THE NICOSIA Municipality kicked off its pilot scheme of residential on-street parking permits this week in an effort to solve the notable problem of parking in the city’s inner-walls neighbourhoods.
The old-town’s permanent residents will be given a permit to park in allocated spaces on the street, while anyone violating this will incur the usual parking fine.
The project is a response to the consistent complaints by old-city residents that there is a lack of parking spaces. Ledra Street’s commercial character and the old-city’s vibrant nightlife have led to a tussle for parking in recent years, and local residents have struggled to find parking in front of their homes.
The Head of the Municipality’s Studies Department, Yiannakis Lazarou, said he was optimistic about the project’s success and was happy to see that there was a response by the residents. Lazarou said that many residents had turned up at the municipality to learn all the details and to acquire their permits.
According to the pilot scheme, each household will get one permit to display on their windshields. Although Lazarou recognised that hardly any household in Cyprus has only one car, he said that the scheme was still in its infancy and that the success rate of the trial period would dictate future measures.
“Let’s see how this system works at this initial stage and if it is a success and there is capacity, we will surely issue more permits for more residential cars.”
Lazarou was adamant that there were no other measures planned at the moment and that any further projects would be contemplated once data is collected on the on-street parking permits.
Lazarou said that depending on the project’s success, the municipality would look to apply it to other commercial and residential neighbourhoods of the capital, especially “the triangle between the Kennedy, Makariou and Kyprianou avenues”, which is both a residential and a commercial hub.
On the general problem of parking, Lazarou said that “the problem should be tackled at its roots”, explaining that any measure that does not encourage people to leave their cars at home would be insufficient. Lazarou said that the idea of imposing a congestion charge; a measure used extensively in the U.K. and Europe, would not be considered any time soon.
“The introduction of more buses by the government was a step forward, and although numbers of bus passengers has increased, there is still a lot to be done” said Lazarou.
On the idea of making the whole old-town a pedestrian area, Lazarou said that the notion was studied only briefly and that the circumstances were not yet ripe for such an ambitious project.
“I strongly believe that we should be moving towards that direction (making the entire old town a pedestrian area), but there are so many projects that need to be completed before this can attempted” he said.
Reconstruction projects on both Eleftheria and Solomou Squares are still underway, while a section of the new town hall is expected to be completed by early November.
