Construction of underground garages

Siniša Mali, the Head of the interim city administration, Goran Vesić, the Secretary of the interim city administration, Andrija Čupković the Acting director of PUC ‘Parking Servis', Željko Sertić the President of Chamber of commerce and industry of Serbia and Dušan Rafailović the Deputy Secretary of the City Secretariat for Transport met today in the City Hall and had talks with the representatives of the Spanish company ‘Assignia Infraestructuras' about the projects of building the new garages.

PUC ‘Parking Servis' in association with the City of Belgrade will commence building the new garages by entering into a partnership with the private investors. Siniša Mali and Andrija Čupković presented to the investors from Spain 14 locations for the new underground garages.

- Poslednjih devet godina nijedna nova garaža nije izgrađena u Beogradu, a broj vozila se gotovo udvostručio. Analizirali smo 14 potencijalnih lokacija za izgradnju podzemnih garaža, od toga četiri su ključne i to "Studentski trg", "Kosovska", "Pijaca Đeram", "Skerlićeva". Time oslobađamo trotoare pešacima, rešavamo se bahatih vozača i uvodimo red u saobraćaj. Grad traži najpovoljniji model za izgradnju ovih garaža, kroz javno-privatno partnerstvo ili kroz koncesije. Nudimo imovinu, ubrzaćemo postupak dobijanja dozvola i neophodne dokumentacije, a od investitora očekujemo novčana sredstva. Danas smo razgovarali sa predstavnicima kompanije „Assignia Infraestructuras", koja se bavi koncesijama i izgradnjom podzemnih garaža u Španiji i u svetu. Oni su samo jedni od investitora sa kojima ćemo razgovarati - kaže Siniša Mali.

Andrija Čupković has pointed out that Belgrade drivers often complain about the lack of parking places.

‘Today in Belgrade city center we are short of between three and five thousand parking places and on the wider area of Belgrade territory over 10 000. We are already starting to build two new car parks in the coming days at Pinki and on Kalemegdan and from July another car park on Obilićev venac. We are going to provide funds for these projects without anybody's assistance. By extending the garage ‘Obilićev venac' and building 4 new underground garages in association with the foreign partners we will provide more than 2000 new parking places and reduce the number of parked cars on the streets in the city center. At this moment we are defining the most suitable model of financing. We are offering to our partners our experience in building garages and installing the most advanced systems for automated payment for parking', says Čupković

Antonio Perez Montes, ‘Assignia Infraestructuras' representative said that they are interested in making investments in Belgrade because of the great potential it offers and that his company would like to be an important part of the project by helping Belgrade's development.

Željko Sertić the President of Chamber of commerce and industry of Serbia said that it is important to offer partnership to the local companies as well as foreign ones.

Master Plan of the City of Belgrade and The Plan of public garages network have in their plans more than 50 locations for building underground garages. JKP ‘Parking Servis' has already elaborated in detail the construction of 14 garages. The works on 4 garages can commence immediately. Under the ‘Đeram Market' on Zvezdara there is a space for 352 parking places on 14.520 m2 with two underground levels - the first for the public garage and the other for the JKP ‘City Markets' requirements. The works on the other garage have been planned to be carried out under the green area of the People's Library in Skerlićeva street. 289 parking places will be at disposal not only to the Library's visitors but also to the visitors of Karađorđev park and to the patients and staff of the Dentist school as well as nearby Hospital complex. The preliminary design plans for the two underground levels with the total space of 9589 m2. The third underground garage with 546 parking places on three levels and 17 648 m2 has been planned under the Studentski trg street and it would solve the problem of parking in the very city center. The underground garage under Kosovska street will have 406 parking places on 13 467 m².

Belgrade is short of 10 000 parking places

Due to the advanced development of the city and an increasing number of vehicles there is a shortage of 3000 parking places in the city center while this number goes up to 10 000 places on a wider area of the City of Belgrade. A certain number of metropolises such as Milan, Barcelona and Zurich have solved this problem by banning the cars from the city center and in some cities like London and Stockholm only taxis are allowed in the central city zone.

The lack of parking places on the city center has been partially solved by introducing the zoned system which limits the time spent on a parking place and the local residents can find a parking place much easier. The latest information technologies for tracking and paying for the street parking through SMS messages have recently been featured in ‘Mashable' magazine and it was noticed that Belgrade system outperformed that of New York. Nevertheless, due to a dramatic increase in the numbers of cars (around 650 000 at the moment) the congestion in the city will present a bigger and bigger challenge. The most efficient solution to the problem is building of the new garages.