Essen.
Restaurateurs, especially in Rüttenscheid, want to be able to continue using parking spaces in the warm season. However, there are other interests as well.
It’s true: The fact that restaurateurs were able to use parking spaces for outdoor gastronomy in the warmer season was good for the flair in the city and especially in Rüttenscheid, and it probably helped one or the other to survive the difficult Corona period. It is therefore understandable that many hosts are demanding that this should continue.
However, it is also true that the already scarce public parking spaces are very important for the well-functioning retail trade in Rüttenscheid and were missing. From this conflict of goals, the city administration has made a compromise that sounds fair, which is to be welcomed at first.
But the whole thing is decided in practice. Quite rightly, the city insists that the valuable space must be used really intensively in the future if it is kept out of stationary traffic from the beginning of March to the end of October, which is a very long period of time. One or two months less might have done it, but whatever.
It is important to monitor the rules, which are rightly stricter
It is important to also control the now stricter allocation rules for renting parking spaces. In recent years, it has been noticed that not every innkeeper has actually opened the cheaply leased space to guests. This was particularly annoying when motorists made laps to get a parking space and the places of the ghost outdoor restaurants were ridiculously unused.
It is also fair that the previously low fees are increasing. During the Corona period, it was about helping the cash-strapped innkeepers to make ends meet, but that’s over now and the market must at least partially get its rights back. What is scarce cannot be dirt cheap at the same time – every businessman knows that, and every driver at the parking ticket machine knows that too.
More articles from this category can be found here: Essen