Kandivali Lokhandwala Township raises pitch on complaints about truck parking
In January, an urban planner and architect wrote to the police asking for a permanent ban on heavy commercial vehicles parking in the area
MUMBAI: Exasperated with the plethora of trucks parked in Kandivali’s Lokhandwala Township, residents have once again tried their hand at complaining to the police and traffic police about the issue. The last complaint was sent on Thursday by Nitin Jha, a resident and founder of the Soham Foundation.
“Heavy vehicles are parked throughout Lokhandwala Township, but their density is much more towards the fag end of the area, near the housing societies Sapphire Heights, Green Hills and Highland Tower,” explained another resident, Vaishali, also a member of the citizens group We All Connect (wAc).
In January, resident Amol Reddiwar, who is an urban planner and architect, wrote to the police and traffic police, asking for a permanent ban on heavy commercial vehicles parking in the area. The letter had the support of 3,500 Lokhandwala Township residents.
“Over the past few months, the situation has escalated, leading to increased congestion, safety concerns and inconvenience for residents,” the letter stated. “The unrestricted parking of heavy commercial vehicles has not only hampered the smooth flow of traffic but has also posed a significant risk to pedestrians and other road users.”
Vaishali said that the parking broadly caused three problems: traffic jams, a lack of parking space for residents’ cars, and trucks blocking their visibility, which was also a safety concern. “At the far end of the township, trucks are parked on both sides of the road, sometimes even vertically, and right by the turns,” she said. “When residents of the area want to park there, they are not allowed. Many roads are dug up by the BMC, so the trucks block visibility and make the area very accident-prone.”
Vaishali explained that at the second gate of her housing society, Sapphire Heights, which has been closed due to road works effectively blocking it, the area has become akin to a truck parking lot. “The pervasive theory is that a ‘mafia’ controls parking in the area,” added Jha. “They let trucks and app-based taxi services park in the area and ensure they are safe for a fee.”
When some of the trucks leave in the day, they further add to the traffic in the area. “There is only one access road to Kandivali—Hanuman Road—and when these massive trucks are on the road at peak hours, they cause bottlenecks and congestion, and the traffic gets horrible. Trucks carrying construction material to building sites worsen the situation,” said Vaishali.
A previous letter sent by Reddiwar to the police and traffic police in October 2023 regarding the heavy vehicle issue offered a solution: that their movement be restricted to the early hours of the morning. It also reiterated the standing demand of a ban on the parking of heavy vehicles in the area.
Apart from the parked trucks obstructing visibility, their drivers too were cause for concern, added Vaishali and Jha. Vaishali narrated an incident of a few months earlier where a 15-year-old girl was flashed by a man behind a truck, leaving her traumatised.
Despite the continuous complaints, however, the authorities have taken practically no action. Santy Shetty, a resident who heads wAc, said, “All that the traffic police do is land up and fine the trucks for a few days. But then the situation goes back to what it was. No permanent solution has been implemented.”
A traffic police inspector in the area said, “The vehicles parked there, cars and heavy vehicles included, are of the people who live in and around the area, including the slums . We regularly fine the vehicles parked. In a day, we fine 60 to 70 vehicles ₹1,500. But there is little space in this city to park vehicles, so where are they supposed to go?”