The city authorities in Bruges (West Flanders) are using a new tactic to keep motorists out of the city centre in the run up to the festive season. Signs on the edge of the centre of Bruges that tell motorists how much space is available in city centre car parks now deliberately say that they are full each day after 11am. This sometimes means that carparks are said to be full when in fact this is not the case.
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In Bruges "Full” doesn’t always mean “Full” when it comes to city centre carparks
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The Mayor of Bruges Dirk De fauw (Christian Democrat) describes the move “as a little white lie told with the best of intent”
"We want to keep cars out of the city centre during the busy period around Christmas and New Year. Otherwise, there would be too many tourists driving into the centre and there would be gridlock”.
Not finding a place to park is a major headache for motorists that drive into town. Many will now think twice about driving into the centre of Bruges when they see the signs on the city’s ring road. Between now and the end of the year the signs that tell motorists how much space is still available at the Zilverpand, Biekorf and Ezelstraat carparks will say that the carparks are “Full” from 11am each morning.
Mayor De fauw told VRT News that "We have a lot of parking spaces in Bruges. There are large carparks on the edge of the city, but also a few smaller ones in the city centre. The problem is that a lot of parking spaces in the centre are reserved for people with season tickets and people that are given priority by the company that runs the carparks”. These include local residents and people that work in the city centre.
"We have to keep enough space available for them. This is also the case during the rest of the year. By putting 'Full' on the signs we hope to prevent people from driving into the historic centre of the city only to find that they are unable to park. From 11am each much we will say that the carparks are full".