Last week Auckland Transport finalised their region wide parking strategy which they first consulted on a year ago. All up AT received more than 5,500 submissions.
The strategy is potentially one of the most important that AT have as parking has huge impacts across a wide range of areas so managing it right is critically important. It has the ability to impact on how people live, congestion, what mode they use, the provision of bus and cycle infrastructure and even local economies.
One of the things I really like about the strategy is that it fairly clearly sets out what the various parking management options are and also what the trigger points are for changes. The types of parking restriction listed are:
- Loading Zones
- Mobility Parking
- Motorcycle Parking
- Taxi Stands
- Buses and tour coach parking
- Car Share Parking
- Time Restrictions
- Bicycle Parking
For each of these there is a description of what the restriction is for and the policies around it. An example of this is below:
As mentioned there are trigger points as to when parking management might change, the example below is for on-street parking and shows the magic number for change is an occupancy of 85%.
There is additional information for priced parking that addresses issues such as how frequently AT will review parking demand, how it will adjust prices, the times of operation and for off-street parking this includes issues like yield targets and pass options. In addition to managing parking there are policies that cover topics such as the investment in new or divestment of off street parking facilities.
Residential parking schemes have been started to be introduced in some areas and have been proposed in others. In general our view is that residential parking schemes are unwise however they are often popular with locals and AT have created policies to deal with these. Some of the components in the parking schemes include
- Time restrictions for those without a permit.
- A cap on the number of parking permits issued based on a percentage of total car parks available,
- The ability for people to stay longer than the permit by paying a daily charge – residents also get a number of free days per year for visitors.
- Restrictions on permits to only dwellings built before the council’s Unitary Plan was notified.
- Permits that will be issued based on an order of priority which is below.
Arterial roads get special mention and importantly AT say that they will manage parking on arterial roads by potentially removing parking if it:
- Causes significant delays to the speed and reliability of public transport on the FTN, and/or
- Causes safety risks for cyclists or impedes quality improvements on the Auckland Cycle Network
Actually acknowledging that bus and cycle infrastructure is more important than parking is hopefully a significant step in AT being able to stand up to locals who claim the sky will fall if a single carpark is removed.
There are a few other policies covered in the document however the last one I want to address is Park & Ride (P&R). AT say there are currently about 5,500 P&R spaces around Auckland (with about 20% of those at Albany Busway station alone) and 80% are at capacity by 8am. AT want up to an extra 10,000 P&R spaces over the next 30 years. I’m not convinced pursuing lots of P&R is a great strategy as while they get used, they don’t actually contribute that many customers to the network. Even if 10,000 new spaces appeared tomorrow and they were all used by people who don’t currently use PT, that’s only around 2.5 million extra trips per year which is nothing really. If they do get more P&R one thing I like is they talk about opportunities including making better use of locations near stations that have an excess of parking during the week, examples include shopping centres, sports fields and even churches.
One aspect that will cause some concern is the suggestion that P&R could be charged if occupancy is high to manage demand. Many will complain however experience from Calgary shows it can be done without losing patronage. The map below shows the potential sites to investigate adding & P&R. If these come to pass there will end up a lot of space dedicated to parking and as I mentioned earlier, not that much extra patronage for it. On this AT do mention that P&R is almost a form of land banking.
Overall the document is fairly good and a welcome addition to the landscape.
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Be nice to see a reduction in Handicapped spaces – which in many cases are actually never used (and yes we have handicapped relatives, and yes I understand the need – but the volume is the problem). Also sacrificing car spaces for parking cycles is plain dumb – who thinks up these ideas?. Cycles can be better, and more practically, parked off road under cover – something like bus shelter / 3 sided shed type construction – which would be better for the bikes and the owners.
So parking for 10 people in the same space that is currently parking for (usually) one is dumb? What, because people who use bikes are 10 times less important than people who drive, or some other stoopid reason that only you understand about the god given rights of drivers over everyone else?
As usual Patrick, you get quite aggressive when anyone has a different opinion to yours…
Ricardo does make a valid point that bikes (where space is available) should be off street. Obviously in an area with limited off street space then taking a car park space would be different story.
Regarding the handicapped spaces, it would be good to see a review of these as it seems that certain areas have a shortage of these spaces whilst most areas seem to have an abundance (literally the only parks free often are handicapped spaces – plural).
This issue is often quite prevalent in office areas where it could be that not a single employee in 4 companies occupying 2 office buildings is disabled. That could easily be 4 carparks that just go empty 364 days a year with perhaps 1 of them used on a single occasion at some point.
Well Bruce that’s quite a passive aggressive reaction of yours. And as for Ricardo, he doesn’t have opinions, he has prejudices.
Its curious how he is first to comment on so many articles.
Bruce; ‘where space is available’ exactly, it often isn’t, so all the more reason to use what space is available more efficiently. Parking is parking whether for bikes or cars; the fact remains that wherever there is demand for bike parking it is more space efficient to use one space for 10 riders than one driver. Unless of course one harbours some prejudice against other people like bike users or the disabled…?
Mobility parks should be mostly empty, like bus lanes; that means they are available for those that need them. And frankly this is the stupidest sentence I’ve read today: ‘Be nice to see a reduction in Handicapped spaces’ Really? ‘nice’. For whom? The second half of this sentence, as usual for our anonymous traffic engineer friend comes with no data or link, is simply prejudice: ‘which in many cases are actually never used’.
And as for: ‘yes I have handicapped relatives…’ FFS.
In light of this litany of nonsense my responses are frankly restrained.
please enlighten me as to how that is “passive-aggressive” Harry? Having an opinion on a blog is what blogs are about. How you write it of course dictates whether you are being aggressive or not. I haven’t paid any particular attention to Ricardo’s posts in the past however this particular post caught my attention and I replied based on the reply to that post (and Patrick’s habit of being aggressive to anyone who doesn’t share his particular view about a topic – He has many valid views on the majority of things but not always). Perhaps Ricardo has a habit of saying unusual things – I wouldn’t know.
Patrick, you quote the following: “‘where space is available’ exactly, it often isn’t, so all the more reason to use what space is available more efficiently.” yet conveniently leave out the rest of the quote (here it is): “that bikes (where space is available) should be off street. Obviously in an area with limited off street space then taking a car park space would be different story.”
i.e. Where there is space off street for bike parking then it should be used there leaving the car parks in place. However where there is limited off street space (i.e. limited footpath space, small berm/open space areas) then yes converting a car park to 10 bike spaces does make sense, so please don’t quote me again out of context. Then you go on to say the following: “Mobility parks should be mostly empty, like bus lanes”. The difference here is that while a bus lane is mostly empty, it is still used every 5 mins (or however often that lane has buses). My comment about mobility spaces is that there are a lot of them than are literally NEVER used…EVER. I’m not saying get rid of them but did bring up that there should be a review based on location etc. As my example of an office described there could be 4 spaces that are never used except possibly for a very occasional visitor. It would be highly unlikely that there would be more than 1 visitor at the same time (let alone 4) that would require all of these spaces. This could quite easily be reduced to 2 spaces which would provide that “mostly empty” situation you describe. As I also mentioned there are probably certain places where mobility spaces need to be increased.
Bruce; evidence please. Or is it just your hunch that these parks are never used?
Any amenity ‘never used’ should indeed be reevaluated for other uses.
As a user of mobility parks (which my wife insists on calling disability parks in order to wind me up) I’m quite surprised at your comment Ricardo. I can find very few of these in the CBD (which is quite hilly as you may have noticed), which is one reason why I seldom visit the CBD. The other reason is that there is little of interest there except the Waiheke ferry that I can easily reach by train, or if I need to attend a meeting there then a taxi does the trick. But your comment re cycle parks is eminently sensible, as of course cycles can easily access many locations that cars cannot so it’s win-win. I really don’t know why some people see it as some sort of contest when both needs can be met contemporaneously!
And were exactly is there space for these off road under cover parks for bikes. There is hardly space on the foot paths for people.
Ricardo, in some areas there’s not much room off-road for bike parking, for example at the ferry terminals at Birkenhead and Northcote Pt. There it makes sense to replace a few car parks with bike parking.
I know a few years ago they installed a bike cage at the Birkenhead wharf, in the pedestrian area on the waterfront. The location unfortunately upset some people — http://bra.org.nz/birkenhead-wharf-bike-cage/ . A better location would be on Hinemoa Street, where it would indeed replace a few car parks.
If they replace 3 car parks with a bike cage for 30 bikes, but only 5 people decide to come on bike instead of by car, then the bike cage will still be almost empty, but hey, there’s already 2 car parks extra available for the other people.
As for residential permit zone parking. Works well in the UK and other European countries I visit for work, and will work well here with the future added concentration of dwellings on small sites and the associated lack of offroad parking.
I live in Kingsland and my street (and the ones around it) is packed very day by “hide and ride” people who drive in from the outer burbs and catch the 1 stage bus into the CBD. One guy used to come from Howick! This causes problems for the locals with no on street parking for visitors, deliveries or tradespeople. My neighbour’s new fridge delivery blocked the whole street for 20 minutes, and the family down the road had to run a shuttle service for their 5 year old’s birthday party. Auckland City had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to ballot for residents only parking about 10 years ago but seemed to give up after that. Where I work in Takapuna, the streets close to the town centre have a mix of all day free parking and P180 so that both commuters and shorter term users can be accommodated.
Instead of residential permits, you need to have an open coupon/permit parking system available to all, with existing dwelling owners having first preference perhaps. First preference system goes away after a year when all coupons have to be renewed annually. First two hours are free without a coupon for visitors.
Yes that’s rationing by willingness to pay instead of by adjacent property rights, seems fairer to me. No one owns the street outside their house or workplace; but so many think they do. I am uneasy about reinforcing the extension of property rights onto the public realm. I wonder about the two hours free though; too long?
Two hours is used in Wellington for their coupon parking zone, which generally works ok. You’d do a post-implementation evaluation to see if two hours would be too long in the Auckland context.
Here’s what I don’t quite understand about your opposition to residential parking schemes. In these areas there are a number of people competing for parking space:
locals, visitors, customers to local business, local workers, commuters
You make it sound as if residential parking would only benefit the local residents. Or that parking will be reserved for residents.
In fact, what really helps are the time restrictions in those areas to prevent commuter parking. The residential parking only exempts the locals residents from the time restrictions.
Most importantly it allows short term visitors and customers to actually go about their business.
So actually quite a number of people benefit from such a scheme.
I do understand the argument (or fact) that the road is public space and owning/renting a house does not give the resident an automatic right to park in front of the house. But residential parking does not give them that right either.
As a disclosure, I do live in one of the affected suburbs and I do work from home so there is a certain amount of self-interest that may cloud my judgement.
By exempting locals from time restrictions it absolutely give them rights to park their car outside their house, that’s the whole point of it. If I lived in an area with a parking permit and had of street parking I’d park on the street and leave the car there all day (using PT, walking or cycling) while converting the off street parking into an extra room/patio area to increase the value of the house. And all for a nominal fee as by law AT are only allowed to charge an admin fee for these schemes.
” as by law AT are only allowed to charge an admin fee for these schemes”
Seriously? Is that a central government law?? That is ridiculous.
Apparently. I know people at AT who would love for it not to exist to be able to charge a more realistic price to better manage demand.
That is ridiculous. If residents want to have a guaranteed park via a residents parking only scheme then they should be paying for it ($30 per month sounds reasonable to me). If they don’t want to pay that then they can try their luck with the public carpark spaces.
“I’m not convinced pursuing lots of P&R is a great strategy as while they get used, they don’t actually contribute that many customers to the network. Even if 10,000 new spaces appeared tomorrow and they were all used by people who don’t currently use PT, that’s only around 2.5 million extra trips per year which is nothing really.”
Quality vs. Quantity. Multiply the ride numbers by length and look at possible substitutions.
The most utilised Park & Ride facilities are at the outer extremities of our public transport network and capture a share of the Aucklanders who live outside of the MUL and commute to work. A single usage of the P&R in Redvale is perhaps more helpful in reducing our carbon footprint than an entire circuit of the city link bus. Patrons of the P&R will either use the facility or drive the entire long distance, whereas city link bus services can be substituted by walking the short distance.
Agreed, and this blog has often stated the exact same thing. A park and ride on an unbuildable swamo in Redvale is sensible, a park and ride in $5,000/m^2 Samles Farm is not.
Off street parking already increases the value of your property. It is debatable whether this is more than say another room but ask yourself two questions:
Even if you don’t have a residential parking scheme, if you have off street parking in form of a garage, what would stop you from parking in your driveway and converting the garage?
How many people in St Mary’s Bay gave up their garages in order to park in the street and expand their house?
my next door neighbour does
I have owned three inner city villas, in each case I have removed the garages in order to expand the human space.
The first a double garage was replaced with a studio [still is], the second was replaced by an extended bedroom and a new courtyard [actually restoring the Edwardian extent of the house that was lost in a later garage addition]. And the current one I do intend to rebuild a new subterranean garage space that will have room for cars but will really be filled with bikes, other storage, a ping-pong table and drum kit.
Bedrooms for cars; meh.
Funny how when some stupid law prevents a private business operating, the government step in and change it ASAP (e.g. Uber). But when a stupid law stops the Council / AT from doing something sensible, the government don’t do anything and then criticise AT for not having a valid plan.
Why shouldn’t AT be allowed to charge whoever whatever they want to park on council land? Especially when the charge is more about coming up with a fair outcome for everyone rather than lining AT’s pockets.
You’re quite right that a chief benefit is to remove the all day ‘hide-and-riders’ from the game. But resident parking schemes, especially ones that substantially underprice the space does give special rights to local residents, it’s in the name: Residents Parking, it is giving these people preferential rights over public property.
It is at least the reverse of urban motorway construction which does the opposite; that prioritises the movement needs of people further out over the place value of those already there!
These are trade-offs we are always making in cities and it is best when we are clear about what is being done.
That parking is increasingly contentious is a sign that Auckland is indeed ever more city-like in its form. Cities are engines of space and place value.
I own an apartment in St Marys Bay and apartment owners are excluded from the Resident Parking Zone. I needed an extra carpark so I could store my private possessions somewhere (a.k.a my car), so I bought an unbundled carkpark for $40,000 (it costs me $2,200 p.a. for 5.5% loan). Body corp is $500, and rates are $130. Total cost $2,830 p.a.
These costs all seem reasonable to me, but I don’t see why my neighbours get to store their private possessions on public land for only $70 p.a, considering most of them have double garages and I only had a one carpark attached to my unit.
Given my carpark is secure and guaranteed access, it would be reasonable to pay 100% more than non-guaranteed and non-secure, so $1415 would seems like a more reasonable fee for a parking permit, but currently they are paying less than 1/20th of that.
Why on earth do they think apartments should have lower priority to parking than houses? Are the people who live in apartments who need a space 2nd class or something?
I think it a resistance to change and a belief in the quarter arce dream.
There is a sense of entitlement and the process of changing opinions of what is fair and equitable for everyone will take a lengthy period to resolve, I’m guessing that it’s a 10 year problem, rather than a single consultation.
Crazy isn’t it? Much transport and housing policy seems to reflect prejudice. See the first comment above; lot of it about.
Is it really just prejudice? Or have they confused themselves? Maybe they thought apartment owners are less likely to own a car but even if that is so it isn’t even remotely relevant. People who want to park have already self selected as people who have a car to park! Surely how your walls are connected to other people walls doesn’t matter. People in apartments who dont have a car won’t ask for a permit. Priorities should reflect need not the shape of your home.
Surely people who have chosen to purchase or rent a house without offstreet parking have self selected that having a place to park their car is not a priority.
And when people have chosen to purchase a property with offstreet parking they have chosen to control that supply themselves. Neither case ‘deserves’ automatic free or underpriced public land to store their possessions on.
Also it’s fair to say that anyone who choses to live in inner areas must do so in the understanding that that public land near their dwelling is likely to not be available to them on demand, even if it can be expected to be in further out areas.
I think you are both being too harsh. Plenty of people buy houses where off street parking is impossible or undesirable ie you could form a space but to get access you have to remove one on-street space. The issue is how do you allocate on-street parking in a manner that achieves transport objectives. The choice is allow inner city residents to park outside their home and leave their car there for the day while they cycle/walk/bus to work or alternatively make that space available to a commuter who drives in on congested roads and then parks in congested streets. Which do you want? My vote is the local person.
Isn’t that a presumption that people with apartments are less likely to have cars? Would have preferred this to have been backed up by data rather than beliefs.
Not really, all it gives you a better chance of finding a car park closer to your home.
So do time restrictions. They give a certain group of people (short term parkers e.g. visitors, trades people, customers, etc) a preferential access to parking spaces over long term parkers (commuters, residents) over public property. And sometimes even for free.
All residential parking does is add residents without off-street parking back into the equation.
So we already restrict parking access in some areas by differentiating the use of the parking space.
How on earth can you deny that residential parking schemes don’t privilege residents? That is the very thing they are designed to do. It seems your earlier admission of self-interest is indeed clouding your view!
Privilege residents? Hardly. It re mediates some the negative externalities bought out by people using suburban streets as park and ride.
Personally I think using streets as p ark and ride is way better than building new spaces at a massive cost. Not all my neighbours agree…
Patrick, I didn’t deny that at all, quite the contrary. What I said is we already give different people different parking privileges, e.g. through time restrictions.
Time restrictions give short term parkers a privilege over long term parkers. Sometimes even free of charge. In fact, any form of management of parking gives privilege to one group over the other.
So, why the outrage over giving some residents a privilege? The fact that they would enjoy a privilege is not an argument against residential parking. Unless, of course, your position is that all on street parking should be unrestricted and unmetered.
My point was also by introducing time restrictions and resident parking it is not only the residents that benefit from the scheme.
A couple of things.
One is my pet parking peeve, related to the first few posts above. Motorcycle parking. I would favour preferred, free motorcycle parking on the street, surface lots and in garages. It annoys me no end to have one motorcycle take up an entire car park, when there is room for three or four of them. So, I offer motorcyclists and scooterists premium free parking in exchange for their one-per-customer car park. Deal?
It appears that there could be as many as 2000 additional car parks at northern busway stations. That’s going to require a lot of additional capacity. Anybody know if that’s what they’re planning? I’d like to think so but I don’t know.
I see a large p&r is planned for Drury – does this mean electrification is going to be extended at least to Drury? Hopping on a train at Drury only to have to change a couple of minutes down the line at Papakura is hardly conducive to using a public transport service.
Drury station and other stations before Pukekohe, and their attendant parking will be timed with electrification of the line. You are right that it would be ludicrous to park for a one stop ride- but then they do it at Orakei!
We should also do it with Kumeu, because it is planned to be a major satellite town before 2045 and has a railway line.
Will it be a fully electrified double track service before 2045 to Kumeu or will it be autocentric still ?
Just because it has a rail line won’t make it fit for purpose as a transit based satellite town.
Two different cases. Because the northern exurban line is so indirect it looks likely that buses to the improved-but-not-yet-a-busway on the North Western will be more effective for the near to medium term. But as that growth occurs, and if it occurs at speed, then certainly a rail service should be re-investigated. The Southern line also has the advantage of already being double tracked. Perhaps there will be a case for transferring the diesel units south to north when that line is electrified? Especially as they will have been upgraded.
Electrifying up north, with the long and tight tunnel, single track etc, is clearly uneconomic without huge growth. But perhaps a case can be made in the future for a Helensville-Swanson service if population does really go bonkers up there. If it is mad popular perhaps there’s a case for a targeted rate, and development contributions for the capex [passing loops, station upgrades, etc]…?
There are no plans to make it double tracked or electric prior to mid century, hence why there isn’t a large P&R. The plans also prohibit intensive development along the railway corridor and preference car reliant rural sprawl for that area.
The plans prefer development along the motorway corridor to extension of development down the rail corridor.
I would use a station in Drury even if the line wasn’t electrified, as long as the train schedules were aligned, but maybe I’m not representative of the population here? I’ve given up going into Papakura, it’s 50km/h almost right through to the station and parking is a hassle.
People may work in Henderson or New Lynn, in which case the rail system would provide a direct, congestion free option. Should be thinking beyond Swanson.
They ‘may’, but only single digit numbers turn up to do so…. so….
so….we should build more homes nart to the railway station.
Na, should build a proper line straight down the NW motorway. T-off at Kumeu and fix the crap north of there.
Imagine that, a proper rapid train Helensville-Kumeu-Westgate-Britomart. Then build Towns around the stations. So much underutilised land…
Yep, they may… but don’t. In the 2013 Census a grand total of 42 residents from the whole Waimauku Huapai Kumeu Riverhead area commuted to Henderson. For New Lynn it was 24 at most. I say at most because the census rounds small figures to 6 for privacy reasons. This is for all modes of travel to work, at all times of day. Even if the outer northwest managed an amazingly high 50% PT journey to work modeshare to these places, you’d still barely half fill one bus across the whole day.
Four times that number work in Albany, and five times the number work in the city centre. If rapid transit make sense, then it makes sense to the upper north shore and the city centre.
The question is just how much growth and shift in travel patterns would be required before a train makes sense. 1,000%, 10,000%?
But that’s the past Nick. The future could be so different.
Charge for Park and ride to manage the turnover. When the demand becomes to high and charges to maintain free space at say 20% then use the P&R as commercial development. (Retaining the land in public ownership and lease it to developer) Then high value commercial space is used to make the pedestrian and denser uses/rent contribute to the city amenity. At that stage move the P&R away from this transport hub to the developing hub further out. That way with smooth multi modal moves from feeder to transit ticketing it keeps the congestion and car movements further away from the transport hub.
Nothing worse than walking through acres of cars to get to the transport you are going to travel on.