Focus on solving car parking problems, developing parking infrastructure according to the roadmap

(Haiphong.gov.vn) - The Chairman of the City People's Committee, Head of the City Traffic Safety Committee has just given instructions in Document 578/UBND-GT on the situation of car parking and the development of car parking lots in the city.

According to the content of the Document, currently, car parking in the city is very complicated, especially in recent years, the growth rate of the number of cars in the city is on average 8 - 10% / year. According to statistics, the whole city currently has over 242,000 cars , including over 16,000 tractors, nearly 19,000 trailers, over 91,000 trucks, over 7,000 passenger cars and nearly 117,000 cars with less than 9 seats.

In the three central districts of the city (Hong Bang, Ngo Quyen and Le Chan), there are over 25,000 cars with less than 9 seats. Meanwhile, parking lots and temporary parking spots in the districts only provide about 6,324 parking spaces, meeting 3 - 4% of the total demand. Specifically, the number of car parking lots in the districts is 78, with a total of 3,824 parking spaces, of which Hong Bang district has 5 parking lots with 200 spaces; Ngo Quyen district has 20 parking lots with 600 spaces; Le Chan district has 4 parking lots with 400 spaces; Hai An district has 45 parking lots for containers and trucks with 2,334 spaces; Kien An district has 3 parking lots with 90 spaces and Do Son district has 1 parking lot with about 200 spaces; The number of temporary parking spots using part of the roadway and sidewalk is 32 spots with about 2,500 parking spots. The vast majority of houses of households follow the old design, without arranging parking spaces inside the house. Thus, it can be assessed that the city, especially the central area, is seriously lacking in parking lots and parking spots.

Currently, through surveys, it is shown that car owners park their cars arbitrarily, occupy the roadway, occupy the sidewalk to park cars is common, it is estimated that there are thousands of violations every day, many cases of overnight parking violations occurring for many days have caused traffic jams and traffic accidents on many traffic routes, leaving no space for people to walk on the sidewalk.

Parking a car in violation of the Road Traffic Law is a violation of the Road Traffic Law, with a maximum fine of 1 million VND/incident. If stopping or parking a car in violation of the regulations causes a traffic accident, the maximum fine is 12 million VND/incident, and the driver's license will be revoked for up to 4 months.

In 2023, the City Police focused on handling violations of vehicles stopping and parking illegally on roads in the city center and only at high-risk locations causing traffic accidents, the number of cases handled reached nearly 10,000. With the above actual situation, it is necessary to have leadership, direction and propaganda from the entire political system.

Focus on developing car parking infrastructure

According to the assessment, the main reason is that vehicle owners do not arrange parking spaces themselves, do not rent parking spaces at parking lots, do not comply with the Road Traffic Law in parking cars; the city's regulations on parking service prices in the past were still low, not encouraging and attracting investors to build parking lots because they did not ensure investment efficiency; the city police and functional forces have not increased strict and thorough handling of illegal parking and stopping because the number of parking spots does not meet the demand, if handling is increased, it will affect society and people's lives. Therefore, it is necessary to have a roadmap to solve parking problems, gradually develop parking infrastructure to meet the requirements.

From April 1, 2025, parking of cars on traffic routes in the city center is not allowed.

Accordingly, the Chairman of the City People's Committee, Head of the City Traffic Safety Committee directed that from April 1, 2025 , only stopping and parking of cars will be allowed on traffic routes, especially in the city center. Regarding penalties for violations of stopping and parking cars in violation of regulations, from April 1, 2024 , the City Police will focus on imposing the highest penalties for cases of stopping and parking cars in violation of regulations at high-risk locations and cars parked on sidewalks for pedestrians; from April 1, 2025 , the city will direct the City Police and functional forces to strengthen inspection, handling, and apply the maximum penalty for cases of parking cars in violation of regulations on all traffic routes, especially in the city center.

For those who own cars, urgently renovate existing houses to arrange parking spaces indoors (must ensure fire prevention and fighting regulations). In case it is not possible to park cars indoors, they must find and rent locations at permitted parking lots. For those who are preparing to buy a car, proactively find and arrange parking spaces before buying a car. For business and service owners, urgently renovate and upgrade their business and service establishments or cooperate with car parking lots to ensure that there are enough car parking spaces for customers according to the scale of operation. For new business and service establishments that are about to go into operation, the construction design must ensure that there are enough minimum car parking spaces according to QCVN: 01/2021/BXD National Technical Regulations on Construction Planning.

Encourage organizations and individuals to invest in building new parking lots.

Regarding the development of parking lots, from July 1, 2024, the City People's Committee will issue a document to cancel Decision No. 21/2017/QD-UBND dated November 3, 2017 on parking service prices in the city. The City only decides on parking service prices for parking locations invested by the city budget. Investors building parking lots will set their own parking prices to ensure business efficiency when investing. The City encourages, supports, and facilitates procedures for organizations and individuals to invest in building parking lots and renovating existing buildings into parking lots or adding parking spaces. Types of land and constructions that can be renovated or invested in to build parking lots, residential land, including old houses renovated to have parking lots, land for technical infrastructure, green land (construction combined with parking lots), land for construction of public works, commercial service land and other types of land permitted by competent state agencies. The city does not have detailed, specific plans for parking lots and small, odd parking spots; it only plans large parking lots and parking spots that have been researched and integrated into the City Planning and zoning plans, detailed plans at a scale of 1/2000 for districts and towns. The city encourages and calls for organizations and individuals to invest in building new parking lots of various sizes such as: mini parking lots, underground parking lots, multi-storey parking lots, parking lots applying smart technology, etc.

The Chairman assigned the Department of Transport to preside over and work with the Departments of Finance and Justice to advise the City People's Committee to cancel Decision No. 21/2017/QD-UBND dated November 3, 2017 on vehicle parking service prices; regulate vehicle parking service prices invested with state budget capital, to be completed before June 20, 2024.

Review, count, and adjust paint lines and signs to prohibit car parking on traffic routes, especially in the city center, applicable from April 1, 2025 and widely announce on the media from now. Introduce car parking models on the media so that organizations and individuals know and invest.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the Department of Construction review locations, review large land funds, and propose to the City People's Committee to organize auctions or bidding to select investors to build parking lots. The Department of Planning and Investment guides investors on parking lot investment procedures. The City Police guide investors and residents on fire prevention and fighting when building parking lots or renovating residential buildings, business and service establishments to arrange parking spaces. Strengthen strict handling with maximum penalties for violations of stopping and parking in violation of regulations according to the above guidelines.

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