Vilnius residents said which districts were the least accessible – they also had comments about parking

The survey conducted by the public opinion and market research company Spinter tyrimai on behalf of the Sustainable City Laboratory, established by the Darnu Group and focused on creating a sustainable environment, aimed to assess the satisfaction of Vilnius residents with your residential areas. Even 80 percent. Respondents were asked to name the things that are most important to them personally when deciding on the quality of a residential area, they indicated contact. Almost half of the respondents also mentioned the issue of parking spaces (48%).

Transportation is good, but there is nowhere to store cars

The survey also revealed that Vilnius residents are quite satisfied with communication in the city: in the ten-point system, respondents gave it an average of 7.83 points or the highest among all other survey criteria, without passing for the offer of services (7.74), security (7.24), district planning. (7.05) and others.

Residents of Rasai (8.69 points), Žvėrynas (8.57), Naujamiestis (8.53), Viršuliškės (8.30) and Žirmūnai (8.24) rated communication in Vilnius as the best. The worst are those who live in Paneriai (6.50) and Pilaitė (6.87).

However, the scores varied significantly when residents of the capital were asked to comment on how they rated the parking spaces in their residential areas. Vilnius residents rated this criterion worst of all, with an average of 4.54 points out of 10 possible.

The most disappointed parking situation in their districts were the residents of Naujoji Vilnia (3.72 points), Šeškinė (4.02) and the Old Town and Justiniškės (4.08 each). Residents of Rasai (5.13) and Antakalnis (5.11) rated this issue slightly more favorably, while the ratings of the representatives of all other districts did not reach 5 points.

When asked what they personally miss the most in their residential area, Vilnius residents again named car parking spots the most – 35 percent mentioned them. surveyed.

More convenient public transportation was only 3% missing. survey participants, and only 2% of bike lanes.

An advantage or a problem?

According to experts, the high transport comfort rating reflects not only a well-planned street network, but also, at least in part, the role of public transport. The constant modernization of the public transport park and the widely covered urban area should be an attractive criterion for the residents of the capital.

However, it seems that the townspeople are not willing to take full advantage of these advantages and are very attached to private cars, which makes it convenient to get to the whole city quite quickly. According to the urban planner Donatas Baltrušaitis, such a situation gives an advantage on the one hand, but encodes an eternal problem on the other.

“Vilnius is dominated by car transport, which is the number one vehicle. The capital is a short drive from many different places. On the one hand, this is an advantage, but at the same time it is a curse of the city. The more vehicles circulate, the more it costs the city to maintain all the infrastructure, ”says D. Baltrušaitis.

According to him, the situation in which Vilnius residents appreciate communication in the city, but at the same time complain about the lack of parking spaces, reveals that the general communication system in Vilnius still needs to be improved. However, when doing so, it is very important to maintain an overall balance of spaces.

“If we expand the number of parking spaces, we need to have more space for that, which, for example, in the Old Town simply does not exist. And if we expand the spaces for cars, then we sacrifice other open or public spaces, so the balance between these options is especially important for the city itself and its inhabitants ”, emphasizes the urban planner.

Replaced by alternative means

According to urban planner Martynas Marozas, parking spaces in Vilnius would still be sufficient if another problem was solved more forcefully.

“From what we have investigated, a large part of the cars do not move in the yards. About a third do not move at all, another third move once or twice a week and only a third are used continuously. Therefore, It is not difficult to understand that a large part of the population does not need the car much or it can be replaced by alternative vehicles ”, the specialist is convinced.

D. Baltrušaitis notes that examples of cities dictating certain trends in planning show that, in principle, efforts are made to encourage people to use private cars as little as possible and to switch to sharing economy services more boldly .

“I think in the near future, instead of people investing, say, 20 percent of their income for the car and running it, they could cut those costs, say, to 5%, so that the car is make it similar to public transport and a means of getting around when necessary ”, says D. Baltrušaitis.

According to Mantas Umbrass, director of asset management at Darnu Group, some people are unable to give up their cars for objective reasons. However, urban measures can be used to address this: one of them is to adhere to the principle that cars should be located underground in residential areas and that green transportation should be used on the ground.

Another urban measure that addresses the need for cars in a much broader way could be the development of multifunctional neighborhoods, which serve a large part of the most important needs of the population in a small radius.

Promotion through infrastructure

Planners emphasize that achieving a significant shift from driving individual vehicles to alternatives requires specific solutions, especially with regard to new investments.

“It is necessary to accept that as long as private cars are the most convenient and infrastructure-compatible transportation option, the alternatives will not appeal to drivers. Currently, the city’s infrastructure is geared toward car drivers. If we want to address this and reduce the severity of the car parking problem, we need specific investments to help residents give up the need for a car: investments in the structure of bicycle trips, more targeted investments in the quality of public transport, investments in fares Higher parking spaces, greater environmental restrictions M. Marozas.

“There are very few streets in Amsterdam that have two lanes on one side and two on the other. I want to remind you that this is a city of a million with large flows of tourists, but they are improving. The movement in the city works because the vast majority ride bicycles. The advantage of such transportation is not only health and cleaner air, but also the city’s budget. Maintaining the necessary infrastructure for bicycles is significantly cheaper than for cars. I hope that this great breakthrough in thinking will also take place in Vilnius ”, wishes the urban planner.