Parking is seen as a public good that should be supplied to everyone… Resistance to parking management is tied in a nostalgic way to “the good old days” and used as a form of coded language to complain about increases in population density or changes in community demographics or class structure.

Intelligent people often seem to get less intelligent when they discuss parking. – Parking Management for Smart Growth

Parking supply has become one of those awkward subjects, often because the “equity” argument is used as an excuse for resisting change.

Yet we must discuss it. All these different documents are under consultation, or under review:

Well beyond parking minimums, there are implications about:

  • legal and illegal parking supply,
  • private and public parking supply,
  • streetscapes and the public realm,
  • how to increase integration of strategies and practice.

So let’s get the basics right. The evidence is clear that excessive parking supply encourages people to drive more, inducing traffic. More traffic makes other modes less attractive, creating modeshift to driving and preventing modeshift from driving. For our transport networks to improve and our city to become more liveable and sustainable, we need a much reduced volume of traffic.

The idea that even drivers would be better off if parking was reduced might be seen as a truism, like the satirical statistics reported by The Onion, that 98 percent of Americans support the use of mass transit by others.

While car parking was a non-negotiable amenity for baby boomers, it is an eyesore to millennials and the up-and-coming iGen. Newer generations want more city and fewer cars. Globally, scrapping car parking is the latest trend in urban planning – The Conversation

We can prevent this being a generational issue. Younger people may be more willing to question the status quo, but everyone is affected by too much parking provision, including how it ruins urban form and limits transport choices.

If you are challenged by the idea that excessive parking makes life harder for people who drive, read on.

Examples of how a reduced supply of parking would benefit people who drive:

Do you feel tied to having to drive because the bus is just too slow for the trips you do? A reduction of car parking can improve the travel time of both your driving trip and the alternative bus trip. That means there’ll be less of your day wasted in traffic, and the option of public transport might come within reach.

Do you live further than you want from your work and the places you like to go, and feel stuck driving long distances? If we could replace the excessive car parking with housing and other amenities, you’ll have more choices in housing location. This would allow some people to cut their commute and move to the new high-density housing opportunities, while those who prefer to stay put can enjoy the lower traffic volumes.

Reduced parking supply also improves safety, and since everybody walks, including people who drive, this benefits us all.

Examples of how a reduced supply of parking would benefit people who use public transport, and who walk and cycle:

Do you want your children to be able to walk to their friends’ places, the local parks, their activities and to school, but are worried about traffic fumes and danger en route? Auckland has a deficient walking environment, and the danger from motor vehicles to people walking is high. NZTA has a hierarchy of treatments to solve this issue, and say “reduction in traffic volumes” is the first treatment that should be considered:


Do you like to take the bus to go shopping, but find the “last leg” of the trip unpleasant or unsafe? Reducing car parking near the shopping centres, and thus reducing traffic, means less congestion at those intersections. With less demand to accommodate high traffic volumes, you should see the removal of the dangerous slip lanes, shorter crossing distances due to fewer turning lanes, wider footpaths, and more pedestrian priority at the traffic signals.

Reducing traffic volumes is also a prerequisite of creating a cycling network. Trying to install cycle infrastructure within our current too-high traffic volumes simply keeps the danger at high levels wherever cycles and motor vehicles cross.

Are you trying to cycle to work, but give up for a while each time you get spooked where you cross or mix with traffic? Reducing car parking, and thus reducing traffic, will decrease the danger for you, and help your ride become safer and more comfortable.

Reducing parking supply improves the amenity and safety for people walking, cycling, and using public transport. This means fewer people need to drive, and that benefits us all.  Our parking supply is, essentially, forcing people from the “could take public transport” and “could cycle” category into the “need to drive” category.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne say:

Parking can directly compromise the adoption of active and sustainable modes of transport.

Firstly, free and easily accessible parking contributes to induced driving and car ownership. For example, researchers from Oslo’s Institute of Transport Economics found that access to private household parking facilities triples the likelihood of car ownership, whereas increasing the distance between parking and destinations reduces car mode share…

Secondly, on-street parking can directly compete for limited road space, inhibiting the ability to reallocate street space to improved pedestrian or cycling infrastructure (such as bicycle lanes), or to create priority lanes for road-based public transport (such as buses or trams).

Additionally, on-street parking spurs congestion from “cruising” for parking spaces, and movements in and out of spaces, as well as increasing the risk of “dooring” cyclists.

In case you’re worried that drivers would ‘cruise’ for parking more, the answer lies in managing – with pricing – the parking supply we retain:

Management tools reduce overall parking demand and cruising for parking— the process of circling for parking spaces. Reduced cruising lessens vehicle miles traveled, congestion, and instances of distracted drivers, which makes pedestrians and cyclists safer. – Parking Management for Smart Growth

Why would people with limited finances want to see a reduced supply of parking?

Reducing traffic volumes and encouraging modeshift reduces the overall cost of the transport network, because driving is a very expensive mode. The roading infrastructure can be put to much better use, without widening projects, if it is used by space-efficient modes. That reduces everyone’s costs, something that will be felt most keenly by those with the least money. With society losing less money to congestion, there should be more money available to ensure everyone gets a decent wage and can afford the transport choices they make. Retaining excessive parking and making everyone suffer from the resulting traffic congestion is not a wise way to provide affordable transport for anyone.

What about people with limited mobility?

In many cities with quality footpath and public transport networks, people with reduced mobility prefer the public transport system because they feel more independent than relying on others to drive them. Auckland should have a goal, too, of providing people with limited mobility as many choices as possible. Mobility parks and parking management to ensure there are always spaces available are all compatible with a lower overall supply of parking.

Some cities have been reducing their parking spaces for a long time.

Zurich capped its car park numbers at 1990 levels back in 1996.

Philadelphia reduced its off-street parking around downtown, between 2010 and 2015:

by about 3,000 spaces, a 7% reduction. Most of that is tied to the replacement of surface lots with new development.

Until recently, Mexico City was

building more parking than housing. Now new reforms are pushing the parking aside and returning the pavement to the people.

Amsterdam plans to:

remove up to 11,200 parking spaces from its streets by the end of 2025… As room for cars is removed, it will be replaced by trees, bike parking, and wider sidewalks…

Brussels is shedding 65,000 car parks over the next decade:

Yet Auckland’s struggling with the concept.

Far from managing to reduce our carparks, we’re still building new ones!

Of all the regressive development happening in our city, the building of new parking lots and the inclusion of levels of parking provided in new buildings is one of the biggest concerns. Here are a few of the many developments with excessive additional parking:

None of these areas need more traffic, with more cars crossing over the footpaths and cycle lanes, and clogging intersections. A well-planned city that is growing in population will add amenities and facilities while removing carparking. In this way, the traffic volumes can reduce as is required for the increasing number of people living, walking and cycling in the city.

The extra traffic induced by parking is, of course, a cause of climate change. As the UN says:

Climate change is now affecting every country on every continent… Limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society

The draft Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland’s Climate Action Framework describes “What we want for the future”:

Cars no longer dominate the urban landscape and public spaces are put to better use.

Of course, retailers are better off with less parking too.

In case none of this convinces you, what’s your economic position on it?

If parking was priced at the full cost of the land plus the costs imposed by the driving it induces, many people would choose not to pay it. Is it right that the whole network should be slowed down – and people forced into modes or into danger they don’t want – just because we subsidise this parking by making it free or cheap?

We’re investing money in strategies to encourage people to take up the healthy, low-carbon transport modes. We’re also going to be spending billions of dollars to mitigate our excessive carbon emissions. What is the point of wasting all that money by creating modeshift in the opposite direction, through the retention of excessive parking supply?

As I outlined in the post about “good density,” we need to steadily and consistently take steps in the right direction. Reducing parking supply forms part of a responsible integrated climate, economic, land use, health and transport strategy.

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76 comments

  1. Lack of payment for parking at park and ride stations is the worst example in my opinion.

    Worst part of not charging is it prevents being able to trac usage. Such tracking could help identify needed bus routes for example.

    1. Therein lies the problem of this catch 22. Pay for parking at park n rides means factoring that cost into the expense of using both public transport (not cheap in Auckland) and owning a car. The chances are therefore that the car will remain on the road commuting instead of the driver taking PT and zero has been achieved, given the advantages the private car has.

      But vast carparks for holding largely single-occupant cars are not helpful either. And those people do not want to add another 30 minutes to an hour total commute and pay to use a slow link bus to the suburbs, hence one of the many reasons they own a car.

      In short, our unplanned sprawl of a city coupled with a PT system that remains far too unattractive to push for meaningful change is an enigma no one wants to crack.

      But on those few routes where PT is brilliant and fast or at least unhindered by using roads is where intense housing should be built and why for example, Eden Park, virtually unused all-year-round should be turned into a high rise housing estate! And then the waste that is parking could easily be eliminated.

      1. What about leasing Park and Rides to those that prove they don’t live on any PT routes?

        More admin for AT. But i’m sure it can be figured out.

        PnRs cannabalise PT. I suspect that alot of people drive to P and Rs who are on feeder bus routes. It’s this behaviour that needs to change.

      2. Charging for PNR will not reduce the number of people using it. All that will change is some people who start early enough to get a free spot currently but don’t want to pay will drive and some people who currently drive because the PNR is full but are happy to pay will then get a spot.

      3. I am never going to stand on a feeder bus to get to the bus station to then change onto an express. I would drive there and pay $5 to avoid paying $12 for short term parking in the CBD. But all the spaces are full in the morning so instead I drive in all the way on either the northern or north western motorway. Park and ride is an important component of the trip and some people saying ‘people should use a feeder service because I think they should’ misses the point entirely. If you want people out of cars you have to make the alternative convenient.

      4. Yes the planning more or less enforces that everyone drives all the time.

        For instance, here is a few things you will see when walking around in Birkenhead town centre:
        – Despite being a very busy bus route, Mokoia Road has 2 parking lanes and no bus lanes.
        – The entire square is also reserved for parking
        – If you don’t want to drive everywhere all the time, the most logical place to live in this area is right here. You’re relatively well connected via PT, and all daily amenities are within a short walk. However there are almost no apartments; most buildings are single storey. (for added irony, one building has a fake second storey)

        The good thing you’ll notice is that people who are walking are not degraded from ‘citizen’ to ‘open season wild animal’. Contrast this to crossing eg. Ponsonby Road. Coincidence or not, you’ll notice people walking to the town centre on the surrounding streets all the time, which in Auckland is pretty unusual.

    2. I’ve always thought all park and ride parks should be integrated with Hop cards.

      If you get on a train / bus after parking, you get charged a reasonable daily rate, maybe about the same or slightly more than two single zone fares. This means it would be cheaper to bus if possible, especially with free transfers.

      If you don’t get on PT, you are charged a market hourly rate.

      I believe there are a lot of park and ride spaces around Auckland that are taken by local workers which doesn’t help anyone.

      1. Yes, even a small cost like that could make a big difference, and making it easy with the HOP card makes sense. One goal of good management of the park and rides would be that they don’t prevent people being able to walk and cycle to the stations, and don’t take ridership from the feeder buses. For this, a fair bit of land reallocation will be necessary in a number of places.

        The head photo is of the new park and ride at Takanini under construction back in May. Had this carpark replaced and consolidated all the carparks available in the area (eg kerbside parking) – with that converted to protected cyclelanes – then the local residents would have had a new active mode option. Plus, with no extra carparks, extra traffic wouldn’t have been induced.

        Instead, what AT has done here has increased the parking, therefore increased the traffic, making everything less safe for people cycling and walking, and taking both money and land which could have been put to better use.

        They believe the induced traffic won’t be a danger for the kids of Takanini School because the car park will have filled up before the kids go to school. Which shows that they understand the car park is of no use to the many people who might actually need it during the day (given the lack of good alternatives) – elderly people, caregivers with people with limited mobility, parents with preschoolers.

        Instead of providing options for these people, AT have provided for the commuters. Yet it’s the commuters who travel to the station at exactly the time when ridership would make feeder buses financially viable.

      2. Exactly like Amsterdam. Anyone has to pay to use park and rides; people who subsequently use PT get a discount. Not flipping rocket science.

  2. Twice every day I pass the electronic displays on Fanshawe St that show the number of empty space in AT’s car parks. Invariably it is a significant number. If they are not needed let’s have a conversation about selling them, but not as car parks.

    Heidi, you didn’t mention the number of car parks that AT are currently building or replacing. That for me is the really bizarre thing – in a city where the councillor’s believe there is a Climate Emergency they persist with actions like this.

    Remember it was back in 2014 that Auckland set the target for a 40% reduction in emissions by 2040. It seems judging from the information in the Climate Framework that no reductions have been achieved to date.

    I agree with you Heidi that removing car parks is one way to achieve emissions reductions. There are lots of options available when they are replaced. In surburban streets it could be rain gardens or trees, or both. In commercial areas it could be allowing business owners to install outdoor seating. Whatever path Auckland proceeds down it is likely to lead to a more pleasant urban landscape; and for the skeptics, just as commercially successful.

    1. + 1

      I almost guarantee that if AT sold its CBD parking buildings. It would be a minor blip to overall supply.

      It also seems like a bit of a conflict of interest for AT to even own off-street car parks. It is diametrically opposed to improving PT outcomes. Even a 4 year old would ask why we are funnelling traffic all the way to bottom of town; given the stated future state.

      Making this puzzle all the more weirder. Mother (AC) is allowing other kids to come over and feast from the soup pot by consenting all these privately owned extra carparks. Absolute nuts!!

      Solution is simple –
      AT sell all off-streets, redevelop into apartments or whatever higher use.

      Strip out on-streets as much as practicable and unlock the curb for other uses.

      Leave privately owned (yet Council consented off-streets) to maximise their return on motorists. Council has unfortunately opened Pandora’s box. We are stuck with Sky City, Wilsons, Tournament etc for the foreseeable future. Good luck trying to change usage now. Will be litigation forever…

      AT’s only remaining sticks/carrots left are then congestion charging (stick) and obviously making PT/active modes better (carrot).

      1. If we had a PT system worthy of this city you would have a very good argument. But we don’t. We have decades of the barest minimum of a system, an excuse for PT that our council ra ra up as being their very best they can deliver. Rail is good, very good but it barely covers much of this city. The Northern bus lanes again good but its so incomplete that it holds back all that potential.

        As for the rest, we have a 1956 post light rail public transport system that most peoples great grandparents, were they thawed out from their crypts, would recognise and be comfortable using.

        Give Auckland a PT system worth using rather than the shit-o-bus system and we might be getting somewhere. Heidi mentions taking parking away will improve bus times. It will but the route from downtown Auckland to Newmarket is 90% bus priority lanes and it takes minimum 3 times longer than the train and it gets far worse once past Newmarket to get to Market Rd for example. Why because buses are useless slow base PT.

        As it stands its is not going to cut it ever.

        Light rail was an excellent proposal and that is exactly what is needed NOW, not in Phil Twyfords never-never time. Money has never been cheaper to build this vital infrastructure but for myopic neo lib reasons of fiscal prudence and or sheer incompetence, our elected people either do not care or just do not get it!

        1. Someone wanting to get from Newmarket to Brito should catch the train. Someone wanting to get to Upper Queen/ K Road from Newmarket might be better served on a bus. The more routes we have the better.

          I agree that things were better in ’56’. However that is a moot point now. Split milk and all that.
          We are where we are. We have an incredibly large city with a tiny tax/rate payer base. We need to be realistic. retrofitting back to 56 right now is unrealistic.

          Given the massive amount of off-street supply we appear to have. It makes sense to get rid of as much on-street space and replace it with bus lanes/cycling infrastructure. From a ‘bang for buck’ point of view in terms of people throughput it stacks up.

          Then once this is a proven state… Who knows what could come next…

      2. The Auckland city centre has just over 40,000 off street carparks in either public buildings or office/retail complexes.

        AT has four main parking buildings with 4,200 car parks. So they control about 10% of the supply. Enough to undercut the market and set prices, but not enough to matter if they all disappeared one day…

        For reference, at peak times the public transport system delivers 4,200 people to the city centre every four minutes!

        1. AT controls the market for short term parking. Their buildings were built to provide a means for people to visit the CBD to shop or do business. For at least forty years the planning regime has tried to limit commuter parking. If AT get rid of their spaces then there will be some 36,000 spaces mostly dedicated to long stay users and hardly anything for short stay. That would be against the policies of the Unitary Plan and against AT’s own parking strategy and would just be plain stupid.

        2. In the CBD there is more money in long stay parking than in short stay so the market wouldn’t adjust. You would just have fewer visitor parking spaces, (and fewer disabled spaces and parent spaces etc.) Even the previous Auckland City tried to maximise commuter spaces in their buildings to make more money despite that being contrary to their own planning documents.

        3. Miffy “AT controls the market for short term parking. Their buildings were built to provide a means for people to visit the CBD to shop or do business. For at least forty years the planning regime has tried to limit commuter parking. If AT get rid of their spaces then there will be some 36,000 spaces mostly dedicated to long stay users and hardly anything for short stay. That would be against the policies of the Unitary Plan and against AT’s own parking strategy and would just be plain stupid.”

          This is what AT are supposed to do but in reality the car park spaces are not used for short-stay. Last time I checked (about 4 years ago to be fair, only 25% of spaces were used for short stay parking, the rest were used for long-stay.

      3. “We are stuck with Sky City, Wilsons, Tournament etc for the foreseeable future”
        Yes, but we are stuck with the buildings, but shouldn’t be stuck with them full of cars. e.g. it must have been reasonably foreseeable that when SkyCity built the recent car parks their patronage may have been at risk due to the then existent Auckland Council carbon policy of 40% reduction by 2040.

        1. Sky City has sold 3200 carparks as a concession to Care Park until 2048 for $220m.

          Care Park will want to maximise as much $$ as possible in that time. Trying to unwind such a deal may prove difficult.

        2. Kintyre
          Yes I am aware of the sale, but surely that was an arrangement between the two parties; with no guarantee that there wouldn’t be a congestion zone, or a no carbon zone imposed by Auckland Council.

        3. “In the CBD there is more money in long stay parking than in short stay”

          Where is the evidence for this? The longer people park the less they are prepared to pay.

          As Nick says, there are more than enough city parking spaces, so AT would be able to sell without impacting the market. As Matt says the number of cars entering the city is decreasing and it is planned for even less car mode share.

          Let’s take the word “can’t” out of this conversation because it seems abundantly clear that AT can reduce parking spaces and it is just a question of by how much.

  3. I agree with Rachel Stewart. I think I might buy me a V8 Mustang and just give up. If I can’t find parking at least I will enjoy making lots of noise.

    1. I assumed that you already were doing that Miffy? How on earth do you get to work anyway? I really can’t imagine you on an e-bike.

      1. I have worked at home for the last 20 years. My commute involves opening the back door, walking to the garage (built to satisfy a minimum parking rule but completely full of projects in various states of completion so the car sits outside), then up some stairs to a granny flat that is my office.
        I use my car to get to some meetings. I use the bus to get to some meetings if I know I can get a space at the Constellation Drive bus station (so afternoons only) and I ride my bike to get milk at the dairy or to the Hobsonville Farmers market to buy vegetables. People should choose what ever mode works for them best for that trip. But we should go thinking that everyone can afford to live within walking or cycling distance of their job.

  4. Parking along arterial should be banned and replaced with protected bike lanes and/or bus lanes or both (where possible and practical). Wasting this key space for parking is ridiculous when there is often plenty of parking in the nearest side street (visitors), or peoples driveways (residents) etc.

    Also PNR drives me nuts, instead of spending crazy amounts on more parking spaces, why not use that money to promote the bus feeders more, people who PNR often live along feeders, some of which are even frequent. Those who don’t live along a feeder bus route can also park along at one of the thousands of on-street parking spots along one of the feeder routes. Furthermore this would reduce congestion with unnecessary cars all travelling into PT hubs, often slowing down the PT they are travelling to catch…

    1. Agree Peter,

      Further to my comment above.

      P n R should be for commuters who genuinely have no PT options. Often rural/rural fringe. Would be awesome to know how many P n R riders live within say 3km of the stations and on PT routes.

    2. Peter N, you are within nearby access of frequent public transport I presume? Otherwise you wouldn’t propose driving around looking for a park, then waiting for a feeder bus, taking that and then changing to another bus once you finally get to a transit station, ending up somewhere in the CBD and having to change yet again if your destination is elsewhere. This transit-hostile approach is exactly what promotes our current levels of vehicle usage.

      What other cities have, and is needed here, is many more transit stations that cover the whole city, not long and difficult trips for peoples homes to their nearest station.

  5. Currently PT are roughly two times slower than driving, catchment is poor with long walk, service could be unreliable, and fare are still expensive.

    In cities like Japan, the rail is really fast and convenient unlike Auckland.

    If we just take away car parks but the not improving PT, it will backslash.

    1. I agree, Auckland’s PT system is nowhere near the coverage, speed and cost competitiveness you would need to get rid of car parks and PNR without a massive backlash.

    2. Maybe someone needs to do it and allow the backlash to be the motivation for the much needed improvements for PT and walking and bicycle riding

      1. Fear of backlash is way larger than the backlash itself, and lots of backlash has been created through lack of leadership, such as:
        – disgruntlement at seeing incompetence, and
        – taking so long to design, consult, redesign, reconsult, etc, that the “disruption time” for our transport projects is way too long:

        https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://steemitimages.com/640×0/https://s10.postimg.org/o3g3twgah/image.png&imgrefurl=https://steemit.com/life/@futureentech/the-change-curve-in-our-life-we-can-change-our-journey&docid=pPzHT2iTeBVyNM&tbnid=CTK1e1o9H0_4OM:&vet=1&w=640&h=359&source=sh/x/im

      2. I think you might be on to something here. If we consider this within the context that AC has declared a ‘Climate Emergency’; what does that actually mean?

        The definition of Emergency is:
        1. a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.

        If we follow this through logically then there should be some immediate action taken. Namely reducing vkt. It might be tough for a while (No worse than what Londoners had in WWII – for an easily contextual comparison). However desperate times aka ’emergencies’ require desperate measures.

        Again, I might be out on the loopy end of the spectrum but i think my logic is fairly tight.

        Unfortunately AT and AC is at the behest of politicians wanting to get re-elected so the fear of causing backlash is greater than doing the right thing. Which more often than not is simply evidence based policy/decision making.

        If we’re going to declare an emergency then respond accordingly otherwise it’s just cheap and nasty politicking buzz word bingo.

  6. For what it’s worth Heidi I fully agree, remove parking on roads is a great idea, especially the main suburban roads and to some extent lesser secondary roads. Flow to and from anywhere would improve out of sight. No risk of car doors opening on two-wheeled commuters, just continuous free lane space.

    Quite how that will be managed is another thing but as stated above, let’s pump in money to take PT and alternatives to cars infrastructure to a far higher level, right now, even if it means overseas contracts and contractors to overcome labour shortages here. Then at least the public will have a realistic alternative to the car!

  7. I don’t understand why park’n’ride should be free. Perhaps that parking, just like PT, should have a 50% recovery rate target. If nobody wants to pay, then there is your answer whether or not we should build more.

    But I also don’t understand why feeder buses are a good idea. It is almost impossible to get to a station using a feeder in less than half an hour. That will make for a very long commute in total. Both driving a car and riding a bicycle will be much faster. In many cases walking will be faster too due to the limited frequency of bus lines.

    1. Feeders are good, ours are ~6 mins to a train station & I’ve used others all over Auckland that are generally good.

      Point taken though, good active mode access to these are important and probably better, I do these as well.

      1. Yes I have to admit we are very lucky in that regard.

        In fact we have the choice of either the Eastern or Southern lines & that would also include the Onehunga branch line, so almost 3 lines. Lots of choice.

        A local bus service right on our road now or a bit of walk to a frequent cross town one too. These both have no shelters or seats even bar one stop for us though.

        The active mode access to either is crap though. Think I’d personally rather living right near a good cycleway or shared path if I had the choice.

        1. +1

          We’re in a DIY city, Grant. Any improvements you see will probably either be done by residents, illegally, or through huge work on the part of the community to make AT do it.

      2. When I lived on the north shore there was no way I could have got to a bus station in 6 minutes on a feeder. It always took 20+ minutes to do what was approx a 5 minute drive.

        1. We are only just under 2kms from the stations so that makes a big difference.

          PT to say Pakuranga from here is very weak so we don’t bother hardly ever. Ironically, car travel to there is very strong and fast.

  8. “Do you want your children to be able to walk to their friends’ places, the local parks, their activities and to school, but are worried about traffic fumes and danger en route?”
    For my local school walking is the safest way to get their as the car parking is so poorly designed its a hazard to everyone.

    “Do you like to take the bus to go shopping, but find the “last leg” of the trip unpleasant or unsafe?”
    I find taking the bus to go shopping rather impractical as it limits my ability to “shop”, although I can agree some bus stations are rather unpleasant. Most modern ones are nice however.

    “Are you trying to cycle to work, but give up for a while each time you get spooked where you cross or mix with traffic?”
    I would have when I lived 4km from work, however I don’t like riding in bus lanes .

  9. Based on where I live and work.

    Wynyard Quarter = Wouldn’t go if I knew I was unlikely to get a car park.
    Les Mills = driving to a gym defeats the point of going to the gym
    Sky City’s new Convention Centre = Unlikely to go if I knew I was unlikley to get a car park
    Westfield Newmarket = Would go less often if I knew I was unlikely to get a car park
    Costco is coming to Westgate = Wouldn’t go if I knew I was unlikely to get a car park.
    Westfields St Lukes = Wouldn’t go if I knew I was unlikely to get a car park.
    Takanini Train Station (headline photo) = Used it for my 1st time because of those car parks.

  10. Did you read and take in what I said?
    I used the city to Newmarket bus as an example of how poor bus based PT is, even with bus priority lanes. But thanks for the rail advice, even though that conclusion was plain as day as in my comment.

    And the fact is we have a lot of tax and ratepayers in this city and country, far more than the turn of the 20th century when light rail began its ascent in Auckland. Somehow we could manage it then, today we cannot, just offer a cheap alternative, wonder why cars clog the roads and pretend it’s too damned hard to progress anything.

    I am pretty much convinced the powers that be are more than comfortable with auto dependency, motorways and gridlock.

    1. The trams were every bit as slow as our buses are now, the major difference is they didn’t have to compete with cars for patronage so they were of course very successful.

  11. Miffy, there is no demand for the amount of short term parking that AT provides in it’s car park buildings. Only about a quarter of it’s spaces are used for short term visits. They fill the rest with commuters. You could demolish 3 of their 4 buildings and have zero impact on short term parking availability in the CBD.

    1. Bollocks. They added spaces to both the Victoria and Downtown with all the additional spaces being used for short stay because of demand. The Civic fills every time there is an event in the Town Hall or Aotea Centre. Try getting a carpark in school holidays or even at normal times around mid day.

      1. Sorry but you’re 100% wrong. They expanded the car parks and filled them with leases and early bird commuters. Just because they are full doesn’t mean they are filled with shirt stay visitors. LGOIMA it if you don’t believe me.

        1. Sorry but you’re 100% wrong. They expanded the car parks and filled them with leases and early bird commuters. Just because you can’t find a space doesn’t mean they are filled with short stay visitors. LGOIMA it if you don’t believe me. Ask them to provide the proportion of the car park spaces occupied by short stay parkers at peak times. No need to apologise when you get the info, just share it freely whenever anyone spews the nonsense that we need the car parks to support city centre shoppers

  12. Why is a gym adding carparks? Do they want people to drive 5km to run on a treadmill for 5km? Of course! If the customer ran the 5km, they wouldn’t need the gym, and the gym would close down.

    1. ahhhh good point, but also the active mode access to it is probably shit anyway. People don’t want to be running along, slowing down or stopping checking over their shoulder at every road crossing.

    2. One one hand, yes, irony. I wonder if they have escalators.

      On the other hand, if you’re going to sell anything “premium” or “flagship”, then it is not going to involve walking on streets in Auckland.

  13. Less onstreet parking indeed..got knocked off my bike last night and 8 stitches in my knee by some parked idiot opening his door whilst cycling on Ponsonby Road.

    1. Sorry to hear that, Joe. We’re being failed all around. A cycling injury in my family this week is directly due to infrastructure failure, too. And particularly galling as it’s in a place where I had directly campaigned to bring forward a safe path. Now the safe path is only going to happen when they put in a new 370 space carpark. FFS. And now this:

      https://i.stuff.co.nz/auckland/115587753/auckland-transport-may-scrap-plan-to-lower-speed-limits-on-nearly-800-roads

      It’s a war against children, and I’ve lost patience.

      1. What the…just saw this. Can’t believe this couldn’t go ahead. Sounds like more consultation feedback was against it than for, or perhaps around 50/50?

        1. There’s no guarantee of that at all, Grant. I know of safety projects that have been cancelled due to a very low percentage of opposition.

          Where there’s no will, there’s no way.

      2. Something you may find of interest regarding posted speed limits.

        Based on 10 years of crash data from all of NZ, a crash in a 50km/h has a 4% chance of being a DSI whereas a crash in a 30km/h zone has a 9% chance of being a DSI. Even more interesting is that crashes in 10km/h zones have a 22% chance of being a DSI. At the top end, a crash in a 100km/h zone has a 10% chance of being a DSI.

        Sort of shows that simply changing the posted speed limit has little impact on safety outcomes.

    2. Out of interest, where on Ponsonby Rd was this and were there any cycling facilities.

      Personally I’m not a fan of cycle lanes that get placed directly next to narrow parking spaces. Even less of a fan when they are placed on the passenger side for the very reason of your crash.

        1. Oh and cycling facilities…it’s Ponsonby Road, one of our main roads lined with Cafes and Shops, any other Country i’d say of course there were cycling facilites…but no in answer to your question, 4 lanes of traffic and 2 lanes of On Street Parking.

        2. That’s one of those catch 22 things, it was a main road intended to move large volumes of people over a long distance, which in turn made it a desirable place for shops which in turn attracts cafes which often become pubs.

          If it were not for the fact for the fact it has such an important transport movement it would be just like any of the other side streets in the area. Which interestingly enough are full of parked cars because there were no parking criteria back in the day when many of the houses were made and so they didn’t provide any off street parking.

          In terms of preventing your issue from happening again, what they could do was make a couple of parking buildings and then remove all the on-street parking and replace them with some cycle lanes. Depending on the traffic volumes they could also look to remove a traffic lane, however the signal controlled intersections may prevent that from working too well.

        3. Richard if you get doored on driver side you may end up under another vehicle moving at speed. If you get doored on the passenger side you do not. In terms of dooring passenger side cycle lanes are way better

        4. I find that if you’re riding on the RHS of a parked car there is pretty much always a traffic lane that you can use and so you can easily give 1-2m of clearance to any parked cars. If for some reason I need to ride next to the car I cruise along at a slow speed with my fingers on the brakes ready to stop at a moments notice.

          On the LHS however you’re often forced to ride right next to the car with a kerb stopping you from being any futher away. In some of the better cases they put an island between you and the parked car, but then those ones tend to be full of rubbish and leaves as they’re hard to maintain.

          An additional safety risk for being on the LHS is that you are much more likely to have someone cut in front of you, which from the research I’ve been doing is one of the main causes of serious injury to cyclists.

        5. In related news, I tested out the new roundabout on Franklin Rd today.

          Its quite possibly the most dangerous roundabout I’ve ever come across for pedestrians and cyclists and comes with quite a sense of false security.

  14. We may be celebrating a few hundreds of people taking up bicycling, but the rest of the city is actually moving in the opposite direction. The amount of people who feel safe when driving a car instead of an SUV is declining. If you are ever in Westgate, you may notice the parking bays are larger than in older developments, so those Navaras and Hiluxes fit in.

    I’ve been in Ponsonby once the past year, and it will be the last time unless I get an iron-clad guarantee I can park my car on an on-premise car park. No more walking on that street. Drivers are rabid over there.

    And that article, well it just manages to spend 100s of words on stating they don’t know the outcome of the consultation.

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