You're reading: Kyiv loses money over untamed parking policy

Newcomers visiting Kyiv can easily notice how drivers use the city as a one gigantic parking lot.

In the Ukrainian capital drivers park their cars everywhere, especially where they should not: on the sidewalk, in moving lanes, wherever they can stop. As a result, downtown Kyiv is filled with cars it can not accomodate.

Due to a lack of legal space, drivers park mostly for free, until they’re fined and their cars confiscated. Rampant illegal parking fails to fill the city’s coffers, and the recent crackdown by towing cars has not solve the issue of space.

Drivers often have no choice other than to park where they can, Katerina Kachenko, real estate agent and a car owner, told the Kyiv Post.

“You can park everywhere, but there is no parking anywhere,” she said, “You never know when you’re gonna get fined or if you need to get your car at the depot.”

More cars, less space

Statistics show there are not enough parking lots for the increasing number of registered cars circulating in Kyiv.

Over one million cars will be registered in the capital in 2020 for 50,000 spaces, according to Kyivtransparkservice, the city’s agency in charge of parking lots in Kyiv. Experts, however, say that the figure is closer to 20,000.

The amount of lots is so scarce that drivers prefer to use free spaces, said Ira Bondarenko, transport expert at NGO Ecoaction.

“It is hard to see the result of this policy,” she said, “but things are slowly moving in the right direction.”

Too slowly, according to transport expert Dmitry Bespalov, who told the Kyiv Post the problem has not improved since 2015, when U.S. Agency for International Development published an alarming report about parking issues downtown.

The report attributed parking issues to unclear road markings, lack of law enforcement and a general lack of strategy. Few things have changed since then, Bespalov said.

“We had a lot of cash flow since then, but nothing changed,” he said.

Kyivtransparkservice brings a very small amount to the coffers, just enough to pay for new markings on the road to delimitate spaces, and its opacity robs the city’s budget, according to experts.

Cars illegally parked in central Kyiv on Aug. 5. The city doesn’t have a clear information policy concerning legal parking which leads drivers to park where they want, experts say. (Volodymyr Petrov)

Corruption

Revenue from parking fees that is supposed to go to the City Council is incredibly low, given that the streets look full of parked cars during weekdays.

As a comparison, in 2016, New York City’s coffers received $545 million for the same amount of cars in Kyiv last year – but Kyiv only received $3 million (Hr 86 million) in 2019.

Legal parking cost up to Hr 10 an hour (roughly 40 cents) in Kyiv and monthly subscription up to Hr 630 ($23).

But even though parking is already extremely cheap in the capital it is not enough to explain the difference.

Kyivtransparkservice is notoriously known for its opaque system. On March 20, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko fired the latest head of the agency, Oleksandr Nimas, mired in numerous corruption scandals. During his tenure, Kyivtransparkservice received up to 50 lawsuits.

Since Klitschko took over running the capital, there have been at least six different heads of Kyivtransparkservice. The newest acting head, Anatolii Svyryd, did not answer for comment at the time of the publication.

Corruption scandals surrounding the former director of Kyivtransparkservice began when Svyryd was acting director. The scandals under Nimas involved the evacuation of cars that were allegedly executed by a private company from Mariupol which almost tripled the prices for its services.

The city only receives up to Hr 510 ($20) from the overall fine for illegal parking which costs Hr 2,000 ($73) ; the rest of the money goes to private companies involved in evacuation.

These companies tow hundreds of cars in Kyiv every day, taking them to the depot, Oksana Bila, a car owner living in Kyiv, told the Kyiv Post.

She had her car towed in Kyiv’s Podil district one hour after leaving it. Through the Kyiv Smart City application, launched by the city council in 2019, she paid the fine and took her car back an hour later, after passing by an office crowded with dozens of unfortunate drivers.

“They took cars by the dozen,” she said.

Bondarenko believes ticketing of drivers who violate the law and park illegally should not be followed by evacuation all the time.

“There should be an option to leave a ticket without evacuation,” she said.

However, she added that using apps to eliminate corruption due to the human factor is a good idea.

Digital solution

Both Bondarenko and Bespalov believe that app systems should accomodate both law enforcement and drivers.

Bespalov said the city administration is trying to analyze who pays and who doesn’t, and is soon going to purhase a new application system. Kyiv held a tender in March 2020 for the acquisition of such a system, Nikolay Vashilin, the creator of UNIP app told the Kyiv Post.

His app shows where the closest legal parking spots are located and allows drivers pay directly on the spot. Law enforcement then just has to check the plate and if the driver paid.

“Our experience makes it possible to complete the task,” he said.

His app would help the inspectorate body which does not have a proper technical solution to fulfill its functions at the moment, he said.

Both Bondarenko and Bespalov believe that digital solutions and good communication would work better than building new parking lots in the city.

Given the actual price of parking fees, it is more profitable to build a residential building or business center which could return money in five years, rather than in 50 years, due to the low fees of parking fees, Bespalov said.

“It wouldn’t be enough to (even) cover the construction (cost),” he said.

The list of parking lot construction attempts extends year after year. Some were made to build lots in the center, like instead of the Metrograd Mall in Kyiv’s center that was completed in 2005. The original idea was to have an underground car tunnel, but this plan was canceled.

A parking lot was built in Kyiv’s outskirts, in Teremki, but it stays desperately empty.

Another option could be vertical rotary parking lots, which can fit in a small surface. Kyiv’s first rotary parking was supposed to be installed in the beginning of 2020, near the main street of Khreshchatyk. Due to the high cost, it is difficult to provide the entire city with such services.

Overall, experts believe that a change of mentality and public transport alternatives are the better solutions to Kyiv’s parking problem rather than building new pharaonic projects.

A car parked in Kyiv on Aug. 26, 2020 with a ticket showing the driver paid a subscription allowing him to leave his car at this location. Experts believe a change of mentality could solve parking issues in the capital and drivers should learn to pay money for legal parking.

No free parking

For Bondarenko, it is a common misconception that traffic jams clog the streets because the city does not have enough parking spaces. She said it is actually the opposite, and that congestion partially exists because parking is virtually free.

She believes it influences drivers to take their car even for the shortest trip.

“The city tells drivers You are welcome here, everything is free,’” she said.

The city administration should be regulating the number of cars in the city either by providing a limited amount of parking spots or by raising parking prices, Bondarenko said.

Kyiv should not provide three places for each car, near someone’s house, work or shopping center, and drivers should not expect free parking in the city, she added.

Bespalov echoed this statement and said that drivers should learn to pay money for legal parking.

If parking was more expensive and restricted, drivers would consider taking public transport. But this also means that the city must develop its public transportation. One way to do this is by allocating sums from the state coffer collected from parking fees to other mobility modes so that drivers could see where their money is going.

For example, the city could have trolleybuses with stickers indicating that the vehicle was purchased with funds raised from parking fees, Bespalov said.

Bespalov has no doubt that such an unpopular move would have to wait after the city’s mayor election in October.

He is adamant that “there is no such thing as free parking.”