To ease traffic congestion and create more parking space in town, the Trongsa Dzongkhag Administration has recently introduced a new parking system. Vehicles are now allowed to park in the town area for only 20 minutes. However, business entities and taxi drivers are complaining that this system is affecting their businesses.
Unlike in the past, people visiting town have to park their cars in the designated parking spaces and also leave their side indicator lights on. Drivers who fail to do so or leave their cars parked for more than the allowed duration are first warned by traffic officials and then fined if not heeded to.
“As the district administration restricted people from parking vehicles in the town premises, hoteliers and shopkeepers are getting affected. The number of customers has also decreased now. Some pass by without stopping here so hoteliers here hardly earn any money,” said Karma Lethro, the Thromde Thuemi of Trongsa.
“Taxi parking is far from the town. In order to get parking space to buy goods, we have to either travel to the outskirts of town or towards Zhemgang to get a parking space. It’s very difficult to get a place to park even if it’s just for a few minutes because the town area is very small. And traffic congestion is another problem,” said Kinzang Dorji, a taxi driver.
The Road Safety and Transport Authority recorded around 10 offenders within a week for violating the new rule.
However, the district administration says once the people are familiar with the system, there will not be any problem.
“Lack of parking space in town existed for a long time. There is always the risk of accidents when visiting shops, as the town area is very small and congested. So to avoid such problems, we didn’t allow people to park their cars in the core town area,” said Karma Dendup, the Dzongrab Gom of Trongsa.
There are presently two parking areas in town which can each accommodate around ten vehicles. There are plans to construct more parking spaces.
“Construction of three to four similar parking areas within the town is in the pipeline. Each will accommodate nine-ten vehicles. Once it is complete, the problem of poor parking space would be eased to a certain extent,” he added.
The Dzongkhag office also planned to construct a multi-storied car park a year ago. However, it was cancelled due to poor geography of the location.
Passang, Trongsa
