Abu Dhabi to have 40,000 paid car parks

Abu Dhabi has completed the construction of more than 23,000 paid parking spaces for residents and the number is expected to reach nearly 40,000 by the end of this year, an official was reported on Monday as saying.

The facilities are part of a massive project launched by the Abu Dhabi Department of Transport two years ago to replace random parking spaces with organized paid parking facilities to tackle a long-standing problem on main streets and inside residential areas of the city of nearly one million people.

The Department has so far issued nearly 15,000 parking permits for buildings and companies while the total number of parking spaces reached 23,065, said Najib Al Zaroui, Director General of Mawaqif (parking) at the Department.

“At the end of the year, we expect the number of parking spaces to reach 40,000…this system is basically designed to provide sufficient spaces to users not to fine them,” he said, quoted by Alkhaleej newspaper.

“We expect this important project to gradually tackle the parking problem and ease traffic congestion inside parking areas in the city..…it will also curb accidents resulting from disorderly parking and stop offences involving using parking places by some for commercial purposes.”