You're reading: Pedestrians sidelined by sidewalk parking

Alina Sigda, the mother of a young child, says she fears Kyiv’s dangerous sidewalks when pushing her stroller. Pensioner Tatyana Kovalenko is concerned the vehicles parked in front of her house make her grandchildren walk on the street. Retired expatriate Roman Shwed says he “could have a heart attack and an ambulance would not be able to reach me” because of the cars blocking access to his building.

Such problems are commonplace in Kyiv, and they will persist, residents and civic groups say, until urban development policies catch up with world trends that limit the presence of vehicles in city centers and give preference to public space pedestrians and cyclists, as well as green areas.

Neither the Ministry of Infrastructure nor municipal traffic and parking authorities responded to Kyiv Post requests for comments. Yet Kyiv’s planners appear to overwhelmingly favor vehicles over pedestrians.

On May 22, Kyiv’s City Council ratified a program that Volodymyr Kozoriv, who heads a pedestrian safety group, says “essentially creates more parking spaces, which will further congest the city instead of making room for pedestrians.”

According to Kozoriv, the measures effectively ban private ownership of parking lots. Additionally, he said 158 parking lots with 24,823 spaces will be developed in several stages by 2015.

That might not be enough, according to the Kyiv Transparkservice website. Big European cities usually have parking spaces for 16 to 17 percent of the population, the organization argues, meaning Kyiv should have 500,000 spots, not the current 250,000.

National regulations are also missing the mark, says Kozoriv. In March a new blueprint on road traffic safety through 2016 was passed that Kozoriv says neglects pedestrian safety and focuses on boosting parking spaces which will bring more cars into city centers. He suggests greater investment in public transport, developing alternative means of transportation and charging an entry tax for the city.

Kozoriv says over 2,400 pedestrians died in Ukraine so far this year due to collisions with vehicles, a number of which occurred on pedestrian walkways.

“Sidewalk accidents are not rare,” he said.

Iryna Bondarenko, coordinator of the Kyiv Cyclists Association, told the Kyiv Post that the occasional small fine for parking on sidewalks isn’t much of a deterrent. “Drivers can leave their cars anywhere. If an officer comes, he can’t fill out the form because there is no driver,” she said.

The current procedure followed by the Kyiv City Traffic Police is to fill out a protocol when they see a violation. After entering the information in the database, they give the violator a copy. The fines can range from Hr 255 to 340 for non-designated parking and Hr 510-680 for obstructing access. But if the violator doesn’t show, police have no choice but to wait or leave.

Meanwhile, some drivers complain they are left without alternatives.

“There are not enough parking spaces in the city, and so (drivers) have no choice but to park on the sidewalks,” explained chauffeur Andrei Grishko.

Sidewalk parking in most other countries is a non-issue. Retired architect Shwed, who lived in Philadelphia, U.S., said “this just is not done in the U.S. Cars and people should not be in the same space. Here, they even provide ramps for cars, but not people; it’s ridiculous… people in the U.S. are civic-minded and it is transportation that is held accountable always.”

Shwed believes the best thing Kyiv can do is create a zoning board, led by a city manager who is a specialist in zoning laws, which will divide the city into specific sections.

This would be a drastic change for Kyiv, according to Ukrainian Architect Ivan Dilichenko, who said that most of the sidewalks are owned by the municipality, which currently designates them for public use – meaning not only for pedestrians.

London also faced automobile traffic problems and in 2003 launched a congestion charging initiative, under which drivers have to pay to enter the inner city or keep a vehicle in it. Although there has been some backlash concerning the charge fee, the program still exists and continues to be tweaked to the city’s needs.

While the “sin tax” on vehicles in London has been recognized as a success, dedicated policing efforts have also helped. Judith Tracy from the Department for Transport in London said that while there is no incentive for drivers to comply with London’s blanket ban on sidewalk parking, “the local authorities have been able to enforce this (the law) for some years in London.”

Scores of traffic wardens roam  London’s streets, charging drivers up to £200 for exceeding their parking limit.

As for Kyiv, Shwed lamented: “The city is a living organism and it has to support the people in it. And right now it is dying from a horrible problem.”

Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych and intern Yuliya Hudoshnyk contributed to this article.