Lawmakers unhappy with public parking fee increase

Several lawmakers have expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s planned increase of the hourly parking fees of seven public car parks.

The measure, announced by the Transport Bureau (DSAT) on Oct. 20, is still making waves with at least three lawmakers using the period before the agenda of yesterday’s Legislative Assembly (AL) plenary session to criticize it.

Leong Sun Iok, Ngan Iek Hong, and Che Sai Wang were three of those who dedicated all their time to the topic delivering spoken inquiries calling on the government to retract the measure.

Lawmaker Leong said, “The DSAT used the pretext of increasing the turnover of parking spaces to announce, recently, the plan to increase fees for seven public parking lots between 33% and 50% from November. In my opinion, this adjustment lacks justification and is not based on scientific evidence,” he said, also accusing the government of failing to consider the global situation of social recovery and the needs of residents in the areas involved.

According to DSAT’s announcement, the government will increase the parking fees of seven of the public parking lots with greater usage in November and December.

The car parks are the Qingmao Border Post Car Park, Nam Van (Pak Wu) Car Park, Pak Vai Car Park, Jardim de Vasco da Gama Car Park, Car Park of Edificio Cheng Chong, Pak Wai Car Park and Alameda Dr. Carlos d’Assumpção Car Park.

The increase will raise the hourly fee of Qingmao Border Post Car Park to 10 patacas per hour (for cars) during the day and 8 patacas per hour during the night, while motorcycles will pay 4 patacas per hour during daytime and 3 patacas per hour at night.

Starting in December, fees for the other six public parking lots will be adjusted to 8 patacas per hour for cars during the day and 4 patacas per hour at night.

Motorcycles will be charged 3 patacas per hour during the day and 1.50 patacas during the night. The adjustments will also be reflected on monthly passes.

Lawmaker Leong also added it will be difficult for users to change the location of their parking places as it is already quite a complex process to access a parking slot during most of the hours of the day.

Leong noted that according to government reports, the car parks have always been a profitable business and that it is not the right time to increase the burden of local residents’ expenses while they are still struggling from the pandemic’s impact.

The lawmakers said the measure might result in residents making more use of street parking, which contradicts the idea and concept of the use of parking lots for long stays and street parking for short-term parking.

Ngan also noted that while the number of existing vehicles and parking spaces would be generally suitable, in reality, this is not the case as some parking lots have a higher demand while others are barely used because they are not suited to residents’ needs due to their fares or location.

“The usage rate [of the parking lots] varies greatly from one park to another as in some, the rate reaches 98% while in others is only 6%. As for motorbikes, the usage rate is quite low, as it is only in a few cases that it may exceed 60%, said Ngan.”

“Furthermore, the average usage rate is also not an accurate reference [for the evaluation], as each car park has its usage peak, since, for those located in commercial areas, normally, the daytime is the peak period, while at night the situation is much calmer, the opposite being the case in residential areas,” Ngan said, calling on the government to adjust their criteria and references while evaluating the need to suggest adjustments to parking lot usage.

The lawmaker suggested the government use “Big Data” to analyze the situation before taking individual measures that might be disconnected from reality.

Che agreed with the previous two lawmakers and added that measures of this kind can significantly impact livelihoods and needs to be scrutinized by the community.

He also alerted the government to the fact that post-pandemic all living costs have been rising and while the government should be focusing on helping the population to bounce back from that problem, it seems to be doing the opposite by overloading and creating added and unnecessary burdens in times of distress.