Gulf News
Dubai, Dec 4: Residents may soon be able to park vehicles free of cost in paid parking zone in front of their homes, a senior official said.
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is considering a proposal to provide free parking spaces to residents, an RTA official told Gulf News.
He said the proposal is part of a study conducted by RTA on the parking system. "Some other proposals included revising parking fees as well as increasing paid parking zone areas," he said.
According to the official, every building is required to have parking facilities for its residents. "We are considering issuing parking passes to residents to park free in the paid parking zone near their flats or villas," he said.
The proposal is in the initial stage and it will have to be approved by the higher authorities. Details of the project will be announced once it is finalised. "We are still working on the issues and devising a strategy to implement it," he said.
There has been strong demand from residents to provide them free parking at least in front of their houses as RTA continues to expand paid parking zones in the city.
During its seventh phase of Paid Parking Control System, RTA created some 9,000 new parking spaces in 2006 in different commercial and residential areas.
It installed 42 paid parking machines on Shaikh Zayed Road between Interchange No 1 (Defence Roundabout) and Interchange No 2 (Safa Park). Recently, 100 were installed in Hor Al Anz East, 146 in Port Saeed area, 30 machines in Karama and 14 in Umm Hurair.
With the completion of the seventh phase, paid parking spaces have increased from the existing 39,000 to 48,000 this year.
The paid parking system started in the Central Business District (CBD) of Deira in 1995 with the installation of 40 meters and has been extended to cope with the parking needs as the city grows in terms of population, buildings and vehicles. With the completion of the new project, there will be a total of 2,070 parking meters in the city.
"Our objective [is] to ... provide facilities to traders and residents. This also helps to prevent motorists from double parking, blocking of spaces with long-term parking and parking on pavements," said the official.