Nora, a viewer of LTV's 4. studija, expressed her confusion about the ban on parking in “pockets” created on Ģertrūdes Street: “Explain what the pockets are meant for on the stretch of Ģertrūdes Street, heading from Tērbatas Street to Barona Street on the right? [..] Cars are regularly parked and [drivers] penalized! What is the purpose of these pockets? ”
The LTV programme verified that, in theory, cars could be parked all the way up to Barona Street because of the pockets in question, but there is a “stopping forbidden” sign. Why has such a ban been imposed there?
“This infrastructure calls for a stop there [..]. This would be a case of perhaps reminding the driver [..] with additional signs on both sides, both directions. Otherwise, the infrastructure that's built there, absolutely calls for a stop. And so if I'm looking for a parking spot, first of all, I've already forgotten what I saw there before and was a whole bunch of signs in the middle of it,” said Oskars Irbītis, a traffic safety expert at the Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD).
“A bit of a trap for drivers. If there is not this marking on the sidewalk or the yellow line on the border that would suggest that there should not be standing there, I think there many will fall on this one,“ Irbītis said.
Meanwhile, the Rīga City Council's Outdoor and Mobility department argued that all signs have been placed in accordance with the law and standards. It is not possible to say when these pockets could perform a parking function because Ģertrūdes Street has still not been commissioned. Therefore, no changes can be made to the design, and the department cannot place a more logical and visible “stop banned” sign that would help drivers avoid punishment.
But why wasn't the area originally designed for parking?
“Pretty hard to find the reason why. Perhaps the site was left with the goal of placing “parklets,” which are green havens in a city where you can sit in the summer; there's probably another variant out there. It may have been the designer's vision or the architect's. At the moment, it is unfortunately difficult to find it,” a spokeswoman for the City Council department, Lelde Rudzika, said.
