Parking charges at Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL)-owned parking bays within the central business district (CBD) have significantly increased starting today.
The new parking fees which includes Bukit Bintang, Bukit Damansara, Sri Hartamas, Desa Hartamas, Solaris Mont Kiara, Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Bangsar will see an increase of between 75% to 100%. As a result, hourly parking charges in these places will be increased from 80sen an hour to RM2 for the first hour. The rates have also been raised to RM3 for the second hour and RM3 for the subsequent hours.
That means if you were to park for a whole day you’ll end up having to pay as much as RM32.
The new parking charges will be enforced in stages from now to Aug 1 this year. Rates will eventually go up by next month in zones outside the city where the parking charges are currently 50sen per hour.
Depending on the zones, motorists will also be charged RM1.50 or RM1 per hour, an increase of 100% and 200% respectively.
According to Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Seri Mohd Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz, the move to increase the parking rates in KL was not profit driven but was the only way to ease traffic congestion in the city and encourage people to take public transportation or carpool.
“I know I am going to be very unpopular, but it has to be done because traffic in Kuala Lumpur is already bursting at the seams,’’ Amin Nordin said.
The mayor shared data obtained from the Road Transport Department (JPJ) and the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) to justify his decision for the high parking charges.
“About 50,000 new cars are registered every month in Kuala Lumpur. These figures are from JPJ,” Amin Nordin said.
“Based on a survey carried out by SPAD, 70% of cars coming into the city centre are single-occupant vehicles (SOV).
“The number of vehicles entering the city, every day, is now at a staggering 3.5 million. Just imagine out of that 3.5 million, 70% or 2.4 million are SOV.”
“We hope the new parking charges can lead to at least a million SOV drivers to consider taking public transport or carpool to work.
“If you remove one million cars from the city, you will get that Hari Raya sort of car-free roads like what we enjoyed last week. That means everyone gets to go home to their families, earlier, to spend quality time with their loved ones and have some time to do things they enjoy,’’ he added.
Amin Nordin added that the current traffic situation in city had made it increasingly difficult to look for parking space.
“We don’t want to see motorists driving in circles, looking for parking. Some drivers are double- and triple-parking on the roads causing a jam and endangering pedestrians while looking for parking.
“People also have the option to park inside commercial buildings as there are now electronic boards showing the number of parking bays available,’’ he said.
“The last time we increased parking fees was in 1984. Kuala Lumpur is still the cheapest for parking when compared to other states in Malaysia,’’ he added.
Amin Nordin said that this was not the first time DBKL had wanted to increase the parking rates as attempts were made several times to revise the rates in 1997 and in 2001.
Source: The Star
