Emirates: women to get their 'pink' parking spaces in Abu Dhabi

(AGI) - Abu Dhabi, 30 Aug - Abu Dhabi's Department of Municipal Affairs and Transport has announced the creation of 182 ladies only parking bays in some of the city's multi-storey car-parks. The parking spaces are identified by flourescent pink signage and road markings. Explaining its reasoning, DMAT said that it had decided to assign parking to ladies only so as "to maintain the woman's privacy and assist her in the search for parking". Parking in Abu Dhabi city centre has been getting progressively difficult of late, as the amount of parking spaces available cannot compete with the huge growth in the number of cars on the road. However, the few multi-storey car parks put up by the city council over the last 5 or so years remain under-used, mainly because drivers are loathe to walk for any distance in the extreme heat of an Abu Dhabi summer. As a result, the lower floors of the car-parks are half empty for most of the day. In an ideal way of killing two birds with one stone, the DMAT has created the highly noticeable parking bays in a variety of city-centre multi-storey parking hot-spots, enabling the capital's ladies who lunch, or shop, to park in a dedicated zone using spaces that may otherwise have been empty. DMAT also announced that the number of bays will be increased once other projects are completed in the future. Multi-storey car parks are considered an ideal solution to most urban parking problems, and DMAT have plans to erect more in the future. Mawaqif traffic wardens will be responsible for making sure that vehicles are parked legally in the pink parking zones, and will take appropriate action if men are discovered using them. Male drivers who violate the regulations will be fined for illegal parking and have their vehicle towed to the Municipal pound in Mina Zayed, where they will have to pay again to get their vehicle released. (AGI) .