The boundary of the paid parking zone cuts the Rotterdam Koninginneweg right in half

In Oud-IJsselmonde, the residents no longer look up. Commuters that enter the neighborhood on the folding bike or electric scooter, load their means of transport in the car and drive away. To repeat the scene later in the day than in the reverse direction. And again without having to go past a parking meter.

Since Paid Parking has been introduced on the other side of the highway in December, Anneke Janssen sees cars in front of the door that she cannot bring home. “From people who live there and put their cars here. Or cleaning buses that suddenly stand in the street. I get it, “she says,” but we are the victims of it. ”

The payment limit divides the Koninginneweg in Rotterdam-Zuid-a kilometer-long street where the Feyenoord flags hang in front of the windows. The municipality is introducing paid parking everywhere within the Ring. This neighborhood – hidden behind one of the busiest pieces of highway in the Netherlands, the A16 at the Van Brienenoordbrug – falls just outside.

And so exactly what the residents had foreseen happens there. It runs on the end of the afternoon on this Friday and the cars are on the sidewalk, in the front gardens and on the square near the glass container.

Janssen has just put her Ford Focus backwards a dead end street, after picking up her daughter at childcare. “If I’m unlucky, I have to go here. I think it is not an official parking space, but there is no sign that it is not allowed. I can’t get rid of it in my own street. ”

No wonder it became busier here, says the local resident. “A line has just been drawn. That side did, not this side. They could have introduced it better throughout the street. ”

Waterbed effect

The number of parking zones paid in the Netherlands is taking a flight. In two years the number of places for which you have to pay by a quarter, according to figures that EenVandaag requested. This is no longer just city centers and shopping areas, but more and more often also about residential areas on city edges and in medium -sized municipalities.

Municipalities see no other option. In less than ten years, the Netherlands received more than a million cars. Space is scarce and without regulation silt cities closed. “It’s always about keeping areas manageable,” says Giuliano Mingardo, urban researcher at Erasmus University. “If it gets too busy, you have to intervene.”

Almost everywhere the introduction of paid parking is accompanied by a so -called waterbed effect. Motorists are moving to adjacent neighborhoods where they can park for free, which means that the parking pressure runs there. Until residents will complain, the municipal administration decides to act and also enter paid parking in that neighborhood.

Saddle

In Oud-IJsselmonde people are not unanimous. Some residents started a petition to add the neighborhood to the paid parking zone. “Annoying that it is necessary, but I have signed it,” says a man who does not want to be in the newspaper by name – in the BuurtApp it can be ‘pretty unfriendly’ according to him.

“The neighborhood was always full around Feyenoord competitions,” he says. “I still think that’s fun. But if it is throughout the week, it is not fun anymore. ” And so he can live with parking meters. “I think it is worthwhile not to have to look for my car every day.”

Neighborhoods think differently about that. A counterpetition, who speaks out against paid parking, has now overtaken the other petition. Although the nuisance is worse, those signatories say, there was always too little parking space. Introducing paid parking here, residents would only saddle with the costs.

The old site of the Keilewerf along Keileweg and Vierhavenstraat in Rotterdam is exactly along the border between paid or free parking.

Dairy cow

The parking measure is not popular to say the least. By advising referenda in Amersfoort and Haarlem, among others, was voted against by a large majorities. “Nobody likes having to pay suddenly, that makes sense,” says Mingardo. “But municipalities don’t do it to bully people.”

The recurring complaint that municipalities use the car as a ‘dairy cow’ does not apply, says professor of transport policy Bert van Wee (TU Delft). He points out that a parking permit is often available for less than ten euros per month. “Compared to the price that others pay, that’s nothing. You’ll have it out with a few hours. ”

According to Mingardo, it is inescapable that some motorists prefer to move. “If people have to pay here, they simply go to the street behind it.” And, he says, parking policy “is also not an exact science. It remains a little trial and error. You can never completely close it. “

If it gets too busy, you have to intervene

Usually it is a matter of time before the policy is bearing fruit, says Van Wee. “People mainly see the disadvantages in advance. After that, all studies show, people also see the other sides: there are fewer cars, it becomes more livable. Then people often become much more positive. ”

People are not yet convinced in IJsselmonde. “I don’t notice any advantage myself,” says Jan Slootweg from the doorway of his house, right on the ‘wrong’ side of the highway. “We have been on the road for three months now and the parking pressure has not decreased. Your street regularly a few blocks away. Only you have to pay for it now. “

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