Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality has approved the doubling of the hourly parking fee for visitors

The Finance Committee of the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality has approved the doubling of the hourly parking fee in blue and white for visitors to the city center who are not residents. This will increase the price of parking from NIS 6.30 per hour today to NIS 12.60. The city council is expected to approve the change at its next meeting on May 23, and a month later it will take effect.
The change in the tariff was made possible thanks to the "parking reform" that underwent the latest arrangement law, which, among other things, allowed the municipalities to raise the price of parking above NIS 6.30 for the first time, the price so far being the maximum in the law. Originally, the reform stipulated that the new minimum price in blue and white would be NIS 6.30, but this proposal was rejected following the discussions of the Economics Committee in the law.
The Ministries of Finance and Transportation have promoted the reform with the aim of reducing the use of private vehicles in city centers, in a way that will encourage the use of public transport and bicycles and scooters and reduce congestion on the roads. According to one of the studies cited in the discussions to formulate the reform, about a third of the vehicles circulating in the center of Tel Aviv are vehicles looking for parking. In addition, the reform is intended to create a situation where the price of parking will reflect its "real price" in the market, and to avoid a situation where parking prices in blue and white are tens and even hundreds of percent lower than those of private parking lots.
In recent years, the Tel Aviv Municipality is known as a pioneer in terms of its parking policy and is among the only municipalities that are actively working to make it difficult for private car owners to get out of the city. However, the municipality is still working to make it easier for its residents and provides them with subsidized parking and parking, and transport people and economists criticize the municipality’s policy for not going all the way with the transportation agenda encouraging reduction in private car use.
As part of the reform promoted in the Arrangements Law, it was also decided that city residents would not be able to shop for free in blue and white all over the city, but only in a place defined as their neighborhood / neighborhood. According to the wording formulated, municipalities that charge for parking will have to divide the city into a minimum of three parking areas within three years, and residents will be able to park for free in only one of these areas according to their place of residence. After three years, the Ministry of Transportation will be allowed to intervene in what is happening in cities that will not carry out the reform themselves and will not meet the required criteria. It was also determined that the price gap between local residents and non-residents will not exceed 30%.