Nearly 300 shopkeepers who commute to their businesses in Istanbul’s historic Grand Bazaar on motorcycles are now struggling to secure parking spaces due to the limited allocation, local media has reported.
Located in one of the most popular tourist destinations of the Historical Peninsula, the Grand Bazaar, visited by thousands of local and foreign tourists daily, has seen its shopkeepers switch from cars to motorcycles a while ago due to space constraints and traffic problems,while now, another parking issue arouses for the motorcycles.
Özkan Eroğlu, one of the business owners in the bazaar, noted that nearly 200 motorcycles are crammed into an area designated for only 50 motorcycles.
He said that the shopkeepers have set up a WhatsApp group to organize their parking turns. “We can’t move our vehicles in case of an emergency. By establishing a WhatsApp group, we coordinate when someone needs to leave. This way, we avoid going beyond the barricade and getting fined because the parking area is small, and the number of motorcycles is high,” Eroğlu told daily Milliyet.
“We arrive early in the morning to find parking spaces. We’ve made numerous appeals. We write to the Istanbul Municipality, and they tell us to apply to the Fatih Municipality. The Fatih Municipality, in turn, directs us back to the Istanbul Municipality. Motorcycles are almost parked on top of each other,” added merchant Osman Yiğit.
Another shopkeeper also noted that the stacking of motorcycles does not create a favorable impression for a historic site visited by thousands of tourists every day.