Brno will build five park-and-ride facilities for 340 million crowns

First Park and Ride parking lot by the Central Cemetery

Brno - In Brno, five Park and Ride parking lots are to be created in the coming years, costing more than 340 million crowns. Each will offer hundreds of spaces, said Richard Mrázek (ANO), the mayor's deputy, to ČTK today. According to him, most of the costs should be covered by grants from the European Union. The first Park and Ride parking lot was built last year near the Central Cemetery. So far, there hasn't been much interest. Mrázek attributes this to the fact that the city still lacks a parking system.

Drivers can leave their cars at the parking lot and continue to the city center using public transport. The goal is to reduce the number of cars in the center. One parking lot is planned in the Královo Pole neighborhood near the railway station. "We expect that there could be up to a thousand spaces there, as it could be heavily utilized," Mrázek stated. Another parking lot is planned by the city on Purkyňova Street near the Vodova sports hall, where basketball games, for example, are held. The third is to be in the Líšeň district near the Zetor company premises, another in the Bohunice district on Bohunická Street, where, according to Mrázek, there will be parking for trucks and lorries, and the last one is to be built near the university campus and the Faculty Hospital in Brno. "We will build the parking lots as steel structures with the possibility of adding or removing spaces as needed. We want to obtain grants from the European Union amounting to 85%," added Mrázek.

Brno last year put into operation the first Park and Ride parking lot near the Central Cemetery, which offers just under 200 spaces. For 12 hours of parking, people pay 20 crowns, but they still need to buy a ticket for public transport. "Even so, it is a very friendly price compared to parking prices in the center," noted Mrázek. However, there isn't much interest in the parking lot. "There are several reasons for this. The first is that there is no parking system in Brno. If a residential system is not established, with individual zones clearly defined as to who can park where and under what conditions, it will be hard to fill the Park and Ride lots," said Mrázek. He added that another issue is that Brno does not know how to promote its offerings. "We want to improve this in the coming weeks so that potential customers learn that they can park at Park and Ride lots," Mrázek added, stating that in the future, the public transport ticket could be part of the parking ticket. The city is also planning to introduce a residential parking system.