Parking

Since I've been back in Abu Dhabi, the office building across the street from me has a few working offices in it now. The upshot of this is that with office workers needing to park their cars, parking during the day has become scarce. While this hasn't affected me much, my wife has to park a bit further from our building, a problem made worse when carrying a load of shopping and leading two small children around.

This first photo is taken from this page and while is not near our place, is typical of certain parts of Abu Dhabi. The following photo was taken from this web page and shows some of the more typical ways that people park their cars. These photos accompany letters to the editor that complain about how Abu Dhabi's paid parking has made things worse. To avoid paying for parking, people are finding free spots in nearby neighborhoods. As paid parking moves closer to where I live, I'm afraid that I'm going to start seeing more situations like this near my apartment. Add to the fact that there are about five 20-story apartment buildings under construction within a 10-minute walk of my apartment then it's easy to see how bleak my parking situation is. As it is, people around here already park without regard to others.

You'll notice that the cars are parked in the middle of the road. That's been pretty common in any of the parking areas that I've seen. I've always figured that it was illegal but tolerated. The other day I saw parking lines painted in the middle of a through street. Parking in the middle of the road has officially been sanctioned by the city of Abu Dhabi. It looks like everyone has accepted that the only way people are going to be able to park their cars is by parking like a knob.