The municipal regulation on paid parking areas in Amares, proposed by the Chamber, led by Manuel Moreira (PSD), and approved by the Municipal Assembly, “applies to all paid and duly signposted surface parking areas” and to parking lots, underground parking at Praça do Comércio, União de Freguesias de Ferreiros, Prozelo and Besteiros.

According to the regulation, in surface parking areas there will be a “discount of up to 15 minutes of parking per day, in single-use, for each plate, for the user of electronic means in Limited Duration Parking Areas”.

15 cents will be charged from the 2nd fraction of 15 minutes until the 4th instalment (one hour of parking), 30 cents for every 15 minutes from that period onwards.

Parking in the identified areas will be paid for between 9am and 7pm from Monday to Friday and will be free outside these hours, especially on Saturdays, Sundays and municipal and national holidays.

Parking in the underground courtyard of Praça do Comércio will be paid for, for fractions of 15 minutes (15 cents), between 07:30 and 20:30 from Monday to Friday and on Saturdays from 09:00 to 13:00, and it is also possible to request monthly payments.

The municipality of Amares says that paid parking aims to “disincentivise long-term parking, thus ensuring greater turnover in the occupation of spaces, disciplining abusive and improper parking on sidewalks and contributing to a better quality of life and habitability of residents and businesses in the areas most sought after for parking”.

“In recent years there has been an increase in road traffic on the city's roads, requiring the adoption of new rules appropriate to regulating such circulation and parking. The growth of the vehicle fleet and the pressure it puts on public infrastructure constitutes, today, one of the biggest constraints on quality of life, which is important to ensure”, emphasizes the Chamber.

The city hall also says that “it is indisputable that regulated parking throughout the municipality means, simultaneously, the optimisation of circulation conditions, both for vehicles and pedestrians, a stimulus for the use of public transport and an important lever in urban planning”.