Parking and Putrajaya

1. I got a parking summon near Parcel B in Putrajaya recently.

2. Parking woes in some parts of Putrajaya has been well known for at least two years. By some parts, I mean the EPU, MOT, MOHE areas. I remember in 2006 when I went to JPA to enquire about students scholarship, there was not a single parking space in the complex. Then I saw an empty space left vacant by a bus and I park there. Before long I was involved in an exchange with a very rude security guard.

3. JPA staff then told me stories of difficulties by people especially sickly pensioners who had to walk form the road side to Jabatan Pencen. But this was in 2006. It may not happen now.

4. MOT - almost all my colleagues who went there complained of not only lack of parking space, but rudeness of security guards. The cars in the underground park are double parked, almost without order.

5. The question that keeps haunting me as I drove back from Pj to KL that day was - what have PPj done to alleviate these parking problem. It seems to be getting from bad to worse.

6. My simple suggestion is just build two six-storey car park blocks; one near Parcels B and C and another one near D and E. These four blocks are the most visited. The car park blocks can be half underground and clad in Moorish architecture to blend in with the prevailing design of existing buildings.

7. But of course Perbadanan Putrajaya (PPj) has other ideas and tied by the policies of the government. PPj wants to have a 70:30 ratio of public to private mode of transport. So they have introduced "park and ride" and they have mentioned "Putrajaya Sentral" when I called up.

8. If I knew that Putrajaya Sentral and park and ride existed and running well, I would certainly opt for those. Are there signboards or gantries telling me how to go Putrajaya Sentral, like what they did for KL Sentral? I normally enter Pj through Maju Expressway. There is one little sign that says "park and ride", then nothing. Can we have a logo of Putrajaya Sentral posted on signboards going back as far as immediately after Maju Expressway exit?

9. People like me has to go to Pj for obvious reasons. It's not that I like to go there. The comparison may be unfair, but look at Genting Highlands and how they provide car parks. For another example, look at Ampang Jaya Council - they converted every available space in commercial areas into parking lots. Now if I opt to park on non-parking areas, I am truly recalcitrant and deserve to be issued a ticket. But when there was no available pakling lots in the vicinity, and still I got the ticket, it's only natural that I muttered "all you know to do is to issue parking tickets".

10. Putrajaya is a beautiful city. When people in Berlin were rebuilding their city, some of them told our city planners that "we want to beat your Putrajaya". Putrajaya by itself is a world class benchmark. Let us keep it that way.