Gov’t is reducing the use of parking spaces on public car parks, DSF claims

The Financial Services Bureau (DSF) claims that the government is using fewer spaces in public car parks than previously, the bureau said in response to a written inquiry from lawmaker Che Sai Wang on the matter.

According to DSF, citing data from 2024, the number of parking spaces used by government entities has decreased by 9.6% from the beginning to the end of last year.

Data shows that at the start of 2024, the government was renting 878 parking spaces for cars, a figure that decreased to 794 at the end of the year. To these join reduction also of the number of parking spots rented for motorcycles that reduced from 26 to 22 in the same period.

The DSF remarked that data shows that the government has responded proactively to the public’s solicitations, which has criticized the use of many parking spots in public car parks for government-owned vehicles for several years.

On the line are many car parks across Macau. However, the voices in society have been more critical of using fixed parking spots at several car parks located at the city center in areas of great demand for parking spots.

The topic has been debated several times at the Legislative Assembly plenary, with lawmakers suggesting the government find a location among public land plots to store vehicles that are not needed daily and reduce the government fleet as much as possible.

On those occasions, government officials promised to address the issue by reducing the number of street parking spots taken by these government vehicles.

In the same inquiry, Che also proposed that the government adopt a more flexible approach to the parking issue by adopting a flexible parking method instead of fixed-location reserved spots, but the government did not provide any comments or insight on its intentions to change this system.

According to the Times investigation, virtually all the parking spots previously occupied by government vehicles in the city center have been freed for public use.