As part of a sweeping program to control parking in the city center, Mayor Yury Luzhkov has ordered Russia's first 200 parking meters to be installed on the stretch of Tverskaya between Manezh Square and Pushkin Square. And the mayor means business. Ten minutes after the meter runs out, patrolmen will slap a lock on your tire, and three hours after that you may find your car in a city pound with a hefty ransom, said Nikolai Shepelev, a spokesman for the Moscow Committee for Architecture and City Planning.
"We need to establish a civilized relationship between the police and the population and the people who drive," Shepelev said. "People in this country are used to getting things for free. But sooner or later, they are going to have to pay."
Twelve municipal agencies pushed the project through in a period of two months and the mayor signed the plan into action Nov. 29. After a six-month trial period, the city government will decide whether to expand the paid parking area. Long-range plans include underground and surface parking lots and increased enforcement of parking laws citywide.
For years, the State Automobile Inspectorate, or GAI, has bemoaned the number of cars on the street and the rampant illegal parking that goes along with it. Police began doling out 3,000-ruble (90-cent) parking tickets last January, and during the same month Luzhkov signed a decree to boost the number of city tow trucks from eight to 150.
Shepelev admitted that Moscow drivers may have trouble adjusting to the new system, particularly since free parking spaces surround the meters on all sides. Hence the trial period.
"This is part of the transition from socialism to capitalism, and of course people will have to get used to it. Our first goal is to understand the psychology of our drivers," he said. "Russians have a very particular mentality. In Germany, the cars wait for the traffic lights to turn green at night, when there are no cars around. Here, even in broad daylight, our drivers see a red light and just keep going."
The $600 German-manufactured parking meters operate on tokens, which will be available at four kiosks and will cost 1,000 rubles apiece for a half-hour period. The price of one token will be scaled to 0.005 percent of Muscovites' average salary, said Tatyana Glukhareva, the director of the center for transportation infrastructure at the Moscow city planning department.
Yellow meters along Tverskaya will supply parking for up to one hour, and blue meters along side streets would allot space for as much as two hours.
Motorists along Tverskaya said the new parking policy did not come as a big surprise, but many doubted that it would succeed.
"So, civilization is progressing. Hopefully this will build some kind of order in the center's traffic," said Alexander Akhanov, a taxi driver who said it was "practically impossible" to find parking downtown. "There are enough rich people in the center who can pay for it. But as for me, I'll avoid paying as long as I can."
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