Dubai: The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has started a plan for operating, managing and regulating the parking lots in the Downtown area around the world’s tallest building — Burj Khalifa, said a senior official.
The plan is done based on special study according to developer requirements, and all car parking conditions have been designed to meet the area’s environment, said Maitha Bin Udai, CEO of the RTA’s Traffic and Roads Agency. Motorists will have to pay at the parking lots in Downtown Dubai area after the work on installing signboards and paid parking machines is completed. However, the RTA has not given any specific date for the start of paid parking.
The new paid parking zone timing will be from 8am to 10pm from Saturday to Thursday, and will be free to use on Friday.
Seasonal parking cards will not be accepted in this area because the area belongs to a private developer, said Bin Udai. She said that RTA has signed an agreement with the private developer regarding the paid parking zone and implements the parking plan according to the developer’s need. Another RTA official said that there are some other areas in Dubai where the seasonal parking cards are not accepted. They include areas which fall under private developer Tecom, such as Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City. The seasonal parking cards are also not valid for parking in the Fish Market and Gold Souq areas in Deira.
Last week, it was announced that parking fees in the commercial areas of Dubai are Dh4 per hour while the timing for paid parking areas will be from 8am to 10pm, with no break in between. The existing timings are from 8am to 1pm and 4pm to 9pm.
The changes are expected to come into effect either in late May or early June.
The tariff for roadside parking, which is expected to go live from late May or early June, has been restructured to Dh4 per hour, Dh8 for two hours, Dh12 for three hours and Dh16 for four hours.
