Maldonado intends to implement the measure from November this year
During January 2022, 52,233 visitors arrived in Punta del Este with an average stay of 13 days
The mayor of the Municipality of Maldonado, Andrés Rapetti, announced that there will be paid parking in the resort and in the capital of Maldonado , a promise made by Mayor Enrique Antía in 2019. Before the announcement, neighbors and merchants in the area gathered signatures against the project.
Antía’s intention, communicated for the May 2020 departmental elections, was “improve access to the center of Maldonado and Punta del Este” through a “priced parking lot with a modern system, which can be reserved and controlled through the cell phone and thus achieve a higher turnover”.
According to what Rapetti advanced in Frequencia Abierta (Aspen FM), the objective discussed between the mayor and the general director of Traffic and Transportation, Juan Pígola, is to implement the system in the two cities -Maldonado and Punta del Este- for the month of November. He also reported that weekly meetings are being held to define a specific proposal that will allow a call for tenders to be opened, but for now “there are very generic criteria defined” and they are “open to everything that may come from the population,” said the mayor to Maldonado Noticias.
According to reports, two zones could be defined that would cover the center of the city and a micro-center around a highly developed area, in which a new mall
Feed parking in Montevideo. Photo: Gastón Britos
Faced with this situation, neighbors and merchants mobilized. “The traffic and parking problem in Punta del Este is not more than 22 days, it does not even reach 30 days [of the season]. You make two turns and you always find a place to park”, Solange Matonte, spokeswoman for the collective against fee-based parking in Maldonado, told La Diaria.
During the month of January, 52,233 visitors arrived in Punta del Este with an average stay of 13 days, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior published by Search. That amount represents 30.5% less compared to the same period in 2020, prior to the pandemic. In terms of foreign exchange, there was 41% less income compared to 2020, and the expenses made by tourists reached US$134 million dollars.
Compared to next summer and although expects a positive advance in the tourism sector, the Argentine economic context added to the exchange rate does not represent the best possible outlook.
The group “Punta del Este Free of Charged Parking” is against the project as it considers it contrary to the interests of the city and they claim to have alternatives to propose. The first measure they presented was a collection of signatures on the change.org platform that —at noon on June 2— had 1,525 adherents. In addition, the group collected some 700 paper signatures.
“The problem is the 150 empty stores on the peninsula, the lack of lighting, the broken sidewalks, the rusty traffic signs, the uncared-for flower beds,” said a neighbor.
In this context, the Punta del Este Hotel Center sent a letter addressed to the mayor of Punta del Este, Javier Carballal, in which they oppose the measure, reported Correo de Punta del Este.
As they expressed, the sector “already hit too hard by the pandemic and by the situation in Argentina” and, if vertical parking were allowed —in every block that can be done because of its width—, a large part of the problems “that occur during the seventeen days in which parking is complicated in that area of the city” would be solved. In addition, they mentioned that a garage and a half should be required for each new unit built.
Councilmen of the Broad Front and members of the Nomenclature, Transit and Transportation Commission requested the president of the Board Department of Maldonado, Damián Tort, an urgent meeting to discuss the issue.