DOHA: As a pilot project to address the severe shortage of parking space in West Bay area, the Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning has opened a covered parking facility next to the Urban Development Planning building. The Ministry said yesterday that new facility would be open to the Ministry staff as well as people visiting the Urban Development Planning offices and the surrounding administrative offices. The Ministry has urged the public to utilise the facility, the Qatar News Agency reported yesterday. The Ministry also said that the new building constituted the first phase of a project to address the severe shortage of parking space in the busy Towers Area in West Bay. The new parking building has a capacity for 1,007 vehicles, part of which is open to the public. The ground floor of the seven-storey building with parking space for 122 vehicles is open to visitors to the Ministry offices and the surrounding offices. The other six floors each having space to accommodate 137 cars are exclusively for the Ministry staff. The upper floor of the facility houses a business center and a multi purpose hall. The new facility can reduce the traffic congestion in the area to some extent by taking out more than 1,000 cars that would be parked elsewhere in the vicinity. Although a limited space in the new building is available to the public, providing exclusive parking areas to the Ministry staff can indirectly open more parking space to visitors to the area. Traffic jams caused by haphazardly parked vehicles are a common sight in the Towers Area triggering a public outcry seeking a solution to the crisis. The severity of the problem had even prompted the Traffic Department to announce that motorists leaving their cars in no-parking zones in the area will not be fined as long as they do not obstruct traffic. Even after the announcement, many people had been complaining that they had been issued tickets by the traffic police for parking their cars in no-parking zones. The new parking facility is linked with the Urban Development Planning building through a pedestrian bridge for the staff and the visitors to reach the Ministry offices. The parking facility is provided with entry and exit points for cars from the front and back sides. The parking building is designed in way that suits the urban environment of the area that features a number of magnificent towers and sky-scrappers. THE PENINSULA

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