Space, or rather lack of it, has been the biggest problem in Chennai’s one-stop shopping destination — T Nagar. Finding an empty spot to safely park your vehicle for a while as you go about shopping is an arduous task, one that becomes a crisis on weekends.
In two of the most important stretches in T Nagar — Ranganathan Street and Usman Road — where the majority of commercial activity happens, it is nigh impossible to steer a vehicle through the million footfalls that these roads bear on a daily basis.
Only last week, a group of T Nagar residents staged a vehicle rally through the service lanes of the Usman Road flyover, in order to demonstrate just how difficult it is to navigate an automobile as space continues to shrink, especially with hawkers encroaching all around.
Motorcycles lay parked haphazardly under the flyover, jostling for space with flower vendors. Car parking is a whole different equation. Most, if not all, textile store chains offer underground parking facilities. But, with expansion occurring in all directions, horizontally and vertically, there comes a point when even the stores can’t accommodate the influx of vehicles, especially with Aadi season sale attracting a lot of customers.
One store, Chennai Silks, however, implemented a novel idea of constructing a multi-level parking system to accommodate its customer’s vehicles. The idea has proved so successful that the store’s general manager said sales had improved drastically during the Aadi season, as they could handle the parking crisis.
“Our only motto is to innovate, keeping our customer’s convenience in mind. Good customer service is also about bringing them in and sending them away happy,” says P A Ravindhran, general manager of the store.The German-inspired model named Klaus Car Parking System can accomodate about 104 cars. The store representatives said that the parking and retrieving process takes just about two minutes. The entire structure is about 62 metres wide and includes five levels.
However, the general lack of space in T Nagar proves to be a cause of concern. A few days ago, Tamil actor and musician Premgi Amaren shared a picture on his official Facebook page likening Usman road to the Times Square in New York City — an item shared numerous times on the social networking site. Only, retailers hope that T Nagar doesn’t present a huge parking crisis akin to NYC.
“T Nagar is not sophisticated enough to provide advanced parking structures like the ones you see abroad. The dusty roads will prove counterproductive to such mechanisms,” says Prakash, a shopper at T Nagar. “It is a concern for all textile store outlets in T Nagar that there is no space. Hence we have resorted to providing such infrastructure,” says Ravindhran
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