The parking zones in Prague 5 and 6 will affect people from the Central Bohemian Region commuting to the metropolis; Central Bohemian councilmen claim this. They ask to postpone them until special car parks are created in Prague. Michaela Drobná, the spokeswoman of the Office of the President of the Region, informed about the attitude of the Council of the Central Bohemian Region on Monday. The parking zones in the fifth and sixth districts of the capital city will be valid from Wednesday, 24 August.
“The introduction of the paid zone parking system also on the outskirts of Prague will most affect and cause harm to people from the Central Bohemian Region. At the time when there are no special car parks in Prague and the integration of Prague transport and Central Bohemian transport is not finally solved, we consider such decision, which Prague has made without cooperating with us, a hasty and irresponsible decision,” said Miloš Petera, the President of the Central Bohemian Region (Czech Social Democratic Party), who is in charge of transport in the Regional Council.
According to the President of the Central Bohemian Region, Prague uses the introduction of the zones as well as the plan to ban trucks longer than 12 meters from entering the area of the capital city to solve transport problems at the expense of the Central Bohemian Region. According to Petera, Prague and the Central Bohemian Region are already coordinating the next steps for trucks, but this was not the case for the parking zones.
“We call upon Prague to postpone the introduction of the zones until special car parks with a sufficient capacity are constructed on the outskirts of the city,” added the President of the Central Bohemian Region.
Car Parks Outside Prague
Petera is to meet Bohuslav Sobotka (Czech Social Democratic Party), the Prime Minister, during the grand opening of the leisure complex of Vrchbělá on Tuesday and would like to talk with him about the possibility of creating special car parks outside Prague. “In cooperation with the state, we would also like to create conditions for transferring state land to municipalities that would like to construct special car parks in the area of the Central Bohemian Region,” stated the President of the Central Bohemian Region.
Prague is not planning the construction of special P+R car parks now. Prague 5 stated a while ago that they would like to construct P+R car parks in three places of the metropolitan district at the same time but have not taken specific steps. Also, Prague 6 has not yet managed to find a suitable place for a car park; they talked about a P+R car park in the area named Na Dlouhé míli, for example, in the past.
The parking limiting zones in Prague will be substantially extended in the autumn. They will become to be valid in parts of Prague 5 and 6 on Wednesday, the regulated parking area in Prague 3 will be extended from September, and some zones will be introduced in Prague 8 from October. Originally, they should have also been extended in Prague 4 and 9 this year, but the city halls of the metropolitan districts have abandoned this for now. The parking zones are valid in the entire Prague 1, 2 and 7 and in the most part of Prague 3 so far.
