Rules for parking on pavements change. (source: SME - Marko Erd)
From 1 March, only bicycles and motorbikes can park on pavements if road signs do not allow otherwise. While municipalities in general welcome this new rule introduced by the amendment to the Road Traffic Act passed by parliament in late 2021, they complain that the amendment has not given them enough time to prepare for this change.
The new rule means that Bratislava, which has recently started introducing a city-wide parking policy, has lost about 2,500 parking places on first and second-class roads.
“The amendment will stress people out and the target of their anger will be the self-administration, which did not create this situation,” Miroslav Špejl, spokesperson of the Bratislava’s borough of Karlova Ves, told The Slovak Spectator.
The boroughs are now looking for ways to cope, either by allowing parking on pavements if technical parameters allow, or by changing two-way streets into one-way streets, making space for parking.
In the meantime, the metropolitan police in the capital indicated that it would be up to individual police officers how strictly they check the adherence to the new rule.
