At the beginning of February 2008, Sofia's chief architect Petar Dikov will propose new, more severe parking regulations to the Sofia municipal council.

Dikov had already proposed new regulations to the former municipal council, but then withdrew his proposal. At the time, he said that he had withdrawn the proposal because the the council was close to the end of its term of office, and he did not expect it to approve such unpopular measures.

His new proposal includes various changes, including fines less severe than in the initial proposal. The first proposal included a 200 leva fine for parking on the pavement, and this would be decreased, but it was not known by how much, zagrada.bg said.

The initial proposal said that the fine for parking trucks heavier than 2.5 tons in the city between 8am and 6pm would be 1000 leva, but it was expected that this would be decreased. Parking in and driving through parks and green zones would mean a 500 leva fine according to the old proposal. The fine in the new proposal is not yet known.

The new regulation would ban delivery of goods to shops in daytime. New buildings would have to have one parking place for every 100 sq m, but not less than the number of the apartments in the building.

Rental of parking places in the blue zones would be abolished. Currently the rent is 400 leva a month for a parking place. Parking in the blue zone would cost one lev an hour, up from 0.5 leva now.

According to the new regulations, drivers will have to pay a toll to enter the city centre.

Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov said that the new regulations would bring the municipality nearly four million leva a month in taxes and fines.

A new municipal agency for traffic control would enforce regulations, zagrada.bg said.

Dikov said that construction of underground parking sites would start in 2008. The first underground parking would be constructed in front of TZUM shopping centre, while four or five more were planned.

Source: zagrada.bg
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