By Anthony O. Miller
PART of the newly-opened and controversial coast road at Limassol could soon be back to where it was before – with on-street parking effectively reducing the four lanes to two for most of the day.
Yermasoyia Town Council has voted to allow on-street parking and to remove the traffic island separating the road’s four lanes.
The vote to allow on-street parking from 9am to 9pm was unanimous, while the motion to dig up the central traffic island won only a tight 5-4 vote, according to the Committee of Injured Shopkeepers, which lobbied for the measures.
Yermasoyia merchants, who are members of the committee, told The Sunday Maillast week that the road’s four lanes encouraged speeding through the resort town, endangering tourists and residents alike, even though the speed limit is set at 50kph.
And, they said, the absence of coast road parking has discouraged tourists and residents from shopping, since the city lacks adequate convenient off- street parking. As a result, said the shopkeepers, they have suffered a 50 per cent drop in business since the widened road was fully open in January.
“We are happy that the council’s vote for parking was unanimous,” Demetrios Lordos, vice-chairman of Lordos Hotels (Holdings) Ltd, property developer and co-owner with his wife of the Croissanterie delicatessen, told the Cyprus Mailyesterday.
“It solves the problems of shopkeepers, customers and taxi drivers,” he said, adding that the on-street parking also “solves the problem of speed on the road.”
If the government does not prevent the city from installing the planned metered parking, vehicles parked on both sides of the four-lane road will reduce the number of traffic lanes to two, forcing speeds to drop, Lordos said.
The constricted traffic flow caused by the parked vehicles will also discourage heavy lorries from using the coast road – as they now do – as a highway out of Limassol port, he added.
Despite the Town Council’s votes “it’s not over,” Lordos said. He noted that the government could block the move to allow on-street parking and would probably try to prevent the council digging up the traffic island.
In that case, Lordos said, he would not be surprised if merchants took matters into their own hands, hired bulldozers and tore up the traffic island themselves.
