Moscow has become the second most expensive city in the world for parking

Moscow has become the second city in the world in terms of the high cost of paid city parking - the cost of 1 hour of parking in the city center on a weekday was half a percent of the average salary of a Muscovite, calculated . Vedomosti

The newspaper studied data on the daily cost of street parking in the centers of capitals and largest cities in the world. It turned out that if you look at absolute data, then the most expensive cities for parking are London ($10.6), Amsterdam ($8.5) and Oslo ($8.3). According to the maximum parking rate ($6.1 per hour), Moscow ranks 8th in absolute terms. However, if we compare the cost of parking with the average salary of citizens, Moscow rises sharply in the ranking and enters the top 3 most expensive cities for motorists. The average salary of a Muscovite for the nine months of 2021 reached 92,000 rubles net of taxes, and after another increase in parking rates by the authorities (to a maximum of 450 rubles per hour), an hour of parking will now cost a Muscovite 0.49% of earnings. In other words, a monthly salary is enough to park in the center for 205 hours, Vedomosti states. Parking turned out to be more expensive only for residents of Riga, where the average salary is enough for 187 hours of parking in the city center. Almost 10-20 times more affordable parking in Abu Dhabi, Beijing and Swiss Bern.

Moscow also remains one of the world leaders in traffic congestion: according to the December INRIX study, the Russian capital was in 4th place in the world in traffic jams after Brussels, London and Paris. On average, a Muscovite spends about 108 hours in traffic jams per year. It is the increase in parking rates that the Moscow authorities still consider one of the main means of combating traffic jams, but experts note that this method has exhausted itself. According to Mikhail Blinkin, Director of the Institute of Transport Economics at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, in order to regulate the situation on the roads, “decent public transport and a high-quality pedestrian environment” are needed.