Following the Jerusalem Municipality’s continued adoption of measures exacerbating the parking problem in East Jerusalem, on March 5, 2013, HaMoked sent the Mayor of Jerusalem two letters. In the
first letter, HaMoked demanded the immediate installation of parking meters in the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, explaining that it had recently learnt that there were no meters installed even on streets were there was regulated paid parking. In its
second letter, HaMoked raised before the Mayor the specific problem of the parking area near the building in Wadi al-Joz housing both the Immigration and Population Authority branch office and the Employment Bureau. HaMoked explained that although the municipality had recently made it into a regulated parking zone, no meters were installed in the area. The difficulty this caused was much greater to the service seekers arriving at these two government offices, who frequently had to wait in line for many hours until they finished their business there, during which, they could not go outside time and again to extend their parking time, because they might lose their place in line. Moreover, their re-entry to the building was not guaranteed after the hours of service were over (when people were still receiving service inside). In its letter, HaMoked asked the municipality to cancel the regulated parking there or alternatively, to set a token fee for whole-day parking.
On April 14, 2015, in
a letter to the head of the Jerusalem Municipality parking department, HaMoked repeated its claims to the Mayor, and also demanded the installation of parking signs detailing the maximum parking time and the days and hours of paid parking in each location, as was done elsewhere in the city.
On April 29, 2015, HaMoked received the
response of a municipality official, who made it clear that the municipality had no legal obligation to put parking meters throughout the city; furthermore, that more than once in the past, it had installed “dozens of meters” in East Jerusalem, but “as a result of severe vandalism and heavy damages which were caused to the meters by the local inhabitants, it was finally decided not to re-install them”. As to the Wadi al-Joz parking area, the municipality claimed that turning it into a paid parking zone, was aimed at solving the problem of insufficient parking caused by the taking up of parking spaces for long hours by residents who did not seek the governmental services. As to HaMoked’s claim that regulated parking times were not fully presented on the traffic signs in East Jerusalem, the municipality claimed that underneath every parking sign, there was another sign specifying the parking details, and also referred, apparently by mistake, to an “attached file”.
The municipality’s formal claim that there was no legal obligation to install meters, should be considered in light of the fact that over the years, the municipality hasn’t appeared to be meticulous in upholding its other “legal obligations” in East Jerusalem. Furthermore, HaMoked strongly protests the municipality’s refusal to install meters in East Jerusalem as a means to punish the entire population for the actions of a few individuals, as its response clearly indicates. Finally, while the municipality has dismissed HaMoked’s claim that the traffic signs in East Jerusalem do not provide full information on the parking hours, photos of a parking sign at the Wadi al-Joz parking area before and after HaMoked’s intervention, show that while the sign was already in place
beforehand, the detailed information was only added to it
afterwards.
