Drive lap after lap hoping someone will drive away and park your car further away from your home. There is very little parking available in most major Dutch cities. The NOS tour of the 25 largest municipalities shows that almost all of them are struggling with increasing parking pressure.
Parking problems occur in obvious cities such as Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Utrecht. But municipalities such as Dordrecht, Leeuwarden, Tilburg and Eindhoven also have to deal with this.
More and more cars are being added. According to Statistics Netherlands, there were almost 9 million cars in the Netherlands on January 1 this year, and more than 400,000 new cars have been added in the last four years. The majority of these millions of cars are registered in the name of private individuals, while the rest belong to a company.
Industry association BOVAG assumes that another 360,000 new vehicles will be registered next year and that vehicles will be scrapped and exported every year.
But obviously there isn’t room for all of these cars. This is not surprising, says planner Jeroen Niemans. “Space is limited, especially in cities. You can use each square meter only once. Would you choose a parking lot, a green space, a house, or a place for a bike? “This is always a difficult decision.”
waterbed effect
To relieve the pressure, many of the 25 largest municipalities are deciding to expand paid parking areas (including suburbs) or increase parking fees. However, this often leads to the so-called waterbed effect in other parts of the municipality, for example in Rotterdam.
This effect means that the introduction of paid parking in one district leads to the expansion of paid parking in neighboring districts. According to Rotterdam, reports of parking problems come primarily from residents living just outside an area with paid parking. “You are experiencing inconvenience from parked vehicles in the adjacent area where paid parking is valid.”
Amersfoort Municipality wants to prevent the waterbed effect by introducing paid parking spaces everywhere. Today, paid parking still exists in a small part of the city, especially in the centre. Some citizens oppose the city council. They can make their voices heard on parking policy through a referendum in the House of Representatives elections.
There’s still a glimmer of hope
In addition to paid parking, many municipalities such as Utrecht and Tilburg no longer issue second parking permits. Municipalities such as Breda and Amsterdam are directing visitors and residents in some parts of the city to underground car parks as an alternative to parking in front of the door.
Part of the solution, according to planner Niemans, lies in shared mobility: This includes cars, bicycles and cargo bikes that can be shared by residents of a community. But it needs to be doable. In his opinion, a district in Utrecht would be more suitable for this than a village in Limburg. In the first case, the train station is nearby and there are many shared cars available. Shared mobility is easier to implement in newly built neighborhoods than in neighborhoods that were often designed for cars in the 1960s and 1970s.
Niemans: “Measures against parking pressure are inseparable from the alternative proposal. “So if you want less parking and you want to encourage residents to have fewer cars, you have to offer an alternative.” In his view, “it’s especially a conundrum when you add new housing to an existing city.”
Source: NOS
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
