16 comments

  1. If you want to stop people bringing their cars into the central city and parking them then the council has to be prepared to enforce parking restrictions because people just park on the street illegally and clog up other streets with parking their cars because the council is not prepared to enforce restrictions on bringing cars into the CBD in the first place. Having a great public transport system in London or any other major city doesn’t stop people congesting the roads with cars and they have to look at penalising the use of cars. Planners have this social engineering utopia that if they make it harder for people to drive their cars people will stop using them, but like when petrol prices go up, it only affects some people. I have seen silly things from traffic planners like putting trees and shrubbery in the middle of roundabouts to block peoples view of oncoming traffic in the naive idea people will drive more safely on the roundabouts. They put traffic calming measures into streets to try to force people to slow down and drive more safely and the drivers just give them the finger figuratively and there is this battle that escalates. Bus priority measures like building a bus stop in the traffic lane so all the traffic has to stop when the bus stops to let passengers on were widely ridiculed and people dangerously overtook the bus when it stopped like they had a right to. Every cyclist and pedestrian sees plenty of self entitled behaviour from car drivers on the roads, if you want to improve the issues caused by car use you have to start penalising people for their driving behaviour otherwise it is all just social engineering naivety that doesn’t achieve much.

    1. And AT are planning on introducing floating bus stops now. A much better measure is change the law to give priority to buses to reenter traffic. Many (most?) people just race past or block a bus rentering traffic.
      Note I drive to work from a central suburb and have a work car park so I guess evil to this site.

    2. You need both enforcement and good street design. Also law changes as mentioned below say give way to buses pulling out like in some Australian states IIRC.

  2. The Hawkes Bay cities take residential parking a step further. Cars need housing, so if you can’t convert a car storage space into garage it doesn’t count as car park.

    “Each dwelling unit must provide a notion garage” – 61.16 Residential Activities: Napier DP

    Definition from Hasting DP
    “Notional garage: means any area of land measuring 18.5 square metres when a garage, carport, or other vehicle parking space is not proposed, or is not existing on the site, and shall be required to meet all bulk and location requirements for the relevant zone. NOTE: 5.5 metres by 3.3 metres garage size plus eaves equals 18.5 square metres”

    http://www.hastingsdc.govt.nz/files/all/documents/districtplan/review/19.0definitions.pdf

  3. Lower Hutt is another example of a city wrecked by parking, Massive amounts of it along the riverbank. The cbd is dying so its obviously not working.

  4. We need to separate the CBD from the suburbs here. I can see no reason for on-street parking in the CBD – it just doesn’t make sense. Those shopping or working in the CBD already use parking buildings or public transport and cars parked in the area just get in the way. However, once you get out of the tight CBD cordon, then on-street parking has to be considered simply because the businesses are the type that are geared to customers being able to drive up to the front door, pop in to get what they want, and drive off.

    1. Why do you need to be able to park outside a shop?

      If we removed the on-street parking to allow for bus lanes and bus stops, wouldn’t we be able to move more people and potentially the shop in front of the bus stop would become more valuable.

      1. “Why do you need to be able to park outside a shop?” – Nik, you’re not thinking like a retailer. We’ve had a decade-long argument about parking outside shops in Wellington, with retailers adamant that the removal of parking directly outside their shop will be the death of them. Apparently, if every car owner doesn’t have the chance to stop their wheels for 10 minutes and pop inside for an thingummy or a whatsit, then the shop is being deprived of customers and they’ll have to close down. I’ve no idea if this is actually true, but it is trotted out every time a bus lane or cycle lane is proposed.

        1. If the retailer was honest they would come clean and admit that the car parked right outside their shop belongs to them. The number of times I have had this discussion with retailers who complain that their customers can’t park right outside and then admit that its because their own car is taking up a space is incredibly high

    2. However, once you get out of the tight CBD cordon, then on-street parking has to be considered simply because the businesses are the type that are geared to customers being able to drive up to the front door, pop in to get what they want, and drive of https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@-36.7894569,174.7724405,3a,90y,179.51h,97.68t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjiPmhV2aqUCN6pPWncZfLA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 .Ok why is this takeway still in takapuna with no parking out side its front door a takeaway is the ultimet pop in pop out shop and its been there from the 70s evanj can you tell us why all the shops haven ‘t gone out of busines along this part of lake rd ?there has NEVER been parking here .

      1. Yes. And as regards cycleways, even NZTA say: “research suggests the loss of customer car parks is likely to be more than outweighed by increased custom from cyclists.”

        Bus lanes are a bit different, when they’re put in place to move commuters through an area rather than to and from the area. But even there, the most important thing for retailers is good pedestrian amenity for their customers, who – research shows – wish to be able to walk to several shops in one visit.

  5. One of my concerns is that the provision of free, or subsidised parking by AT or Council is preventing the provision of other amenities. While say the $20 million dollar Albany park and ride is great for the few who can use it, what cost has it come at to the rest of the public transport network? Could the feeder bus network due to be implemented two years ago have removed the necessity for some of these parks? When (and now is it an if that) the new network is introduced we are unlikely to know the effect of the feeder services as given the choice between a feeder service and free parking most will probably choose the free parking.
    AT currently controls 2300 car parking spaces in Takapuna with peak demand currently at 1500 spaces. (Unbelievably for many another 450 to be added). How much are we as ratepayers paying to provide all these spaces? What return is achieved on this investment given that at any time so many are either empty or free?
    I am of the strong belief that provision of public parking is one of those taxes that we are better off without and that individuals should bear the cost of parking if they choose, or use some other way to reach their destination.

  6. Parking laws are very simple – there shouldn’t be any.

    It should solely be a decision of the building proprietor as to if or how many car parks are integrated into the building. The building tenants will respond accordingly. If indeed there is demand for parking in central city buildings tenants will chose building that provide the facility. No doubt there will be an extra cost associated with that. If not then they will choose the comparatively slightly cheaper building with no car parks.

    This is not an area our councils need to be involved with whatsoever. Yet council and council spends valuable resources in this area which inevitably results in stupid outcomes and causes more problems than solutions.

  7. The Re’al Matthew I agree with you to some extent.

    Being idealistic & in lieu of congestion charges being available:
    0) The requirement to provide parking should be removed.
    1) Every on street / off street public and private parking space would be electronically monitored
    2) The transport system provider would regulate to allow for a levy on parking (based on time vehicle parked & time vehicle leaves the space & proportionate to the network congestion at the time of entry and exit) in addition to whatever the parking provider wants to charge.
    3) The levy would be payable daily by the vehicle owner not the space provider.
    4) The levy would solely be aimed at managing peak period travel demand to and from the CBD (in lieu of congestion tolls being available)

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