A more expensive and wider blue and green zone in Sofia. This is proposed by Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev. The ideas are based on an online survey conducted among citizens, bTV reported.
The proposal is for the blue zone to become 4 leva instead of 2 leva so far, and the green one - 2 leva instead of 1 leva, as it is currently.
It is also proposed to expand their scope, and their working hours to become from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. With these working hours, the blue zone should also be on Sundays. These proposals are at the public discussion stage.
„This is the first time that Sofia Municipality is conducting such a survey. The number of 22,230 people is indicative. People say that it takes them more than 10 minutes to park in the wider center. The people in this survey are from all neighborhoods of Sofia. We think it is a representative sample,“ said Simeon Stavrev, a municipal councilor from the PP-DB, in “This Morning.
People also say that they want to have zones in the southern neighborhoods, as well as in “Banishora“ and the “Iztok“ district.
“We have reached the absurd situation “We asked 100 people“ and they said – please, double the blue zone for us and make paid parking everywhere. Do you think this is serious?“, asked the municipal councilor from the BSP Ivan Videlov.
According to him, these proposals will only aggravate the situation and discriminate against people who are able to pay.
He challenged Stavrev to take a gamble and do push-ups in front of the municipality next year if this alleviates the parking problem in Sofia.
“It's just that the cars you will see in the center of Sofia will be more expensive“, added Videlov.
Where will the money from paid parking go?
“We at PP-DB propose that 60% of the money that comes from parking be returned to the Sofia Municipality and go to infrastructure. In the CGM, the money sinks 100% and they don't spend it on parking lots, but on salaries in public transport“, explained Stavrev.
“The first creation of the blue zone was with the argument that this money would go to building parking lots. Show me a parking lot built with this money. All the money sinks into the CGM – whether in the form of bonuses, or something else“, commented Videlov.
According to him, these proposals should be made by experts, not by people in a survey.
“There should be parking lots. If there aren't any, we don't do anything, no matter how much we raise prices. We are simply limiting people according to their financial capabilities“, is the opinion of the municipal councilor from the BSP.