One more reason…
Alex and I posted on opportunities for building parking garages in Bucharest and Romania given the huge shortages of spots needed to satisfy demand. The success of our ideas required action on the part of those with the power to enforce parking laws. Here is another reason for the municipal authorities to get serious with parking if they ever hope to make Bucharest a tourist destination…
I was driving through central Bucharest yesterday and…due to the Easter holiday… there were far fewer cars parked on the sidewalks and other illegal spots. It was amazing how much better the city looked. Although cars are, of course, parked at street level (I have seen a car half-parked in a large pothole but not yet in a tree), the missing cars made the architecture of the buildings stand out in a very nice way.
Before we thought of the missing cars as the reason… I said to my wife…The city looks nicer for some reason… She said she was thinking exactly the same thing.
Due to great blogs such as Now and Then, I have begun to see more beauty in the old block apartments; not the post 1970’s disasters but those of the 50’s and 60’s. Ceaucescu left some buildings intact and removing the cars parked all over their entrances and some refurbishment will help unleash all of the economic benefits that come with increasing tourism, attracting working professionals who care about the “livability” in the city, etc.
Current branding strategies for tourism in Romania can help but will be limited in their effectiveness until the reality meets (or at least comes much closer)to the brand message.
Do you think the municipalities will work to solve this problem?
Written by Steve
April 10th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
The local administration of my part of the city has recently enlarged the street - they made parking spaces by eliminating most of the curb and grass area. Before this, cars were parked alongside the entire street and no if two cars met on the narrow street, one of them would have to back off into the intersection to allow the other to pass. Also, cars parked on street corners made it a very dangerous neighborhood to drive in - when you came out of a side street, you had zero visibility into the main street due to the parked cars. Every couple of days we heard the crash of another accident.
The changes should go a long way toward reducing the number of accidents.