A new car park is planned for Bucharest in the Universitate area, where an underground car park will be built under public-private partnership below Edgar Quinet street. This would be the second such car park in the area, after the one opened near Universitate late last year.

The new site will have 385 parking places. After a third parking is built in the area, those who park their cars on the street, where parking is prohibited, will be fined, according to Bucharest mayor Sorin Oprescu.

The first underground car park in Universitate area, downtown Bucharest, cost EUR 12 million to build and is operated by Belgian Interparking, which covered the investment costs.

The car park has 425 places and the average price per hour is of some EUR 0.50. The car park has been 60 percent used on average so far, according to data from February this year, and only 4 percent of the users have a monthly subscription for parking. The biggest number of parked cars is usually recorded during the week-end, and during the week, peak hours are between 9:00 and 15:00.

Other car parks downtown Bucharest are planned, with initial due dates in 2013 and 2015.

The lack of parking places is one of the problems faced by drivers in Bucharest, whose streets are sometimes overcrowded by parked cars.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: mayor Sorin Oprescu's Facebook page)