old vehicles and if any, are they implemented?
3. When economy is failing and so is health, why do we see full-page ads on cars instead of bicycles/ or electric bikes?
4. We whine upon exhausting resources of petroleum and environmental pollution, why are we not promoting public transports and electric shuttle vans?
5. Are there any public parking system for Bicycles like small Scandinavian countries?
6. Are we ignoring environment and non-renewable resources issues in lieu of revenue generation?
Well, whether the questions are answered or not, my dream remains the same…going to my workplace by bicycle.
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Prof(Dr) Viyatprajna Acharya.