Parking a car in Kyiv is an adventure and often a scandal, as motorists block entire streets and entryways, destroy lawns and menace pedestrians.
There’s no punishment for scofflaws, moreover, so they keep spoiling Kyiv’s urban life.
Kyiv authorities say they’re too busy improving the capital’s public transportation while police say they are too busy “solving real crimes” to pay much attention to parking.
In the meantime, the gap between the number of cars being driven on Kyiv’s streets and parking spaces keeps growing.
Kyiv provides 39,000 parking spots in 890 locations. According to the Auto Consulting automobile portal, Kyiv – with a metropolitan area population of 3 million people – has 353 cars for every 1,000 residents. That adds up to a lot of cars with nowhere to park.
A proven solution would be construction of parking ramps, paid for by motorists who use them. But that’s not happening.
Public agency Kyivtransparkservice is responsible for parking issues. Besides having its own parking spaces, it leases 29,199 parking lots for businesses.
But Serhiy Mayzel, who heads the city’s transport infrastructure department, wrote on Facebook in November that a third of Kyiv’s parking lots are “being used illegally.”
Kyivtransparkservice said its clients owed Hr 5 million as of January.
Since December, however, the enterprise has had no director.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko fired previous Kyivtransparkservice Chief Artem Shamrayev in December, citing loss of trust. “So much shadow money in this sphere,” Klitschko said.
Grygoriy Melnychuk, a local road safety expert, told the Kyiv Post on March 3, that simply bad parking is contributing to the problem – with motorists taking up two spaces.
Parking prices in Kyiv vary from Hr 5 to Hr 10 an hour, but most opt to find somewhere more convenient for free.
“As long as one can leave a car for free in the city center, the parking system has no point. We have many parking lots in Kyiv, and they are usually half-empty,” said Melnychuk.
The fine for parking rules violation is only Hr 255 to Hr 510, but even those are not enforced.
Melnychuk said the creation of a highly specialized police squad could be a solution. But since the regular police force has a hard time recruiting, he doesn’t think a parking enforcement force will be created soon.
Kyiv authorities put their hopes in improving public transportation, including adding new metro lines to the unserved Vynohradar and Troyeshchyna neighborhoods, as well as buying more buses.
“We are trying to do our best to make Kyiv a more comfortable city for public transport,” Yulia Moroz, transport infrastructure department spokesperson said.
