Ourense could be left without an ORA zone as of January 1, 2025. The local government plans to notify the concessionaire company to stop executing the contract, which has accumulated several extensions since its expiration in 2016. However, The definitive suspension will depend on what the plenary session decideswhere Democracia Ourensana, the party that supports Mayor Gonzalo Pérez Jácome, does not have a majority.
The City Council, through a press release, has explained that “there is no” duty to “keep in force a contract for a service that has already expired.” Therefore, consider canceling it with the beginning of the new year. Once the specifications for tender the new contractthe City Council will begin the procedure to bring to the plenary session the definitive suppression of the current parking regulation ordinance.
“The suspension, whether definitive or provisional, will depend on the plenary majority,” said the municipal government, which clearly advocates eliminating it. Should the Corporation decide to continue with paid parking, “the new contract would not be operational until the end of 2025“Therefore, it could happen that the new year starts without an ORA zone and, months later, it is activated again.
Decrease in ORA places
The city of Ourense It currently has 750 places in the blue zone, a figure that decreased from more than 1,000 20 years ago due, mainly, to pedestrianization and the creation of loading and unloading areas.
The City Council estimates that this drift, together with restricted access streets and facilities for electric bicycles and vehicle charging, will cause the available ORA places to remain at less than 500.
If we add to this that, according to the mayor, “the ORA system is born from a misconception of rotation, de facto not executed”, the local government believes that “It’s time to suppress a bad idea to regulate parking.
In any case, the City Council would also value extend the express parking pilot test to other areas of the city free next to schools, similar to the one carried out in San Francisco.
The BNG, open to evaluating “possible scenarios”
Following this announcement from the local government, the municipal spokesperson for the BNG, LuÃs Seara, has been open to “evaluating possible scenarios”, But he believes that the debate should be framed within the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (PMUS), “with reports” and putting “possible alternatives” on the table. To this end, he has proposed creating a “political-technical commission.”
Seara ironically said that He has already “lost count of how many times the mayor has announced this measure.” The last one, in the month of May, when the nationalists warned that the idea “does not have any documentary basis.” “Or at least we don’t know her,” he added.
The Bloc spokesperson has warned that the suppression of the ORA “can cause a domino effect on mobility” of the city, so making this decision “out of context” of the PMUS measures “without having a viable alternative” can “have effects contrary to those desired” in a city that “moves around 150,000 vehicles.”