Over 40 million leva in revenue for 2023 and 3 million more for 2024 are reported by the Center for Urban Mobility as revenue from paid parking. Revenue from the zones includes SMS, parking tickets, fines and vignette stickers for local paid parking. The question of how this money is spent and whether it goes to repair parking lots and sidewalks, a promise made when expanding the zones, is raised every year.
And the problem with parking in the capital, which is growing in population, is becoming more and more tangible. This was summarized by "Nova TV".
On more than one occasion, parking in Sofia has escalated into tension, arguments and even physical clashes. Recently, a self-inflicted removal of a clamp ended in a fight between an urban mobility employee and the fined driver. A dispute over a parking space in Sofia has even led to bullets flying. Against this background, the Sofia Municipality has launched an online survey to study the attitudes and needs of citizens and businesses on the topic of parking in the city. As a result, the municipality is proposing new parking prices - 4 leva for the blue zone and 2 leva for the green zone.
The Genesis or How to Park Over 800,000 Cars in Sofia?
Last year, Mayor Vasil Terziev announced that there are about 800,000 cars in the capital, with 70,000 registered only by October 2024. This means that there are 700-800 cars per 1,000 inhabitants and suggests difficulties in finding a parking space. Paid parking zones in the center of Sofia have a high occupancy rate on a weekly basis. On average, it is about 77%, with subzones in the ideal center of the capital, whose occupancy is over 98%. Such examples are subzone 2 - 98.14% and 3 - 98.14% 98.54%, which cover respectively Blvd. "Hristo Botev", Str. "Alabin", Str. "Vitosha", Str. "Gen.M. D. Skobelev" and Blvd. "Vitosha", Str. "Alabin", Str. "Graf Ignatiev", Str. "Vasil Levski", Str. "Gen. M. D. Skobelev".
In the remaining neighborhoods where there are no zones, it often comes down to prohibited, but quite popular, parking solutions - on lawns, sidewalks, muddy terrain and any other free space that can accommodate a car.
The problems related to parking have been talked about for years, and although Sofia residents have witnessed various proposals for a solution - from expanding paid zones to increasing prices, apart from increasing the zones in 2021, no other drastic reforms have been made in recent years.
Where do the current revenues from paid parking go?
After the last expansion of the blue and green zones at the end of 2021, it was decided that 30% of the vignette stickers for local paid parking would go back to the respective region to improve parking lots with compromised pavement or “mud spots”.
We asked the CGM how many lots were improved in 2024. They replied that last year a public tender was announced for a contractor to carry out repairs with the revenues from local paid parking from 2023. So far, a total of 9 lots have been completed, with repair work continuing now, the company added. The improved parking lots are three in the "Triaditsa" area, one in "Vazrazhdane", three in "Lozenets" and two in "Oborishte". The company specifies that after the completion of all planned repair activities with the current public procurement, a new one will be announced, which will be for the revenues from local paid parking from 2024.
According to the company's annual financial report in 2023, the total revenue from hourly paid parking zones is 40.4 million leva. Revenue from the sales of vignette stickers is 3.8 million leva. The requirement is that 30% of the revenue from vignette stickers be set aside for repairs, which is about 1.1 million at our expense.
The amount of vignette stickers sold in 2024 amounts to about 3.98 million leva, which means that part of these funds will also be invested back to improve the zones with priority on removing muddy spots.
What happens to the remaining funds, for example these from SMS, from which nearly 18 million leva were collected in 2023?
Currently, there are 12,244 parking spaces in the Blue Zone, and 21,046 in the Green Zone. The total number of spaces in paid parking zones, buffer and municipal parking lots is 36,614. Revenues from them amount to 18 million for 2023 and again about 18 million for 2024.
In response to this question, the Center for Urban Mobility explains that the revenues from parking ensure the maintenance of the CGM, the maintenance of hourly paid parking zones, the co-financing of the transport task, as well as other basic activities that have their own social significance. The costs of issuing preferential parking cards, as well as the maintenance and marking of the so-called individual parking spaces intended for people with permanent disabilities near their current address, are also fully borne by the company.
We asked the company what percentage of the funds from the paid parking zones for 2024 are allocated for the maintenance of the CGM and what for the maintenance of the zones, but they answered us as in our previous question, and specific amounts or percentages for these costs were not shared.
The annual reports of the CGM also do not contain a detailed report on how the funds specifically from the paid parking are spent.
Among the costs that are covered are also those for staff salaries. The latest reports show that the costs for the entire company's staff of 1,319 people as of 2023. amount to 41.7 million leva. A number close to the revenue from paid parking for the same year – 40.4 million leva.
The company's annual financial report for 2023 states that its main activity includes “financing, construction, operation and maintenance of parking lots, garages and parking spaces”. According to the official response of the Center for Urban Mobility, no new parking lots have been built in the last three years. They add that they are looking for suitable land and have sent official letters to all district mayors in the capital.
Where are buffer parking lots planned to be built in the capital?
In an interview with “Hello, Bulgaria” In May, Mayor Vasil Terziev announced that by the end of 2025, construction of about 10 new parking lots will begin in Sofia, with some of them already having projects in the state budget, with 100 million leva allocated. Currently, the Sofia Municipality has five buffer parking lots. According to him, the parking problem is comprehensive.
“Parking lots – most of them have been included as projects under Art. 113 in the state budget. Separate 100 million for projects that will be implemented. A dozen parking lots will be started this year. It will not be solved with 100 parking lots. Each for 300 cars – "These are 30,000 cars, and there are 1 million in Sofia," Terziev commented at the time.
With the construction of the new metro stations, a multi-storey buffer parking lot is planned between two metro stations along Tsaritsa Yoana Blvd. to the ring road. There is also planned parking on Vladimir Vazov Blvd., at Arena 8888 Sofia, and Tsarigradsko Shosse Blvd.
The tariffs for the "blue" and "green" zones were last changed in 2012, when the Sofia Municipal Council adopted the fees of 2 leva/hour for the "blue zone" and 1 leva/hour for the "green zone" and introduced the corresponding monthly and annual vignette stickers for residents of these zones. For residents of the “green“ zone - 10 leva per month and 100 leva for twelve months. And for residents of the “blue“ zone - 15 leva per month, 150 leva per year. For a second car, the rates are double, for a third - triple. Although residents pay for a vignette sticker, it does not guarantee them a specific parking space, but only the right to park within the respective zone. Thus, any other driver who pays for hourly parking via SMS has the right to park in the space, even if a resident with a sticker usually parks there. The idea of hourly paid parking is to limit the incoming flow of parking cars. However, the flow is so large that it is rare to find anything free in the blue and green zones.
In March this year, Mayor Vasil Terziev raised the issue of updating the prices in the zones, explaining that it is necessary to clarify whether this measure would help residents find parking spaces. A few months ago, “Save Sofia” prepared a parking reform, which the mayor supported. In the report, the party proposes to increase the paid parking zones and to introduce the so-called “red zone” in the city center, the price of which is 5 leva per hour. The goal is to collect more money to go to improving public transport and multi-storey car parks, and the funds to be managed by the Sofia Municipality. Among other ideas of “Save Sofia” in the reform is to introduce a test “yellow” zone during the weekend in the town of Bankya and around Lake Pancharevo. The maximum number of hours that can be paid for parking within a day is 8 hours from 10:00 to 18:00, and the price is 1 lev per hour. As well as electric vehicle drivers to pay for parking, but at half price, instead of completely free, as it is currently.
„Save Sofia“ with proposals for reorganization of stay and parking
The relevant committees in the Sofia Municipal Council in July refused to consider the proposal of “Save Sofia” and they withdrew it. At that time, the chairman of the transport committee Ivan Takov commented that the introduction of a “red zone” would benefit people who live in the ideal center of Sofia, and those who work in this perimeter would be severely punished.
“And all this, given that both those who live and those who work in the center have the same contribution to maintaining the infrastructure - they all pay road tax. This is extremely unfair and pits some citizens with rights against other citizens with rights”, said Takov.
The report was submitted again at the end of August to the Sofia Municipal Council by ”Save Sofia”, who expect it to be considered by the end of September. And the Sofia Municipality has invited citizens and businesses to share their thoughts on the organization of parking in Sofia. They can express their opinion on moving around the city, the reasons for using a car, the main problems with parking, the necessary changes in paid zones, measures such as expanding the zones, changing prices and the duration of parking.
The chairman of the GERB-SDF group in the Sofia Municipal Council - Anton Hekimyan, wrote on Facebook that “any change in parking conditions in Sofia must be taken into account the opinion and reaction of citizens.“ According to him, one should not act radically, in order to “punish“ one or the other, and the approach should be reasonable and balanced. According to his publication, GERB-SDF will come up with their own proposal for parking reforms.
From “Blue Sofia” and the Bulgarian Municipal Council came up with a proposal to create a working group to prepare a sustainable solution to the parking problem by identifying municipal properties that are suitable for the construction of multi-storey underground and above-ground parking lots.
The two groups noted that justifying the increase with the need to generate a new 70 million leva in annual revenue for the Municipal Government is nothing more than a continuation and deepening of the socialist practice of collecting more and more money from citizens for a poor-quality service and with a real potential for this money to be spent inefficiently and to fuel corruption schemes.
However, the idea of a “red zone” is not new. It was present in the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan back in 2019, but the then mayor of the capital, Yordanka Fandakova, specified that this is a long-term strategy and will not be introduced with the adoption of the plan. It was written that the proposal includes the creation of a “red” parking zone with a maximum stay of 1 hour and a price at the moment - 3 leva per hour.
How do other European capitals solve the parking problem?
For several years, Warsaw, which is similar to Sofia in area and population, has begun to take steps to improve parking. Parking meters have been installed in many places in the Polish capital, which offer cashless payments, track data in real time and have an intuitive user interface that makes parking easier for residents. Drivers can track available spaces via a mobile application and direct themselves to places with low occupancy.
Both Warsaw and Budapest have developed the “park and ride” combination. However, this requires dedicated parking spaces such as multi-storey or buffer parking lots on the outskirts of the city, where drivers leave their cars and then use public transport to get to the city centre. To deal with the more congested parking areas, the Hungarian capital is introducing paid parking on Saturdays and Sundays in the city centre from 2026 and increasing prices in the two busiest areas.
In Brussels, a system is in place where you can reserve and pay for your parking space online. It includes all parking options, finds cheap or free spaces and offers hidden spaces with no traffic next to them.
The parking problem in Sofia remains one of the most painful issues for the capital's residents. Despite the millions in revenue generated by the paid zone system every year, the lack of transparency in the allocation of funds and the slow pace of construction of new parking lots cast doubt on the effectiveness of the model. European practices show that there are solutions – from modern digital systems to buffer parking lots and integration with public transport.
However, in Sofia, reforms in this direction have not been made for years, and residents continue to pay parking fees without finding spaces near their homes. And political promises for new parking lots and reforms in paid parking zones are still in the process of being implemented.
To achieve real change, long-term planning, investments in multi-storey and buffer parking lots, development of public transport and clear accountability for the spending of revenues are necessary. In this way, the parking system will not be a symbol of chaos, but a modern and working solution for the residents and guests of our capital.