For many years, the sidewalks of Kyiv have doubled as parking lots for the city’s overabundance of motorists, a nuisance for pedestrians that also damages city infrastructure. But those days appear to be coming to a close.
On March 28, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a new law that aims to increase control over parking and streamline the procedures for issuing parking tickets. The new rules will come into force 180 days after the law’s publication.
Passed by the Verkhovna Rada in December, the law creates a legal basis for using photos and video to document a parking violation and then issue a ticket to the vehicle’s owner. The new procedures also require that a copy of the ticket be left on the vehicle’s windshield.
Additionally, the law envisages local authorities increasing the number of parking inspectors and creating an automatic system for monitoring the payment of parking tickets.
In particular, it aims to incentivize paying tickets by offering a 50-percent decrease in the fine if the offender pays within ten banking days.
As of 2017, the city of Kyiv provides 39,000 official parking spots at 890 locations — a miniscule number of spaces compared to the quantity of cars in the city. Parking there costs Hr 5 to Hr 10 ($0.20 – $0.40) an hour and is absolutely legal. However, in practice many motorists have chosen to park for free in illegal spots.
They face few consequences for these violations. Fines are small (Hr 255 to Hr 510, or roughly $10 to $20) and often not enforced. Under current legislation, the police cannot issue a ticket for minor violations unless the driver is present. The officer must either wait for the driver to return to his or her vehicle or record the violation on camera.
