The project to build paid parking places on the streets of the capital city, initiated by the Chisinau City Hall, caused a wave of negative reactions. The investigations carried out by civic activists and municipal councilors revealed a series of ambiguities and inaccuracies in the public-private partnership established by the local authorities. The authors of a new Sic! article said all these aspects cast doubt on this project. Though it is a good idea and a necessary thing for Chisinau, the way in which the City Hall implements it compromises the project and only worsens the problem.
The article authors make reference to a statement made by the mayor, according to which the model of parking places proposed for Chisinau is used all over Europe. This is not true as, even if there are paid parking places in most of the European cities, these are not set up on sidewalks, but on the roadway. Within the project financed with the EBRD loan, so-called “technical sidewalks” with a lower curb, for cars to be able to park at an angle of 30-40 degrees, were built on the renovated streets Stefan cel Mare si Sfant, Vasile Alecsandri and Constantin Negruzzi. The European norms provide yet that on-street parking places are built on the roadway, by modifying the size of sidewalks. In most of the European cities, on-street parking places are set up in parallel with the transport flow, at another level than the sidewalk for pedestrians, or are separated by physical barriers.
The article says Mayor Chirtoaca uses the word “European” to give the impression that the paid parking places project is supported by the European Union and implies the utilization of European practices in the field. In most of the European capitals, the paid parking places are an instrument by which the municipalities aim to reduce traffic and exhaust emissions. This instrument enables the local authorities to prevent the use of private transport through the city, to stimulate the people to use public transport and to collect additional incomes into the local budget. For the efficient management of parking places, the Europeans municipalities constitute units subordinate to municipal departments or district mayor’s offices. Contrary to the project that is to be implemented in Chisinau, in Europe the private business entities do not manage the whole business. They are subcontracted by local authorities for assistance services, without special conditions for 25 years and without dividing the revenues.
As to the company that is to manage the parking system, the investigations conducted by civil activists and investigative journalists show that there was nobody at the alleged head office in Vienna of EME Parkleitsystem GmbH, with which the Chisinau City Hall signed the contract, while the telephone number indicated on www.parkleitsystem.com is nonfunctional. But Dorin Chirtoaca said Parkleitsystem is not a phantom company and he personally discussed with representatives of this firm.
According to the authors of the article, even if the public-private partnership contract provides that the municipality will get only 10% of the monthly turnover, while 90% will be collected by the owners of EME Parkleitsystem, Dorin Chirtoaca said the 10% actually represent 50%-70% of the net profit. However, according to the head of the Chisinau Transport Division Igor Gamretski, of each 15 lei/hour paid by drivers for parking in central Chisinau, only 1.5 lei will be transferred to the municipal budget. The company will get 5-7 lei, while the other 6.5 lei will go to cover the company’s current costs and pay taxes. It is curious that the feasibility study, conducted by a British company in 2013, based on which the paid parking places project was thought up, says a parking fee of 4 lei an hour will be financially reasonable at a parking occupancy rate of 60%. It is thus not clear how a fee of 15 lei an hour for parking in central Chisinau was obtained, even if the rate of inflation is taken into account, and what percentage will be collected by the local authorities from revenues.
The full article in the Romanian language is available at sic.md. Sic! is a project implemented by IPN News Agency with support from Soros Foundation Moldova.
