The Malta Transport Authority has received applications for residential parking in a further eight localities, The Sunday Times has learnt.
The news comes just five months after it regularised residential parking in 300 roads in 19 towns and villages.
The transport watchdog is considering 41 applications for residential parking in a total of 16 localities, eight of which do not operate a preferential parking scheme for residents.
Last July, the authority published a list of 300 roads which had introduced the residents' parking scheme. This includes all 117 streets in Sliema, with half the existing bays being reserved for residents between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. all week, including Sundays, all year round.
Other localities featured in the legal notice, published last week, include Vittoriosa, Victoria, Fontana, Rabat, Balzan, Floriana, Ħamrun, Iklin, Mellieħa, Mosta, Msida, Naxxar, St Julian's, San Ġwann, St Paul's Bay, Pietà, Swieqi and Ta' Xbiex.
In the fresh list of pending applications before the ADT, there are localities that have applied to expand parking schemes already in place. The new localities that want to apply the system are: Attard, Birkirkara, Cospicua, Marsa, Safi, Paola, Luqa and Tarxien.
Those towns and villages that want to upgrade their parking scheme are: Floriana, Iklin, Msida, San Ġwann, St Julian's, St Paul's Bay, Swieqi and Rabat. A number of local councils want to introduce a timed parking zone.
The pending applications are being considered just as the legality of the residential parking schemes across the island is being contested in a court case instituted by a Swieqi resident against the Pietà council.
In 2007, Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco upheld Joseph Borg's case and ruled that councils had no legal remit to implement such schemes on their own initiative.
Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco also ruled that the creation of reserved parking zones could be justified as a security measure, or on humanitarian grounds, but the law did not give councils the power to discriminate between residents and non-residents, especially in view of the fact that people who paid the same road tax were entitled to the same rights.
Mr Borg is now calling on the court to declare that residents' parking schemes discriminated among citizens who paid their road tax to the same authority.
He is also collecting signatures from people who, like him, oppose such "preferential treatment". The online petition may be signed on http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/no-to-discriminatory-residential-parking--zones.html .
mxuereb@timesofmalta.com