A draft amendment to the regulations on parking fees has been submitted to the Parliament. – We appeal for the decision on how to shape parking policy in cities to be made by municipal councils – said the mayor of Sopot, Magdalena Czarzyńska-Jachim. Earlier, the Association of Spa Municipalities also called for improving the regulations.
A group of MPs from the Civic Coalition and Trzecia Droga submitted a draft amendment to the Act on public roads to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland. It assumes the deletion of the provision that prevents the creation of downtown paid parking zones in cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. inhabitants.
The downtown paid parking zone differs from the paid parking zone in, among others, in that you can collect fees every day, not only on business days.
– We are glad that a project has already been created (…) to make this provision by PLN 100,000. residents should be removed from the act. We want to go further at the request of completely small health resort communes, which will not create downtown zones because they do not even have a downtown, but they struggle with parking problems. So that they can also regulate car traffic on weekends – said the mayor of Sopot, Magdalena Czarzyńska-Jachim, at a Friday press conference during the meeting of the board of the Association of Polish Cities in Sosnowiec.
A problem for small and medium-sized tourist cities
Magdalena Czarzyńska-Jachim pointed out that the applicable regulations are a problem for small and medium-sized tourist cities, such as Sopot. On weekends, residents often cannot park near their homes because free parking spaces are occupied by tourists.
– We appeal for the decision on how to shape parking policy in cities to be made by municipal councils. (…) We should be able not only to shape the days and hours on which the zone is valid, but also to shape the rates. For example, in Sopot, the closer to the beach, the higher the rate should be to encourage guests to use buffer parking lots, said Czarzyńska-Jachim.
She emphasized that this requires broader changes to the Act on Public Roads than those proposed by MPs from KO and Trzecia Droga. In her opinion, the mere deletion of the provision that prevents the creation of downtown paid parking zones in cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants residents, in many places it will not solve parking problems.
According to the act, inner-city zones will still be able to be created only “in areas of intensive development of the functional downtown, which constitute the actual center of the city or district”, which will not be possible in many small and medium-sized tourist cities or near specific tourist attractions.
Spas want paid parking zones also on weekends
– The parliamentary bill submitted to the Sejm does not include the provisions requested by spa towns, which concern the possibility of charging parking fees in the spa area also on public holidays – pointed out the president of the Association of Spa Municipalities, Jan Golba, at the end of November.
– In health resorts, on weekends and holidays, tourist traffic accumulates and parking lots are occupied practically all day long. There is no car turnover because drivers do not pay for parking, and if they do not pay, the car is parked. It even happens that drivers leave their cars on green areas, in areas where flowers grow, and no one seems to mind, and the police are unable to keep an eye on it all, he said.
He added that the Association of Spa Municipalities has already proposed changes to the provisions of the project.
– We have already asked the MPs who prepared this project and the Parliamentary Team for Spas to make changes before the vote. This is a big nuisance for us and we do not understand the idea that parking fees cannot be charged on non-working days. In health resort communes and tourist destinations, this is when there is the greatest traffic – concluded Golba.
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