With no elections in the next 12 months, it is time for the prices to go up again.
After more than a month of discussions, the City of Zagreb and the Zagreb Holding municipal company have agreed on new parking prices. The deal is certain to unpleasantly surprise many drivers, reports Jutarnji List on June 13, 2018.
Parking price in the first zone will double, from 6 kuna an hour to 12 kuna. In the second zone, instead of three kuna, the drivers will pay 5 kuna an hour, while the parking in the third zone will cost two kuna, up 50 lipa.
In addition, prices for parking in public garages will also increase. For example, the price of an hour of parking in the Tuškanac garage will be ten kuna instead of five, on Lang Square and in the parking garage in Petrinjska Street drivers will pay seven kuna instead of four kuna. Prices will increase in other public garages under the management of Zagrebparking as well.
All of these prices, as well as other changes related to the parking rules in the capital, are part of the draft of the new Ordinance on the use of public parking lots and public garages, that will remain under the public consultation until 11 July.
Since most of the proposals that Mayor Milan Bandić submits to public consultation eventually pass, despite all the criticism and different proposals, it can be expected that this ordinance with the substantial increase in the price of parking will come into effect at the beginning of August.
The increase in prices has been expected for a few months since Zagrebparking prepared a price analysis. The company wanted to increase prices even more, but Bandić said at the time that there would be no increase at all. “The citizens of Zagreb can sleep peacefully. That is my message because it is not going to happen,” said Bandić at the time.
Now the proposal is to return the parking prices to the 2010 level. Since then, parking prices have been regularly cut ahead of elections in which Mayor Bandić or his party took part.
Another change in the new proposal is the extension of the parking charging period. In the first zone, parking will be charged every workday until 10 pm, one hour longer than now.
Sources claim there are several reasons for the increase, with the most important being the traffic congestion in the city centre. They allegedly believe that the increase will motivate citizens to more frequent use of public transport. However, this does not explain why the prices are being increased in the third parking zone, which is far for the city centre.
The latest change will further increase the revenues of Zagrebparking, one of the most successful companies which are part of the Zagreb Holding. According to the 2017 report, this subsidiary had revenues in the amount of 153.1 million kuna, which was 9 million kuna more than the year before. The profit last year was 36 million kuna, which was 3 million kuna more than in 2016.
Translated from Jutarnji List (reported by Tomislav Mamić).
