The new parking policy, which the Bratislava city council wants to launch in early 2021, may also affect parking at shopping centres. Some of their parking lots may be used for incentive parking while the shopping centres are pondering partial regulation for themselves.
“We plan to organise parking at our shopping centre better,” said Vladimír Bereš, director of the Avion Shopping Park. “Within two or three years we will have to begin to restrict parking and introduce some parking fees.”
Some other outlets have already introduced some regulations.
Is Bratislava's parking policy close to a reality? Read more “We have introduced regulated parking at most of our parking lots,” said Kvetoslava Kirchnerová, spokesperson for the Billa retail chain, as cited by the TASR newswire. “We decided to do so after our parking lots were being constantly occupied, which spurred complaints from our clients.”
Usually the shopping centres provide some free hours for parking during the day but at night, drivers have to pay for each hour of parking. This discourages people from parking their cars at the shopping centre for the night when they return home from work. Nevertheless, parking lots and multi-story car parks at shopping centres may help the city improve the traffic situation.
The city council is already cooperating with the Tesco shopping centre in the city’s borough of Zlaté Piesky. Part of its parking lot has been given over to incentive parking during the reconstruction of the Mlynské Nivy bus station. Those commuting to Bratislava by car can park here and then use public transport to reach their destination.
However, drivers have not been fully utilising this opportunity. Only about 30 percent of incentive parking in Zlaté Piesky has been used, even though parking for 130 vehicles has been allocated for this purpose. Bratislava Mayor Matúš Vallo ascribes the current low usage of the incentive parking to the mind-set of drivers, which needs to change.
