A petition has been registered on the Kyiv City State Administration (KCSA) website in which the author, Maria Osipova, proposes establishing a network of dual-purpose municipal underground parking facilities near key metro stations on the Left Bank of the capital. According to the initiator's concept, such structures should simultaneously address two goals: providing residents with a safe place to shelter during air raid alerts and giving drivers the opportunity to leave their cars close to transport hubs.

The Left Bank problem during air raid alerts

The petition text emphasizes the difficulties faced by the Left Bank part of Kyiv during prolonged air raid alerts. Due to the suspension of surface transport and the introduction of restrictions on movement across the bridges, residents end up in dense crowds or in traffic jams. The author of the initiative believes that underground parking facilities near metro stations would help disperse people and reduce the load on surface infrastructure.

Civil protection requirements and paid parking

The petition proposes designing future facilities in accordance with civil protection requirements so that they can fully function as shelters. In a separate point, the initiator proposes making these parking facilities paid municipal ones: in her view, this would allow drivers to leave their cars near transport hubs, reduce the load on the bridges, and provide additional revenue for the city budget. The document also proposes reserving land plots near metro stations for civil protection facilities and preventing chaotic development of these areas.

Context: parking facilities are already part of the protective structures fund

It is worth noting that in Kyiv, underground parking facilities are already considered as dual-use structures. The KCSA Department of Municipal Safety previously stated that parking facilities may be included in the fund of civil protection protective structures, and owners of private underground parking facilities were called upon to submit applications to include such premises in the corresponding fund. Thus, the petition's idea largely aligns with the city's existing practice, where underground space — metro, parking facilities and other structures — is part of the overall shelter system. An up-to-date map of shelters is available on the city portal and in the "Kyiv Digital" app.

Contradictory data

Here it is important to distinguish two positions. On the one hand, the petition's author insists on the need to build new dual-purpose underground facilities — the final summary of the initiative refers to creating several (four) such parking shelters near metro stations. On the other hand, city authorities have not yet made any decisions to build such facilities: at present this is exclusively a public initiative, not a project approved by the Kyiv City Council. In addition, the petition must gather the required 6,000 votes to be considered. Thus, there is a notable gap between the initiator's ambitious concept and the actual status of the initiative — a "registered but not supported by the authorities petition" — which should be taken into account when assessing the prospects of the idea.

Background: the state of shelters in Ukraine

The initiative is being discussed against the backdrop of a broader debate on civilian protection. Since the beginning of 2026, around 600 shelters and temporary accommodation sites for internally displaced persons have been inspected in Ukraine, and sanitary and hygiene violations were found in almost every fifth facility. Meanwhile, in Kyiv there have recently been disputes over the appropriateness of setting up tents at metro stations during massive attacks: some residents note that the tents take up too much space in the shelters. Against this backdrop, the proposal to create additional underground parking shelters looks like an attempt to expand and relieve the existing protection system.