Abu Dhabi to have 70,000 paid parking spaces by June

By the end of June, more than 70,000 paid parking spaces will have been completed across Abu Dhabi city, a senior official said on Sunday.
"But our real goals are not reduced to just providing parking spaces to ease congestion, we rather aim at discouraging the culture of reliance on cars to do daily routine, which include early morning trips to the gym," Ahmad Al Hammadi, head of the projects and maintenance section, Abu Dhabi Department of Transport, said.
Al Hammadi said many people are in the habit of driving distressingly short distances, even to the gym to exercise, in spacious cars that are generally much larger than the trip requires.
"We at Mawaqif aim to help motorists calculate the gains and losses of gratuitous car use," Al Hammadi said.

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He made the remarks as he launched the paid parking scheme in the densely populated Tourist Club area on Sunday. The pay-to-park system will be extended to sector ‘E16' covering 6,700 parking spaces in the area starting from March 29.
The new area is located between Zayed the Second Street from the north, Al Falah Street from the south, Tenth Street from the east and Al Salam Street from the west. This brings the total parking spaces up to more than 67,000, including premium and standard surface spaces, and multi-storey buildings.