Parking fees in KL go up by 150%

KUALA LUMPUR (July 18): Brace yourself. It is now significantly more expensive to park in the city. The Star reported today “that parking charges at Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL)-owned parking bays within the central business district (CBD) have increased by 150%”.

What used to cost 80 sen per hour has now been hiked to RM2 for the first hour and RM3 for the second and subsequent hours.

According to the daily, the areas in the city being impacted by this hike are Bukit Bintang, Bukit Damansara, Sri Hartamas, Desa Hartamas, Solaris Mont'Kiara, Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Bangsar. It also added that the new parking charges would be enforced in stages from today till Aug 1.

The increase could hit 200% in some areas.

Rates at DBKL-owned parking lots at business centres outside the city centre such as Brickfields, Taman Maluri, Cheras, Wangsa Maju and Setapak are also expected rise, according to the report.  

But there will be no maximum cap of two hours yet. Earlier this month, Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor announced that parking will be limited to two hours only and motorists are not allowed to top up the meter.

A quick calculation will show that a motorist parking in the city for most of the day time will now have to pay more than RM30.

Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Seri Mohd Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz was reported by The Star as saying that “the move to increase the parking rates was not profit driven but was the only way to ease traffic congestion in the city and encourage people to carpool”.

“We want to free up as many street parking spaces in the city and encourage people to take public transport or carpool to the city.

“I know I am going to be very unpopular, but it has to be done because traffic in Kuala Lumpur is already bursting at the seams,’’ Amin Nordin told the daily.

Try out one of our super tools, the rental yield calculator, here.