The dreaded parking meter has finally reached the Kingdom, with the Eastern Province scheduled to be the first victim of efforts to curb traffic violations and bring order to urban areas. Al-Watan newspaper reports that motorists in Al-Khobar and Dammam will, from next month and the month after respectively, have to pay to park their vehicles in the central areas of the cities. Residents of Al-Khobar have already witnessed the appearance of some machines on the pavements of its busier thoroughfares as authorities put in place some 200 parking meters scheduled to be up and running next month. A spokesman for the mayoralty in the Eastern province told Al-Watan newspaper that the zones for which the meters are destined have been allotted to a Saudi company to carry out the operation of the meters in order to “bring traffic to order in Dammam and make the city more pleasant and civil”.
