Our popular Phinikoudes is getting a facelift, and it is always encouraging to see efforts being made to maintain our town, but there is one thing about the strip that makes my blood boil every time I drive down it - something I like to call 'Russian roulette wardens'.
I just do not understand the way the traffic department and/or municipality thinks. The strip was a no-parking zone, yet everyone parked on it. Instead of seeing cash signs and booking everyone - all day long - the traffic wardens would infrequently drive down the strip, randomly pick a handful of cars and fine them, leaving the rest untouched. More often than not, it was the rental cars that were booked – I saw it on numerous occasions. For those who illegally parked along the promenade it was a game of Russian roulette as to whether they would get a parking fine. For many, the risk was worth it, as more often than not they would make it through ticket-free, or leave the café at the sight of a warden and shout at him/her for daring to book them when they were only sitting a couple of feet away enjoying a coffee.
Then the seafront was deemed a temporary, free parking area pending the creation of a new multi-storey. Again, to me it seemed logical to add metres or some sort of pay system. Another missed opportunity for bags of extra cash at a time when extra cash would have been useful for the municipality. I imagine the people who parked in the limited spaces are those who had always parked there – illegal or not.
And then once again, the strip was made a strictly no-parking zone. The same old 'no parking' signs were once again erected, save for a few bay spots, mainly reserved for the disabled. The municipality even issued a press release stating every single legal parking spot within the town centre limits, and reiterating that those not heeding the no parking warning would be fined.
So, has anything changed? Not a jot. In fact, the paragraph on traffic wardens randomly and infrequently booking rental cars could easily be inserted here. How ever many times I have driven down the strip since it was once again declared a no-parking zone, I have not seen a single traffic warden, except for once, when hubby and I watched him hop on his bike, drive blindly past all the illegally parked cars to the middle of the strip then book one car before driving off again.
Seriously? And then we wonder why people continue to park illegally – fully on pavements, blocking access points, in disabled spots, taking up two spaces at a time. They do it partly because they are lazy and ignorant, but also partly because they can get away with it.
Phinikoudes has three choices; offer free parking once again, install metres, or if it is to remain a no-parking zone, then the traffic wardens have to actually do their job. It amazes me that the money they could be raking in is not incentive enough. Surely all those poor unsuspecting tourists in their rental cars, who are duped into parking illegally because the locals are, can be squeezed for a bit more of their hard earned holiday money?
First appeared in The Cyprus Weekly, 07/11/14
