Minutes
Date: 3/7/11
Venue: W007
Group Members:
Chair: Mohamed Al-Qubaisi
Minutes Taker: Mohammed Salem
Participants: Ibrahim
Agenda:
1 Build underground parking under the buildings.
2 Increase the use of public transport such as buses and taxis, and bicycles in winter.
3 Special parking buildings should be built.
4 People living in places with parking problems, and who own more than one car, should get rid of the extra cars to avoid congestion.
5 Parking cars by paying fees.
Objectives:
The main objective is to find solution for the parking congestion in Abu Dhabi city. It has become hard to find a parking spot. Some efforts have been made to help find a solution for this problem but still, congestion still exists.
The chairman, Mohamed Al-Qubaisi, opened the meeting at 16:43.
1 Mohammed Salem suggested that underground parking should be built under each building in crowded areas. But Mohamed Al-Qubaisi denied the idea because he thinks that it is hard to build them now. He said that if they were built while constructing the buildings, they would have been of great use. Ibrahim agreed with Mohamed Al-Qubaisi’s point of view.
2 Ibrahim said that people should use public transport, such as buses and taxis as their main way of transportation. Both Mohamed Al-Qubaisi and Mohammed Salem agreed but they said that it’s not a way that citizens would prefer knowing that every house owns more than two cars. But, Ibrahim said that we should try applying the idea and see the feedback of the citizens.
3 We all agreed about having car parking buildings built in every residential area to serve people living there. With having a special card only for citizens of the area, so that other people from different areas won’t take advantage of the parking.
4 We also agreed that citizens, who own more than one car and live in crowded areas, should get rid of the extra cars to avoid congestion. Also some people own parking spots under the building but are lazy to park it under the building so they park it outside, and that should be solved also. Because it is known that many people leave their cars in one parking spot for more than a month and it’s a reason of congestion.
5 Mohammed Salem started discussing the idea of making the parking in crowded congested areas by paying a specified amount of money for parking tickets for each area depending on how crowded it is. However, Ibrahim replied saying that the fees should be specified on the amount of time the car is parked, not on how crowded the area is. Mohammed Al-Qubaisi said it is not fair to take money on parking lots, so he said that their ideas were good but the fees for parking spots should be for a specified period of time. After that, they all agreed on the idea.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we think that underground parking is a great idea and would highly reduce the congestion rate. However, the government should apply new rules forcing the investors to build underground parking. The government should also advise other people to use public transportation to reduce the congestion rate. We think that public transport solution is also a good idea and of a great advantage. However, people here aren’t interested in public transport. Also having parking buildings in residential areas is a good idea, but rules should be enforced strictly to make sure no people park in there except the citizens of the area. Finally we think if they applied fees on parking spots, it might somehow solve this issue by limiting the time each car can park.
