The Orange Zone in Alicante Will Be Free to Facilitate Parking for Residents

The orange zone in Alicante will be free and extendable to adjacent neighbourhoods to facilitate parking for residents. This is one of the main innovations proposed by the feasibility study of regulated street parking being developed by the City Council, which plans to eliminate the current fee in orange zones, while allowing the use of these spaces in nearby streets, addressing the needs expressed by residents in a prior survey.

Currently, parking in orange zones designated for residents involves a daily fee of 30 cents on weekdays and 15 on Saturdays. The study proposes eliminating this fee, offering these spaces for free parking to residents, and increasing their number to ease parking tensions in these neighbourhoods. Additionally, the proposal addresses residents' requests to expand parking possibilities in adjacent orange zones, removing the current limitation to the nearest orange zone to the resident's home.

The Councillor for Urban Mobility, Carlos de Juan, has already expressed himself in this regard. The councillor insists that this is the first time a parking regulation with absolute gratuity for residents in orange zones and their expansion has been proposed. "It is important to highlight that its application will not only be for each neighbour's neighbourhoods, but they will also be shared with adjacent zones," he emphasised.

The feasibility study establishes that orange spaces are primarily intended for residents, although visitors are allowed to park for a limited time of two hours by paying a higher fee than that established for the blue zone to encourage turnover. With the new proposal, residents will be able to park in the orange zone for free and without needing to move their car for five days in the same space.

De Juan also highlighted that other improvements considered in this feasibility study include the integration of motorcycles into the new regulation of street parking to improve the organisation of spaces for different types of vehicles. Loading and unloading vehicles will also be integrated into the regulated zone, and access to parking will be facilitated through mobile applications for the intelligent management of regulated public parking.

The councillor also highlighted the establishment of free parking for vehicles of people with reduced mobility (PMRs) in regulated zones, as well as partial discounts for vehicles with ECO and 0 environmental labels from the General Directorate of Traffic (DGT).