On the subject of roadworks, which include the inevitable elimination of free parking, the Councillor for Traffic and Citizen Safety, María Dolores Sánchez Montes, announced that the Town Hall would be issuing a new band to ‘facilitate the rotation of loading and unloading areas.’
Sr. Sánchez (the councillor that closed the Saturday Flee Market (in aid of cancer) said that owing to the saturation of these bays, caused by authorised trade vehicles using these spaces as parking, rather than for loading and unloading, the Town Hall has put time limitations on them.
The problem is that trade vehicles that do want to load or unload have to doublepark, thus interrupting the flow of traffic…
Now, with the new system, trade vehicles will have to obtain a free ticket from the parking metres and display them in their dashboard, just like everybody else. This ticket will limit them to 30 minutes. The affect loading/unloading bays are marked with the sign R-309.
This system if for trade vehicles that have a Tarjeta de Transportes. For those that don’t have one, the owner will have to request one at the municipal traffic office, which will cost 60 euros a year. Traders that don’t display one of these free parking tickets, or have surpassed the maximum time quota of 30 minutes will face a fine of 100 euros.
Now, let me ask you this… would there be a problem if the Town Council had not gobbled up all the free parking areas? Yes, there has always been double parking, but if trade vehicles being trying to park in loading bays, thereby denying space for other trade vehicles, if there was free parking on the same street?