Oh, the bloody Blue Zones – what a headache! The latest outgrowth of the dreaded Zona Azul is planned for the return road behind San Cristóbal, fulminating in one foul swoop all the free parking. The area affected is between Calle Torres Quevedo and the Paseo.
Residents are not impressed. Here we are with no underground parking in San Cristóbal, all the original parking on it converted into a crater and what little parking that was left turned into gluttonous Blue-Zone killing ground.
The ‘obliteration’ of 400 free-parking spaces has been made, according to the Town Hall, for the drop in revenue thanks to the elimination of Blue-Zone parking along the Avenida de Andalucía (the main drag down to the fisherman’s statue square).
Hey, most people agreed with a Blue Zone near the commercial centre of town, but turning Almuñécar into Bluezonécar is another thing all together.
To be fair, it should be pointed out that Motril has also extended its Blue Zones to improbable streets to compensate the private company that runs the B.Z. parking areas for the loss of Avenida de Salobreña during the road works.
However, the opposition parties here are denouncing the growing blue stain as ‘anti-tourist,’ and they certainly have a point, don’t they?
I spoke with a shop owner in a street that will be turned into a B.Z. The owner told me that he was in favour of the idea and pointed to two cars parked outside his shop
“This one has been there for six months, without moving, and the other one, most of July. People just turn up here, park their cars and forget them for a week or two or even a month – it’s just not on,” he said. A neighbour joined in the conversation to point out that he was against the B.Z.’s. “If we don’t want them, then mark my words that they won’t last long. Take the case of Avenida de Europa: the Town Hall said that they would implant the system and even came and painted in the blue lines, but within a week, they had gone – if people stick up for themselves, then it’s not a problem,” he assured me.
Strangely enough, the Town Hall doesn’t see an increase in over-all B.Z. parking. The Councillor for Citizen Safety and Traffic, María Dolores Sánchez, claims that the B.Z. areas are the same as last year. Furthermore, she said that it was not true that the B.Z. would extend into Avenida de Europa and Calle Guadix. “Sr.s Prados y Tejeros are only trying to put the residents and tourists against the Town Hall,” said.
In the next breath she said that the only place where blue parking lines would appear along Avenida de Europa was from the corner of Enrique Carrasco, up to the beach road.
Well, he made it very clear his attitude towards citizen protest; or better said the complaints offered by visitors to our town: go elsewhere if you don’t like it… A stunning sales tactic, if ever there was one.