From Peter Guest:
I was skimming through the interweb the other day and came across what I thought was yet another story of local residents complaining because somebody wanted to build something in their neighbourhood. Been there – done that – got the Tee Shirt and the scars and the long service medal. But reading a bit more deeply I could see where they were coming from. The arts centre in Panajai in Goa, India is being extended and residents are concerned about the parking impacts. The arts centre will have a 1034 seat open air auditorium and a 954 seat interior venue.
The City’s planning standards give a need for 50 car parking spaces for this development. Yes five zero fifty. Add other functions on the site and the number grows to 122. Apparently the developer had planned to increase this to 212 spaces with the extension and has agreed to raise this to 307 in response to the residents’ concerns. Now at around 8 per thousand India has one of the lowest car ownerships in the world but with an average GDP growth of over 10% even the short term picture is pretty clear. I remember when working in India to be surprised at how much of the traffic law was fifty years old and quite unfit for purpose. It looks very much like these planning standards come from the same period. A thousand spaces might get you through the next decade, 307 spaces will be a disaster from day 1
Peter – Maybe you are right – but Royal Albert Hall in London has what, zero parking spaces, as does the Royal Opera House. How is public transport in Panajai…JVH
One Response
Dont know how PT is in Panjai. Last time I was there, yes I have been there and do know where it is, they were running a few 1950’s style buses; I doubt they have much more today. The Albert Hall/Royal Opera House et al in central London have one of the densest Bus and Tube networks in the world to service them.
I have no problem at all in solving the transport needs of such a development with an enhanced PT system but I suspect that here the sort of people who will make up a large proportion of the audiences will be middle class car owning or car aspiring people, not bus users.