After it’s success in Liberty Market, the metered parking system is now being deployed at The Mall from March, God be willing!

Metered parking zone with two entry and exit points starts from Shah din Manzil to Masjid-e-Shuhada.

“The first entry point will be at the start of the side road in front of the Shah din Manzil and people coming from Queens Road will use this entrance. The second entrance is the road cut after the traffic signal at Punjab Assembly and this entrance will be used by the people traveling on The Mall towards the GPO.
The two exit points of this parking lot will be the roads leading to Lawrence Road and Regal Chowk from Masjid-e-Shuhada while the road cut, which at present is connecting The Mall in front of Masjid-e-Shuhada with the side road, will be blocked and can only be used in emergency situation. As many as 320 cars can be parked at a time in this parking zone.”

Good news for motorcyclists, they are allowed to park free of cost at The Mall parking zone.  No parking fee at all.

However, in order to get the parking slip/token insert 10 rupee coins  or more if one wishes to park his/her car for longer,  into the machine and a slip pops out specifically instructing the drivers to display ticket on dashboard.

This effective system not only helps make most out of the space available but, also utilizes time in best possible way while maintain discipline. Finding a parking space is a bit of a challenge sometimes ad often one wrong parked car takes the space of two. But this won’t happens again as a heavy fine which will start from Rs 50 and can exceed to Rs 500 will be imposed on wrong parking, expired tokens, not displaying the parking ticket as directed or worst no token at all. And until the fine is paid the company’s security staff will clamp the tyre of such a vehicle and it won’t be allowed to move.

Most of the work regarding The Mall’s first metered parking zone has been completed, however the machines are yet to be installed.

In case you thought you could miss the token because of load shedding these machines are battery operated not supported by WAPDA but, i recently heard that they are solar-powered. Solar powered? do you know anything about it?