Abdul Basit
Sharjah – It’s good news for motorists across the UAE as fuel prices in the country went down for the month of April. But Sharjah residents will start paying for midday parking from today.
A couple of days ago, the Sharjah Municipality had announced that the free afternoon parking will be cancelled from 1pm to 5pm in the Emirate.
Last November, Sharjah agreed to end free midday parking in an attempt to curb abuse from motorists taking advantage of it, especially near marketplaces. Since then, the municipality has changed all parking signs in the emirate to reflect the new paid parking times.
Dubai also removed the similar free afternoon parking period starting from May 28, 2016 with parking hours in the emirate now running straight from 8am until 10pm on working days
“The new paid parking times will be from 8.00 am till 10.00 pm every day except for Fridays and public holidays,” Salim Al Suwaidi, Assistant Director-General for Customer Service at Sharjah Municipality, said in a statement.
“The Sharjah Municipality always seeks to forge fundamental solutions to parking problems and spares no efforts to limit the misuse of parking spaces by motorists in the emirate,” he said, adding that the decision of cancelling the free parking period has been taken for the greater good and in response to growing public requests to ensure more efficient regulation of public parking across the emirate.
Atif Al Zarouni, Director of the Public Parking Department at Sharjah Municipality, said that the municipality offers motorists alternative solutions for paying for their parking fees by sending an SMS to 5566 or subscribing to their seasonal parking cards, which are available in different values and periods of validity. The cards are available for all areas of the city or for specific areas in three-month, six-month and annual validity.
Al Zarooni said that these services are being offered at their service centres in their main building in Al Musalla area, two of the public parking management buildings and the Suburban Municipalities Management in Industrial Area 5.
