Price watchdog takes action against parking rip-offs

710 francs for parking in the blue zone?

In many cities, parking is expensive fun. But how high can parking fees be? To answer this question, price supervisor Stefan Meierhans did the math. In short, residents without their own parking space usually pay themselves silly.

You drive a car? Because you need it to get to work. To take your child to daycare. Or on weekends - together with many friends - to the soccer game of your daughter? Quite normal. But the parking spaces in the blue zone are outrageously expensive.

Now the price supervisor is intervening. That pleases the car drivers who are being fleeced! Stefan Meierhans (55) has calculated the land costs, production costs and management costs of a parking space. A part of these costs should be borne by the short- and long-term parkers. But how much is too much? Meierhans has surveyed the fees for street parking in all Swiss cities with a population of 20,000 or more: On the one hand for parking machines (white zone), on the other hand for parking cards for visitors (blue zone).

"From my point of view, there should be no profit in fees as a matter of principle," Meierhans says. "My new model shows that such high fees cannot be justified given the costs. That's why I believe cities should lower prices." He has developed a cost model that allows the determination of an appropriate price for parking permits based on the cost recovery principle.

According to the price supervisor's new cost model, annual subscriptions of more than 400 francs are generally too high for long-term parkers, regardless of whether these fees are charged in a small town or an expensive and large city like Zurich. Blue or white zone parking spaces are located on public land that already belongs to the general public anyway. For this reason alone, they cannot be compared with the significantly more expensive private underground parking spaces.

710 francs for a space in the blue zone

Above all, too high fees for public parking spaces are anti-social, Meierhans criticizes. "Rich people have a garage or a parking space themselves. Holders of residents' parking permits are mostly people who work shifts or in special professions and have a smaller wallet," he continues. That's why he strongly advises authorities to reconsider their parking fees.

Meierhans does not rule out approaching cities with very high prices again himself. These cities include all those that charge more than 400 francs a year for a permanent public parking space. For example, Lausanne with 500 francs, Bern with 492 francs and Winterthur with an almost outrageous 710 francs. Zurich also wants to increase the fees from 300 to 540 francs.