Tbilisi Transport Policy – the way to the European City or Another Source of Budget Increase

During last month Tbilisi citizens’ attention is focused on the taxi reform, implemented by Tbilisi City Hall. White taxis, colorful “Shmaxes” and crowded public transport became widely discussed topics in the city. Even though, this reform raised a high anxiety in society we will not join the argument. Though, we cannot fully avoid transportation policy and will discuss the less debated topic.

Since August 1, 2019 zonal hourly parking system has been launched on Kote Abkhazi Street. This is a pilot project and later will be rolled out across Tbilisi. First announcement about the project was made in June, last year and according to the initial plan should be launched at the beginning of 2019. Later on, the schedule was changed – starting date was June 1. Finally, the project was launched on August 1. Both changes in the schedule was a result of unadjusted public transport. According to Tbilisi city hall, development of public transport should have run into parallel regime with parking reform. Though, not all public busses bought by the City Hall were delivered on time, this they decided to postpone the project start date.

Mechanism of new parking system is very simple. Parking zones are divided into 3 categories – A, B and C. Tariffs vary hourly from 1 to 3 GEL. For example: Kote Abkhazi Street falls under the category A and parking fee is 1 GEL accordingly. It is worth mentioning that drivers are free of charge while parking near their living space. Also, people with disabilities and owners of electronic vehicles do not pay the parking fee. New policy does not cover underground and private parking spaces. Additionally, drivers have 15 minutes free parking opportunity per day on 4 different places, after this time period they will have to pay the fee.

Tbilisi City Hall declares that implementation of new parking system aims to unload of roads, to reduce high demand on parking spots and to improve of ecological conditions in the city. Zonal hourly parking system has a long and successful history in Europe. In Western Europe it was implemented in 60th of last century and in Easter Europe in 90th. The system turned out to be an effective way of solving above mentioned problems. Effectiveness of this program is obvious if you travel in Europe – it is a great pleasure to walk in free streets and sidewalks which are definitely for pedestrians. You do not have to solve the puzzle to cross the streets and find ways in between huge vans parked on the sidewalks. Also, feeling of safety is much higher – there is no threat from cars if you stay on the sidewalk; no one will ask you to empty up the pedestrian space for cars. Though, this is a long-term achievement and even Europe went through the long way for having comfortable cities.

In European cities, before the second half of 20th century parking spaces were not managed. No regulations existed for car owners or if it existed restrictions were meaningless. Drivers were able to park wherever they wanted but along with the population growth number of cars was growing proportionally. Majority of public spaces, squares and sidewalks were transformed into parking spaces. Central streets were especially overcrowded, causing discomfort for locals. To overcome this challenge, cities started to implement policy with the purpose to create new parking spaces. It was expected that new policy would solve the problem but the situation was getting worse. More parking spaces resulted into more cars. This policy gave wrong incentives to drivers. People were constantly looking for a cheap parking and making ciaos and traffic jams in streets. Lots of research shows that the main reason of traffic jams are cars surfing around to find a parking space. 

During decades, rising demand on parking space was an indicator of economic growth. However, during last 10 years negative effects associated with rising number of cars such as air pollution, decreased economic wellbeing etc. became serious. Since 60-70th, Western European countries started to realize that existing policy was not effective and there was a necessity of a new mechanism. This time mechanisms should have been aimed at decreasing demand on parking spaces not on increasing supply of parking spots.

Before, the policy European cities were following was according the principle of “forecast and supply”, since 80th, more actively since 90th, existing parking policy became based on “manage and control” principle. New policy was focused on improvement of ecological conditions and air quality, decreasing greenhouse gases, number of cars etc. Under the framework the most efficient way of reaching these goals turned out to be increased tariffs. As a result, demand on parking was decreased and drivers started using alternative ways for moving around cities. Streets became less crowded and parking spaces were replaced by bicycle tracks and bicycle parking.

Now, Tbilisi follows the path European cities went decades before. Local government does not try to invent a new policy but uses the European model of parking system. Announcement of the pilot parking project raised a public anxiety. Before launching the project, we interviewed around 500 people to have a better picture of public opinion and assessed upcoming contractions. Majority of respondents, approximately 40%, think that zone hour system is positive. Around 36% has negative attitude and 25% stays neutral and has difficulties in an assessment. It’s worth mentioning, that the number of negative answers is higher in the group of car owners and users. 41% of car owners think that the reform is negative and 38% gives positive feedback. In case of people who do not own cars 18% of answers is negative and 47% positive. 38% of car owners declare that they have access on free parking space so, they will not have to refuse cars, 30% does not want to give up with comfort and they are ready to pay, 24% is ready to find an alternative ways of transportation – public transport, bicycle, scooter or just walk around on foot. Among them 13% is a potential user of public transport, and only 2% goes for bicycle. Unfortunately, there is not a big interest in bicycle, which is the most eco-friendliest transport. It is not a big surprise since the landscape of Tbilisi itself is not bicycle friendly, furthermore, the city does not have  an appropriate infrastructure. 

Even though European and especially Western European countries have higher standard of living and on average an after tax income varies between 2,500 – 3,000 Euros, still, in the cities like London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Amsterdam parking fee is so high that  this is a luxury service for average income citizen.

If parking will become a luxury good in Georgia, it will not be a tragedy. Today, we have a very dangerous conditions, which should be overcome. In the 1st quarter of 2019 the number of cars owned by citizens of Tbilisi (registered) was 413,645. But it does not show the whole picture, because there are lots of unregistered people leaving in Tbilisi, thus actual number of cars in Tbilisi is higher than 413,645. In 2008-2018, the number of cars in Tbilisi was growing faster than the number of people living in the city. Since 2008, the average annual growth rate of cars owned by registered residents in Tbilisi has averaged 6%, while the average annual growth rate of people living in Tbilisi is only 0.5%. As shown in the diagram below, cars in Tbilisi have almost doubled by 2019 compared to 2008.

Nowadays, parking fee in administrative borders (besides the streets of zone-hour system) of Tbilisi is 50 GEL per year. The amount of fee is so low that it is impossible to use as a tool to control demand. On the contrary, it creates incentives for drivers to have higher demand. As a result, the city ends up with more cars and more traffic jams. Main streets, sidewalks and squares are occupied by cars which creates problems for pedestrians and bicycles. Additionally, the level of air pollution reaches its peak and we are facing ecologic catastrophe.

Taking into consideration the given conditions, zone hour parking system does not seem to be bad. High tariffs will definitely decrease the demand on parking spaces, as people will prefer not to use their own cars. Comfort lovers will still drive, but we hope that the vast majority of Tbilisi inhabitants can live without luxury. As a result, car flows will be reduced, moving around the city will become easier and sidewalks will go back to pedestrians. Maybe the level of air pollution will also decrease.

The supply - demand principle is quite straightforward but the discussion about zone hour parking project, similarly to the opponents of this project, is one sided and assesses facts from a very narrow perspective. Our idea is to look and evaluate this project from a bigger perspective. Higher tariffs will rise the demand on alternative ways of transportation and decreases demand on parking spaces.  As we have already mentioned above, majority of drivers think that the main substitute for cars is public transport. Ongoing events during last months showed that even though, city hall added busses and train lines, public transport is not ready for even minor changes. It is clear that transport policy elaboration and implementation is faster than development of public transport. Accordingly, any initiative or project no matter how great they are and in the given conditions of insufficient public transport and limited bicycle tracks causes only irritation of population. We hope that enrollment of the whole city in the new parking system will be implemented in a slower regime and we won’t witness more collapses.

Authors: Ana Akopashvili, Tamar Tsiskarishvili