More parking space for Astrid (Miriam already has hers in Valletta)
Published:
July 26, 2009 at 11:23pm
I imagine that Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar will have nothing to say about the scheme to restrict at least half of Sliema’s parking space to people who live there.
While FAA appears to be unduly concerned with the effect on people’s shopping habits of building a parliament house at the entrance to the capital city, it is unlikely to show similar concern about the possible effect on Sliema’s shops of this new measure.
FAA’s prime movers and shakers live in Sliema, except for one who lives in Valletta – as befits true lovers of ‘our children’s rural heritage’, who like to be exposed to the rigours of mud and small wild animals only in very small doses and preferably on Sunday afternoons in February.
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Why all this fuss about priviledged parking for residents of Sliema? In all European cities it is the norm that parking in residential streets, by people who do not live there, is either totally forbidden 24 hours a day, or else severely restricted, or else you can park but at a charge. Malta, the eternal laggard, has free-for-all parking practically everywhere. This cannot remain for ever. Something has got to give.
In any case, let us be realistic now. If you go to Sliema on any given day, except maybe Sunday, after 10AM, where can you park, anyway? Sliema is the perfect monument for town planning in Malta in the last one hundred years: one complete mess.
In any case, Malta has to be part of Europe all the year round now, not just at election time when PN supporters wave blue flags with stars on them. And in all of Europe, parking in residential streets is controlled. The free-for-all situation which exists till now belongs elsewhere.
[Daphne – You’ve missed the most important point in your comparison to ‘Europe’. In ‘most European cities’ residents’ parking is not dependent on residence alone, but on a resident’s parking permit which must be clearly displayed on the dashboard or windscreen. You will get one parking permit per house and, at most and in special cases, perhaps two. Hence, even if all five members of the household have a car, they will have just one permit between them. The other four cars have got to try their luck along with the non-residents. And that’s one of the reasons why ‘in most European cities’, you will never find households running four or five cars, but only one. The Valletta system, which is now going to be used in Sliema, is appalling: if one Sliema resident has three cars, he can park all three on the streets. The rule should be one parking space per house. After all, the frontage of the typical Sliema terraced house is no more than one car wide, so it stands to reason that you can’t have people taking up the space in front of four or five houses as of by right, because they live in Sliema. And another point: people who live in flats with garages should not be given special privileges for street parking.]
@Alfred Farrugia
The operative word in your comment is ‘privileged’.
Why should residents of any area in Malta (except for special needs) have privileged parking? Practically every town, village or street on the island has a parking problem. We all pay taxes and should, by your reasoning, have the same benefits. This would result in making most housesholds unreachable by car within a reasonable walking distance.
The Valletta CVA system, coupled with residential parking, has resulted in making the city a no-go area during weekdays and the tendency seems to be that it will become more so as time goes by. On Saturday mornings there is nowhere to park after 08.30, whereas before the CVA system was introduced Valletta parking on Saturdays was far easier for ‘V’ plate holders. Abuse by Valletta residents is endemic. They park within the white and (green or blue?) parking areas so that they leave the reserved residents’ parking free. How are cars parked in these reserved parking areas identified? No stickers or permits are visible, so for those people who try to play by the rules there is no guarantee that cars parked in these zones have the right to be there.
I live in a terraced house in Naxxar. The land across the road was scheduled as a public garden/playing field for at least twenty years. All of a sudden this land was transformed into a block of forty social housing flats with two levels of underground garages. Most of the residents of this social housing block have not taken up these garages and prefer to park on the street. The result is that what before was a pleasant and quiet street has become a parking war-zone. So we make do as best as we can – without such stupidities as reserved parking and time-zoned parking bays.
Regarding your “free-for-all parking practically everywhere” you must be living in a parallel universe. Free? I spend an average of between ten to twelve Euro every week in parking fees. Not counting parking fines, half of which are undeserved, especially in time-barred parking areas.
The elephant in the room here is that there are too many cars in Malta. It’s a question of space. Very simple really. And obviously, public transport has to improve. That goes without saying. But the Maltese, even with excellent public transport, are a lazy bunch and overly attached to their cars. Sorting out parking situations in urban areas is all well and good, but wouldn’t it be better if the “car population” was culled?
Let’s make each and every town and village a restricted parking area so that we’ll all have the same privilieges and the same problems. We all pay the same road tax, after all. This will probably lead to a solution of the existing huge parking problem practically everywhere. And we’ll all keep our car/s garaged or idle in the street. As a side effect we’ll be able to breathe more fresh air.