We all know that government officials and their agencies have a knack for coming up with hare-brained schemes, but the recent decision of Chapala’s new traffic department chief really takes the cake.

In an October 24 meeting with representatives of the Unión de Comerciantes de la Avenida Madero de Chapala (UCAMC), the director of Movilidad Chapala, Pedro Validiva, authorized the merchants’ proposal for a pilot project to allow short-term double parking on the city’s principal thoroughfare.

The idea is for merchants to place orange cones on the delivery trucks and the vehicles of customers so that they can double park for up to 15 minutes while doing business, without the risk of being run off or ticketed by traffic officers.

The merchants argued that their sales had dropped dramatically since the lengthy renovation of Madero began in August 2022. A year later, the residents and merchants in the zone staged a protest march objecting to the project’s reduction of parking spaces to install garden planters.

To many observers, it was apparent that the state government urban planners who drew up the project plans had little practical knowledge of the city’s vehicular dynamics.

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