Floriana proposes residents parking scheme

The Floriana local council has come up with a residents parking scheme in a bid to weed out commuters who use the town as their daily parking space.

The plan, submitted to the Malta Transport Authority for approval yesterday, will allow people to park in Floriana's residential area for only two hours at a stretch between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.

This, it is hoped, would deter non-resident car owners from taking up a parking space for an entire day. There will be no restrictions for residents and the system will not be in force in the evenings and over weekends. Special concessions will be made, such as near Sir Paul Boffa Hospital for visitors.

The consultant who drafted the proposals also carried out a study of parking patterns. It shows that despite there being only 520 parking spaces, as many as double that number of cars can be found parked between 10 and 11 a.m. The number drops to about 300 between 2 and 3 a.m. - which cars are taken to belong to residents.

"Obviously, commuters who work in Floriana or Valletta are not going to be happy with our plans, but we need to find a solution... whoever works here must either find alternative transport or alternative parking," mayor Publius Agius said.

Only the residential areas will be covered by the system, excluding most other streets on the periphery such as the ones near the car licensing office and the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

"We expect the authorities to give these proposals the green light as soon as possible and also expect the government to let us in on when the Valletta parking scheme will come into effect," Mr Agius said.

The system in Floriana should come into effect before the Valletta scheme in order for people to get accustomed to the changes step by step, the mayor said.