New Parking System of Tbilisi

On October 22, 2018, Mayor of Tbilisi Kakha Kaladze presented the vision of “Green Politics – Eco Transportation” and stated that from 2019 Tbilisi City Hall will implement zonal hourly parking system in the capital of Georgia. The offered system means the creation of different fees for parking in different districts of Tbilisi – in central districts the fee will be higher than in peripheries.

"This is a very important initiative. We are not inventing something special and new, simply taking the best practices from European countries where these types of projects are implemented. You know that when we officially got power to do it, we stopped the contract with "City Park", which was violating the existing treaty. Today, Tbilisi Transport Company carries out parking in the city. From next year we will provide the zonal parking system. In every district, there will be different tariffs and I think that this is important for solving parking problems in general, " – said Kaka Kaladze.

According to him, The City Hall initiative also aims at solving the ecological problem by implementing the named parking system, more specifically, improving the air pollution in the city with more electric vehicles. Electric vehicles will not pay the zone-hour parking fee. For them, on the municipal parking places, there will special places, where only electric motor holders will be able to stop cars be free of charge. And, in addition, according to the mayor, the municipality will install electric chargers.

"More than 500,000 cars are moving in the capital. Their 50% is above 20 years, which seriously pollutes the city. The import of cars is increasing by 6-7% annually. These are alarming numbers. I think that the initiatives planned by the City Hall and the central government will support the import of electric motors on the Georgian market ", - Kaladze said.

As Kaladze said, Tbilisi will have a parking system, similar to the system that exists in several European cities, and however it is true, we also should take into consideration that those cities also have well developed public transportation system, which means on the one hand diversity of the means of transportation (bus, metro, train, tram, bicycles) and on the other hand well-planed roots of those transports in order to create united system and create comfort for passengers. In Tbilisi, such strategy still doesn’t exist and according to the mayor, it will appear in 2019. Implementation of the transport plan will require large budgets and time, which means that when new parking regulations will go into force, Tbilisi will not have modern public transportation system (in the best scenario it will be under construction). The plan raises a few questions- how will drives pay the raised fee, or how those who will stop cars in peripheries will reach the working, studying or meeting places in the center? Also, are there enough parking places in peripheries? And how exciting public transportation system will deal with raised number of passengers?

Tbilisi needs a strategy of public transportation based on research, and hopefully, the city will have it by 2019. In this way, all actions regarding the changes in the transportation system (and not only) will then be better planned and coordinated with each other.