What are we paying for?
Kyiv parking lots becoming more civilized
The parking saga is drawing to a close. Deputy Mayor Irena Kilchytska has promised that the Kyiv City Administration will “begin doing civilized work.” She claims that new fees will be introduced in the city as early as Aug. 1: three, five, and seven hryvnias an hour, depending on the parking spot. The most expensive fee, seven hryvnias per hour, will be charged in downtown Kyiv, including European, St. Michael, and Leo Tolstoy squares, Chervonoarmiiska, Saksahanskoho, Esplanadna, Baseina, Shovkovychna, and Hrushevskoho streets.
Parking on Naberezhno-Khreshchatytska, Yaroslavska, Nyzhnii Val, Hlybochytska, Artema, Mechnykova, Dovzhenka, and Industriialna streets, Chokolovsky Boulevard, Chervonozoriany Avenue, Moskovska Ploshcha, Druzhby Narodiv Boulevard, Naberezhne Highway, and Yaroslavsky Provulok will cost five hryvnias an hour. There will be a parking fee of three hryvnias on all other streets. Kilchytska emphasizes that these fees are lower than last year’s. “These are temporary fees, and on Aug. 1 we will not be introducing them across the board in all the parking lots.” The fee ordeal will begin at large parking lots, on Bessarabska and Pryvokzalna squares, where video cameras have already been installed. There are plans to equip all the city’s parking lots with surveillance video equipment.
“Preparatory work is now underway,” says Kilchytska. “This means establishing special commissions in each of Kyiv’s districts. The members of these commissions will examine the parking lots, estimate the average daily earnings of each lot, and on the basis of the collected data draw up a minimal daily business plan for them.” Kilchytska stresses that these fees are not final. They will be increasing as services improve at the lots: security, video surveillance, etc. These will include signs informing Kyiv residents about the services offered by the municipal utilities.
Isn’t it a tad ludicrous to take money for advertising your own services? But it will be far from ludicrous when the fee at some downtown lots reaches 30 hryvnias for one hour of parking. For that price I think you could even wash your car.
The municipal authorities will launch a pilot project for cash-free payments on Aug. 1 on Bessarabska and Pryvokzalna squares, where drivers will be able to make payments by cell phone. The deputy mayor noted that contracts will be concluded with all cell phone operators, so that every driver can make a payment without any problems. The operators will earn a commission, but according to Kilchytska, the Kyiv City Administration will do its best to minimize it.
Since it will be a pilot project, money will be not drawn from cell phone accounts during the initial period. Motorists will simply be asked to report the time that they parked their cars. Parking lot attendants will always earn a profit, so the authorities are hoping to draft a reasonable plan that will prevent attendants from lining their pockets too much. The revenues will be used to build new street-level parking lots, Kilchytska said.
The payment system will eventually be computerized. Kilchytska says this will take at least six months, which means that parking attendants do not have to be afraid for their jobs for the time being. But there are no plans to get rid of them. “We are going to set up a school for parking attendants, and they will complete a two-week course,” Kilchytska says. She also told us about another likely scenario with regard to “automobile developments.” It has not been ruled out that there will be restricted traffic areas, mostly in downtown Kyiv. You will only be able to drive there with a special pass that may cost 1,000 hryvnias.
Parking has long been a headache for the municipal administration because until now 10 district-level parking service agencies dealt with this problem. In 2006 they remitted a mere 700,000 hryvnias, while the administration expected to receive about 10 million. Now the capital has Kyivparkservis, the only operator on the parking services market. Kilchytska stresses that a single fee, one hryvnia per hour, has been set for this agency.
