Nigeria Content Online

Parking has become
a major issue in Victoria Island and some parts of Lagos Island, Ikoyi
and other parts of the city. The many high-rise office complexes
hosting hundreds of staff have inadequate parking spaces.

Owing to the lack
of parking space at his office in Victoria Island, Yomi Olorunowo does
not take his car to work on most days. Many who work in the same area,
though faced with the same problem as Mr Olorunowo, still take their
cars to work and park them on both sides of the streets, sometimes at
locations quite far from the office, where the cars may not be safe
being under nobody’s care.

“Most of the time,
I don’t bring my car to the office, because apart from the trouble of
driving hold-up, I don’t like bringing it because each time I come with
it, I always have problems with finding a place. My office parking
space takes only about five cars and it is the MD (managing director)
and top officials that park there. Others park outside along the
street.

“So if you come
late, you will discover that the whole place is filled with cars and
there is no space to park and you will have to find somewhere to park,
maybe the next street. So I come to work by car on Mondays and Fridays,
sometimes only Fridays,” Mr Olorunowo said.

Lack of planning

According Samuel
Agogo, an urban and regional planner, it is the fault of respective
government agencies who failed to ensure that adequate provisions were
made for parking in Victoria Island which was built from scratch.

“This is the type
of thing that happens when the master plan of a district is not
properly done and followed to the letter. You know, Victoria Island was
meant to be largely residential, but over the years it has turned to
almost completely commercial. And as they were building those large
buildings, they didn’t know that a lot of people will work there and
many of them will have cars and will have to park them somewhere.

“That is what
planning is; you need to project and put these into consideration. The
planner should have considered whether or not the district will need
some general parking lots; maybe like what you have at the Marina.
Those parking spaces there are doing Lagos Island a lot of good.
Imagine if there was nothing like that, where in Lagos will all those
cars park? In fact, I know some people who work in Victoria Island and
Ikoyi who park their cars there and take a taxi to the office,” Mr
Agogo said.

Apart from the
inconvenience this causes the car owners who park by the roads at the
risk of losing their cars to theft, or some parts of the cars to
burglary, or even having them bashed by other cars plying the streets,
the cars parked on the roadsides cause traffic congestions. This
happens especially during the evening rush hour.

One of the areas
notorious for this is the tail end of Kofo Abayomi Street in Victoria
Island, where the organisations there, including oil giant Total
Nigeria Plc, and Philips Project Centre (PPC) Limited, park their
official vehicles on both sides of the street. To complicate it, there
is the Goodies Supermarket adjacent to the Total building. The
supermarket has no parking space, therefore, their many patrons park by
the road. As a result, that part of Kofo Abayomi Street is usually a
traffic bottle neck, irrespective of the time of day.

Parking at own risk

Some public
buildings, like eateries, banks, malls, in the city usually have this
sign: ‘Cars parked at owners’ risk’ absolving the organisation of any
responsibility in the event of any damage of vehicles or theft of
vehicles parked in the premises. This has always been contentious, with
patrons of such eateries or banks arguing that since there are security
guards at the car parks, there should be some level of guarantee that
items in the vehicle would not be stolen.

However, at some
other public places like the Bar Beach, and big event centres, with a
lot of people having to park on roadsides and nearby open spaces,
touts, popularly called area boys, hold sway. They decide who parks
where and collect money from the owners of the cars, with the promise
of keeping watch over the vehicles. But almost immediately, they leave
the car and goes for another one, unless the owner of a particular car
gave them a huge amount of money and promised to give more.

Towing of vehicles

Indeed, the problem
of parking is not restricted to Victoria Island; it affects every part
of Lagos. Earlier this year, the Lagos State Traffic Management
Authority, LASTMA, started impounding vehicles seen parked by the
roadside. According to the regulation, it is not acceptable to have
cars parked on both sides of a road, reducing the width of the road
usable by motorists.

According to
Babatunde Ajasa, a computer engineer, he had parked by the roadside and
went into a friend’s shop at Amara Olu Street, Agidingbi, Ikeja. On
returning, he saw some LASTMA officials towing his car away. When he
asked what the problem was, he was told he had parked illegally – on
the wrong side of the road.

“I begged and
people around there begged them until one Lagos State official now came
around and asked them to release me because I didn’t know that I was
not supposed to park on that side of the road. There was no sign at all
to say, ‘Don’t park here’. So as far as I was concerned, I did nothing
wrong. But I still had to give them some money before they left me
finally. Since that day, I’m always very careful with parking anywhere.
I always make sure I totally go out of the road,” Mr Ajasa said.

NEXT sought to know
from the Commissioner for Transportation, Bamidele Badejo, why some of
the vehicles parked on the roadsides in Victoria Island are never
impounded, and how the ministry intends to solve the roadside parking
problem. However, enquiries sent to his mobile phone were not answered.

Parking spaces will soon emerge

But the
Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Francisco
Abosede, said the government has in recent times ensured that no
property development is allowed to go on without provision for the
required parking spaces.

“In recent times,
no development permit was ever issued without adequate car parking
provision which we initially calculated at 90square metres of floor
area per car but after study and also considering international
standards which Lagos megacity is observing, we have since adopted
35square metres of floor area per car parking provision.

“We have discovered
that planning permits for buildings are not observed on site. Example
is Glo towers on Adeola Odeku, that converted two floors of parking in
the building to offices. Government sealed the property until the two
floors were reinstated back to parking and many more like that. With
the new law, before your (building is) insured, which is a must, your
approval and development on site must correspond,” Mr Abosede said.

According to the
commissioner, some big car park projects have been approved and they
are on-going in Victoria Island. These projects are expected to solve
the parking problem on the island.

“Major proposals
are on. Standard Charted Bank is developing six floors of parking
(spaces) opposite (Silverbird) Galleria on Ahmadu Bello Way,
Intercontinental Hotels at Kofo Abayomi Street, with almost 1000
parking spaces on four floors. All newly approved 15 floors have a
minimum of three floors of parking, etc. Government is also looking at
various locations to see what can be done since construction of car
parking provision is commercially not viable in a Public Private
Partnership,” he said.

By the time the car
park projects are completed, Mr Olorunowo might then be able to bring
his car to work every day, provided the parking fee will not be too
exorbitant.

“If they can build such parks, it will be a big relief for people
like me, at least I will be bringing my car to work. But the problem
with such projects might be that when they finish it, they may be
charging like N500 per day which will be costly, instead of the N200
that most existing car parks collect,” he said.