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26. 04. 12. - 16:00

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26. 04. 12. - 16:00

Parking ticket zones remain partly fixed

The Meidling, Penzing, Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, Ottakring and Hernals districts of Vienna are to receive short parking- or parking ticket zones come October. In two districts there will be comprehensive regulations, and in three of them the parking tickets are only valid in certain areas – this is only partly certain as negotiations continue.

Meidling and Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus will introduce comprehensive regulations for the entire district. In Ottakring, Hernals and Penzing there will be different borders drawn, of which some will cross the line into the suburbs as well.  Officially the zones will be introduced during the coming Monday.

Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus wanted comprehensive parking ticket rules from the start, and so it remained after assurances by the district council.

After the recommendations by the City Planning Office regarding the details of the impact of the parking situation, we have decided to levy parking in the entire district, says Meidling District Governor Gabriele Votava (SPÖ). Only a few streets on the district boundaries would be excluded for legal reasons, for example: parts of the Wundtgasse, Längenfeldgasse and Wienerbergstraße.

Hernals have also drawn their borders. According to District Director Ilse Pfeffer (SPÖ), car drivers will have to pay to park between the Gürtel and Güpferlingstraße come October. Furthermore, the district has created a so-called authorisation zone between Güpferlingstraße and Oberwiedenstraße. The parking places in this area will remain free of charge.

Penzing will also partly introduce taxes. The director Andrea Kalchbrenner (SPÖ) says that the borders are drawn from one side of Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus to the west into the area between Westbahntrasse and Wiental to around the end station of the U-4: Hütteldorf.
Around the underground station the parking tickets should not be valid between 09:00 and 22:00, but between 12:00 and 18:00, according to the district plans. This measure aims to reduce the commuter traffic.

Only Ottakring have to resolve the final details of the borders. The District Council has said that the zone border is to pass beyond the original border between Maroltingergasse and Sandleitengasse.

Recent reports of taxed areas all the way to the edge of the Vienna Woods (Savoyengasse) have not been confirmed.

The parking ticket expansions will be officially finalised on Monday, at an administrative hearing, says Leopold Bubak, the co-ordinator responsible. Until then, the overlapping zones have to be fixed.  Afterwards, appropriate regulations can be decreed.
As opposed to the five districts now introducing parking tickets, Favoriten has chosen to not introduce short-term parking spaces.

A vote was held in Währing about the same issue, and the district’s inhabitant voted against parking tickets.

The ÖVP and the FPÖ are negative to the new regulations. The ÖVP chairman Manfred Juraczka spoke of an "extension of the chaos in the Viennese parking management" and ÖVP Vienna calls for the withdrawal of all existing parking ticket decisions in the districts involved, and a mandatory involvement of citizens.

"Dubious, mixed zones" and an "expensive puppet show" is what the initiative is called by the traffic spokesperson of the FPÖ, Toni Mahdalik. He is for valid, free parking tickets for all drivers who are registered in Vienna.

The Austrian Cars-, Motorcycles- and Touring Club (ÖAMTC) have expressed doubts, meaning that the zones reaching all the way out to the suburbs might not be constitutionally permissible. The border Sandleitengasse-Maroltinergasse would be an especially "bad joke" according to the ÖAMTC lawyer Martin Hoffer.

The Viennese farmers wish to expand the maximum parking duration in short-time parking zones from two to three hours. Willy Turecek, chairman of the "Sparte Gastronomie" in the Viennese Chamber of Agriculture, argues that two hours to visit a tavern or a restaurant is too short a time. The third hour should be taxed, however. He does not want any free hours; "That would be too utopian," he says.

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