Is charging for parking “un-Australian”?
- Share
The new GreenEDGE team logo? If not it should be!
It’s “un-Australian” to charge workers to park their cars according to Chris Ketter, Secretary of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association in Queensland.
Mr Ketter has been fighting a battle with Westfield since it introduced paid parking for both shoppers and workers at its Chermside shopping centre in October last year. The key motivation for Westfield’s action appears to be defence of parking spaces in its shopping centres. Apparently they’re being taken by commuters using park-and-ride interchanges incorporated within the centres.
Parking is now free for the first three hours, and then increases on a sliding scale from $2 for an additional half hour up to a maximum of $20 for seven hours or more. There is no charge for parking at night, presumably because there’s a surplus of spaces at that time.
Westfield has reserved 300-400 spaces for use by workers at a price of $60 per month. From next month, Westfield will also introduce paid parking at its Carindale shopping centre.
However opposition is strong. Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan, whose seat of Lilley includes Chermside, reckons it’s unfair to charge workers for parking. During the recent Lord Mayoral election, Labor challenger Ray Smith called on incumbent Graham Quirk to take legal action to prevent the “scourge” of paid parking.
The idea that levying parking charges could be plausibly portrayed as “un-Australian” shows just how deeply ingrained driving is in our national psyche. But this isn’t a straightforward matter – there are some thorny issues and dilemmas.
For a start, these aren’t highly-paid workers. Retail workers are generally in the lower income strata, so the increase in their cost of parking is a significant cost impost, probably in the order of $1,000 p.a. in pre tax income.
Even so, why shouldn’t they pay their own way? After all, many workers don’t get free parking. They commute by public transport at their own expense, or fork out from their own pockets for parking. I know some workers who enjoy “free” parking, but it’s paid by their employer, essentially as part of their remuneration.
So why shouldn’t the retailers pay? They’re the ones who employ the workers directly and who need to be able to attract and retain quality staff. They’d probably respond by saying they can get the staff they need without having to pay employee travel costs.
Or why shouldn’t Westfield continue to pay? The centre manager might respond by saying it doesn’t employ the workers – the retailers do. The cost to Westfield of continuing to subsidise worker parking would be considerable, since each unpaid spot is unavailable for (paying) shoppers.
Apart from paying up, the other option for workers is public transport. As I understand it there’re reasonably good services to the CBD from Chermside and Carindale. The vast bulk of suburban retail workers however are likely to live within the region, so Brisbane City Council (the bus operator) would need to ensure local feeder services are adequate.
Council will also need to be cognisant of the spill-over impact of both shoppers and workers who park in local streets around the centres to avoid parking fees. This report suggests there’ve already been some serious problems.
In effect, Westfield and the retailers are shifting the direct costs of worker transport from their shoulders to those of individual workers, neighbours and the Council. There could be some symmetry there, since Council appear’s to be doing much the same thing to Westfield with its park-and-ride program.
Council however has a wider interest. It wants to promote public transport use over driving, both to increase revenue and to ameliorate the negative externalities – like emissions, traffic congestion and the deterioration of local amenity – associated with driving.
It should recognise so-called “free” parking isn’t good for Brisbane. Under-pricing of parking provides an incentive to drive. It also leads to drivers circulating around car parks and local streets looking for vacant parking spots.
According to Donald Shoup, a Professor at UCLA and the author of The High Cost of Free Parking, several studies have found that cruising for curb parking generates about 30 percent of the traffic in CBDs in the US.
He cites a study he did of a 15 block district in Los Angeles where cruising for on-street parking created 950,000 miles of excess vehicle travel per annum. In the process, cars consumed 47,000 gallons of petrol and produced 730 tons of carbon dioxide.
So there’s a role for Council to step up and improve the quality of public transport serving the centre. Realistically, that’ll primarily be for workers and teenagers, since the three hour cap on free parking isn’t likely to deter many shoppers from driving.
As I’ve discussed before though, if it isn’t already, I think Council should be thinking about asking Westfield and the retailers to contribute to the cost of improving those public transport services.
Please login below to comment, OR simply register here :
Thank you for registering, we have just sent you a confirmation email, which includes your new password to be entered below.
Some employers allow parking spaces to be paid for by salary sacrifice. I don’t think this attracts fringe benefit tax – I believe the threshold is something like $7 a day. So a $60 per month space would cost $720 of pre-tax income, not $1,000. If there was another employee living nearby, car-pooling could reduce the cost even further.
Improving the quality of public transport might help, but the marginal cost of driving, even with a $60 per month parking charge may well be a cheaper option.
Perhaps salary or wage sacrifice could also be permitted for other transport options – a new bike or a public transport pass?
RidesToWork: Maybe I’m out of date on this one, but is it likely retail chains would offer their counter hoppers the option of salary sacrifice? AD
Chris Ketter is right. It is un-Australian to oppose free parking. Even more shamefully it is un-Australian to oppose anything at all that doesn’t support car culture, not to mention silly to boot.
As a matter of fact as I recall, Donald Shoup the author of “The High Cost of Free Parking” states that the whole concept of “free parking” is false; there is no such thing. The cost of parking is added onto every grocery item such as a loaf of bread and like all motoring costs, non motorists are forced to pay this levy as well.
I thank you Allan for again allowing some oxygen to ignite debate at least on some of these increasingly critical topics. I’ve been raving on about “free parking” for years but when it comes to cars in Australia you are correct. As you put driving is “ingrained in the national psyche” and any argument against motoring will likely cause only anger and gain no traction regardless of the rigor of argument and weight of rationale.
On this topic I’m really quite proud to be un-Australian.
A couple of other aspects of this issue:
Retail centres generate so much revenue that larger centre owners can afford to spend maybe $30-50k per space building massive multi-storey car parks. If you think about the financing cost of that investment (maybe $2-4k per year for every space) factored into prices via shop rents, it is no wonder Australian retailers struggle to compete.
Parking at rail stations (which is usually at grade) still costs about $10k per space (including land) but the politics of parking are such that operators can’t charge for their use. Even worse, we still have to run buses to the station as well, most of which have plenty of spare capacity to carry those who drove to the station. Diverting park & ride funding to bus operations might just lead to a better overall outcome – more buses with better utilisation, better return for PT operations and much more attractive and walkable communities.
I don’t know how far you’ve degenerated over there in the eastern states, what with toll roads and such, but surely you don’t have to pay to park at the beach? That would be clearly un-Australian. We settled that a few years ago when Cottesloe (our ‘iconic’ beach) Council wanted to charge for parking at the beach. The local member, and now Premier, made sure that didn’t happen. The un-Australian-ness of it was obvious. Our beaches are free.
One of the attractions of moving to my present job was free parking in the city; combine that with being able to start later and I can whizz into Perth from Freo, from house to desk, in 20 minutes. That frees up loads of time for relationships, exercise … it’s marvellous really. What would be the point of living in Australia if you couldn’t have a swim at the beach in the morning?
Frankly Alan, I really couldn’t be arsed reading your article – that’s the coolest picture; featuring two of my most favourite things–mantids and bikes. cheers!
(and yeah – of course you should pay for parking – we all pay for parking, even when one doesn’t have a car to park)
I don’t think the roads leading into Carindale are the most bicycle friendly…
Boscombe and Robinson Crusoe are shipwrecked on a deserted island. Crusoe says “I’m going fishing anyway I’m hungry”. Boscombe rejoinders with “I’m a true Australian and I’m off to find a car first then I’ll join you”
I have no doubt Julia Gillard could revive her support also by advocating free parking at beaches everywhere. Then there could be free beaches for everyone …ah except free of cars of course.
AD said: Maybe I’m out of date on this one, but is it likely retail chains would offer their counter hoppers the option of salary sacrifice?
I’ve been to supermarkets that charge for parking but refund the cost off the grocery bill – it probably makes more sense than offering petrol vouchers!
Your article discussed “shifting the direct costs of worker transport from their shoulders to those of individual workers”, so I was addressing that issue, not shopping, where retailers are likely to entice customers by whatever means are most profitable – cheap prices, advertising, or parking discounts.
I thought your comment that the “increase in their cost of parking is a significant cost impost, probably in the order of $1,000 p.a. in pre tax income” referred mainly to employee parking, for which it may well be tax effective to offer salary sacrifice rather than have lowly-paid staff fork out large sums out of their pre-tax income. Some people might find it convenient (and healthier) to walk to the shops during their lunch break or after work.
I’ve certainly heard of employers who offer salary sacrifice for public transport passes for the journey to work – and employer sponsored schemes (often in conjunction with health authorities) to offer free bikes to people who want to ride to work – again something that should be encouraged.
Even though charging for parking may still generate howls of protest, I haven’t heard similar complaints about the new PODS that alert the wardens when drivers overstay their free time limit. Perhaps people are beginning to think it’s un-Australian to hog spaces and that it’s a fair cop to issue fines? It seems to be a useful source of revenue to help fund these facilities.
If the pollies didn’t continually go on about speeding fines as revenue raisers, maybe people would consider it un-Australian to exceed the speed limit in urban areas and potentially endanger the lives of other road users.
nuts – in today’s digital/internet age and the massive change in consumer behaviour the big boxes need to work on convenience and experience more than ever – i don’t even visit the major centre which is just 1km from my office anymore – i order the things i want from those stores on the net – T2, books, library stuff, even shirts – they all come delivered free and within a day or two of being ordered. food is delivered that afternoon.
Coming from Sydney, I regard the charges quoted in the article with a twinge of envy. Of course basically Westfield is withdrawing an employee benefit, so it’s a matter of negotiation and I suspect that the bargaining power is very much on Westfield’s side.
Of course it would be good if more people used public transport, but viable public transport options need to be available. In Sydney, unless you are travelling along the direct route from your home to the CBD, public transport is often barely faster than walking. Between low frequencies, the need to change buses or trains, circuitous routes, traffic congestion and possibly a long walk at each end, a journey that would be 5km on a direct route and take about 10 minutes by car could take the best part of an hour by public transport. In Sydney, commuters are gradually and grudgingly being forced onto buses and trains by traffic congestion and parking that would take $5K – $10k per annum out of pre-tax income, but being forced to use public transport can cost you 10 to 20 days of your life per annum in extra commuting time. And most of the costs of having a car are fixed, so most people will always use their car if they can.
We need to look at how we could provide more viable public transport options so that people will actually want to use it and leave their cars at home. Then we could make real progress in making our cities more livable.
They should get a $X pay rise (X= the amount the parking will cost them to use every day per annum) and then have the choice whether they want to pay for parking or not.
The result will be that they will not be disadvantaged they still choose to drive, however there will be added incentive for them to use alternative modes of transport. Additionally there should be a bigger push from the centre management and owners to provide better quality end of trip facilities for those who choose to travel to work via active transport.
I used to work at a supermarket many years ago and I cycled to work most days. There was absolutely nothing in the way of end of trip facilities except for the staff bathroom which had a dingy corner with some hooks on the wall to hang your stuff out. If there were better quality facilities I think more people would have been inclined to cycle or walk to work as everyone lived in the area within a 2-4km radius.
AD wrote: “Apart from paying up, the other option for workers is public transport. As I understand it there’re reasonably good services to the CBD from Chermside and Carindale.”
RidesToWork at 7:48 pm wrote:
“Improving the quality of public transport might help, but the marginal cost of driving, even with a $60 per month parking charge may well be a cheaper option.”
Remember that AD in a recent blog advocated raising the fares of PT! In fact RtW is correct in certain contexts–for example, for many of the 8,000 people who work on the Royal Brisbane Hospital campus it is actually more expensive to use PT than the relatively cheap parking (at the RNA showgrounds opposite; “temporary” vast open space but still going after decades however the clock is ticking down as the Bowen Hills redevelopment picks up pace in the next few years).
Chermside shopping centre, perhaps with Mt Gravatt shopping centre, is Brisbane’s first genuine specifically designed TOD. Bus fares are already extremely high (by historic comparisons eg. versus CPI; and by international standards). The northern busway will eventually reach there (ie. the busway using exclusive road/tunnel, ie. similar to a Metro service). For the moment the buses, including or perhaps especially the express services, get very crowded at certain times, such that it is uncomfortable. I don’t think (in this rare case) it is a case of a public unwilling to change because Brisbanites have saturated these buses but the council (especially under Newman/Quirk) has not taken proper responsibility. Since the busways are entirely financed by the state, we’ll have to see how Premier Newman handles this! But they need to do their part in the TOD by supporting Park-and-Ride and not just expect Westfield (meaning their tenants) to solve the issue. Don’t hold your breath. Their idea of Cycle Stations is to charge more than $5 per day for a jumped-up bike shed!
michael: Oh dear, looks like more (chronic) straw-manning! When I argued for higher cost recovery from PT I made it very, very clear it was on the condition that the cost of private transport was also increased by at least as much!!! AD
Incidentally in most civilized places the state actively supports workers using PT. For example in Paris about half the cost of a monthly travel card (until a few years ago called Carte Orange, valid 24/7 on all PT from Metro, RER, suburban trains, buses)–if you lived and worked in Paris you would have been insane not to have one.
If you work in London you receive a London Allowance which is intended to subsidize a rail season ticket (which are eye-wateringly expensive, like $5-$10k pa) and are NOT 24/7–ie. typical British Nickel & Dime operation). I’m pretty sure NYC has something similar, and their PT is seriously inexpensive by comparison.
.
Hong Kong’s system is legendary (inspiring others around the world such as London, perhaps even Paris’ new system), and shows how unintended benefits and efficiencies can flow from a properly thought out system:
.
Of course practically/effectively all of HK is a TOD. They have planned all the “new town” developments since the 60s like that, from Shatin to the newest at Tung Chung which is the mother of all TOD being next to the airport.
My point from my last posts should be obvious but:
There needs to be an integrated PT system and which is accessed by a single electronic travel card (Brisbane’s current system is not bad) and it should be cheap–certainly significantly cheaper than using private transport. It must be seamless from start to end, including local feeder buses, or parking (only in certain places) where the cost would be included (in this case I will agree with AD, it should not be free as it currently is in many Brisbane suburban train stations for example; though perhaps I have this wrong–it may not be free for all-day parking?), or cycle lockup (at major bus interchanges, ie. TOD) which should be secure and essentially free (given the minimal space it uses and the amount saved by commuters choosing this method over all others). Cycle routes and pedestrian paths should be created to lead into TODs such as Chermside, to capture travellers out to about 1.5km (about 20 min walk) at least.
AD: straw-manning? It is wrongheaded to simply claim “that the cost of private transport was also increased by at least as much!”. The choice between private and PT is dependent on many things but with private people at least perceive they get a lot (comfort from strangers and crowds, their own comfy cocoon etc) and the very least expectation of PT is not that it will be marginally cheaper than private but a LOT cheaper.
I don’t think there will be a commuter in Australia (except I am told, perhaps sandgropers?) who think PT is a good deal today. I am not in the least creating a straw man. It is fundamental to my philosophy of how to run/plan a major metropolis to have cheap-as-chips PT. Brisbane is now an unfair deal especially when all these electronic cards assume the owner-commuter is guilty when they malfunction–there is nothing more that infuriates users. And Australian travel cards seem incapable of functioning smoothly.
Incidentally in all the ten years of living in Paris I cannot recall a single such problem with my Carte Orange used at minimum twice a day and a lot more at weekends. In Brisbane all of us (ie. 100% of PT users) get caught at least once a month I would guess, with several dollars if not $5 “overcharge” (in outer zones it can apparently be $10 deduction) due to the systems’ malfunction, or its imposition on the user to swipe as you exit a crowded bus! (To get a correction you are forced into finding an office and convince the bureaucrat that it was not your fault!) All of which adds up to a decline in bus usage in Briz in the past year, hardly a great outcome for public policy, huh?
As I say, one dreads to think what will happen in the near future with the dark forces of the car lobby, Newman and Quirk, running both arms of government now! On the other hand, since they have no one else to shift the blame to, perhaps it might induce some actual thought behind policy?
Sorry, I obviously haven’t lived in Australia for long enough (22 yrs and counting) to understand the psyche, but Westfield or other shopping centres charging people to park so that they have the privledge of spending money at your retail destination is just perversely and ideologically wrong and wouldn’t be countenanced anywhere else. If there has to be a fee to deter office workers from taking up parking spaces, then do what is common practice elsewhere: validate the parking voucher in exchange for an expenditure of X amount from the shops. The environmentally sound alternative, which I have suggested to Westfield on several occasions (no reply!): major shopping centres should run free shuttle buses, with adequate storage facilities for shopping.
Margo…a 10/10 comment
Margo and hk
Westfield aren’t charging shoppers to park for the first three hours, only thereafter. And it is done elsewhere. Here in Melbourne, for example, Victoria Market, Victoria Gardens Richmond, and Westfield Doncaster all charge for parking.
Parking at unpriced centres isn’t “free”. Someone paid for all that concrete and steel. It’s ultimately paid for by customers in prices of goods and services. If more people are trying to park than there are spaces available, it must be rationed somehow.
Your suggested approach to rationing spaces is a variation on paying for parking. It still requires payment infrastructure and those who park but don’t spend above the requisite minimum amount will still have to pay.
Buses are attractive for workers but not shoppers. People who have access to a car for shopping trips – which unlike work trips are occasional, involve luggage, and are flexible in timing – will use it in preference to a bus.
And it’s also un-Australian to think too much. We want to get in the car and get somewhere, we don’t want to have to think should I go via here or there, or park there or not, because everything has charges attached to it. I don’t care if the corn flakes cost 1c more per box because of the cost of building parking, I don’t care if other people use things I help pay for but won’t use (our new sports stadium comes to mind). Just give me peace of mind.
At this time when we’re all reflecting on the good example set by HRH, we should remember that it is vulgar to think too much about money, and even more vulgar to go to big shopping centres.
Westfield is not a charity. It can charge what it likes for the use of its property.
Where do we get this idea that parking ought to be free? Do people think Westfield should give the workers free petrol? Or free lunches? So why free parking?
I suspect the common attitude exemplified by the union leader’s complaint arises from:
- Unlike the case with petrol or lunch, free parking has no cash cost to Westfield (the cost of the car park is sunk). There is possible income forgone, which is the same thing logically, but people don’t see it that way. Possible connection with the finding that people (illogically, in economists’ terms) regret an actual loss more keenly than a forgone gain of the same nominal amount.
- The issue is confused by the existence of ubiquitous free kerbside parking. Mostly it is right for this to be free, because there is no opportunity cost (the space has little or no value in any other use). People then come to think that ‘free at the point of use’ is a just and natural condition for all parking (which is not true).
Of course any change creates transitional problems for people who have arranged their affairs around the status quo. But if any change that creates losers is forbidden, society and the economy could never change at all.
Whether we should compensate the losers for a period to ease the transition is another question. I’m sympathetic to the idea of compensating these mainly low paid workers. But that doesn’t mean they have a right to free parking.
Personally, I see free parking as something that only the bailees of the space need to evaluate. Whoever owns the space ought to be able to charge whatever they think is apt from their POV, all things considered.
Now it’s probably the case that free parking in shopping centres was something of a lure for tenants, since those agreeing to lease space at the exorbitant rates that shopping centres might conclude that facilitating visits by shoppers and allowing employees to park there free would be offsets. Imposing charges could make tenancy less valuable. Having a system of parking validation by tenants is open to abuse and imposes nuisance on tenants.
OTOH, not charging for parking can mean that valuable parking spaces are taken up by commuters rather than shoppers. This is good for the environment (since it predisposes use of public transport), but the cost of offering this service is borne entirely by private entities — shopping centre owners and tenants in potentially lost sales.
Where I shop mostly, you get three hours for free, with a ticket obtained on entry. You can game the system by driving out and back in (and getting a new ticket) but this is obviously not feasible for commuters to the city. People working nearby in the industrial estate at Macquarie Park can move their cars but also shop there so this is probably not a huge problem for Macquarie.
More generally though it seems perfectly proper to charge for a service that is “rival” in economic terms — i.e. a service where one person’s use excludes another’s. I’ve no problem at all with councils charging for on street parking, or limiting how long you can park, providing they make compliance easy (sometimes it isn’t).
As a matter of general principle, the full cost of anyone seeking a purely private benefit ought to be borne entirely by them, IMO.
21
Encouraging people to drive to public transport is not environmentally friendly. A significant proportion of the pollution from short distance suburban driving is from starting the engine and so driving 1km instead of 2km saves less than 50% of the pollution and fuel use.
It is more environmental to have good well used bus/tram connections to the station. This is particularly true where there is also a shopping centre at the station to provide even more patronage for the station.
Considering the amenity of land at non-outer stations with shops and other facilities nearby, there is a good case for reducing parking at such stations and putting the land to more productive use.
There is a case for requiring shopping centres to charge for parking as it encourages the use of PT to get to them and also walking to local shops rather than driving.
TFB – I go to my nearest big shopping centre maybe once a year and if you saw what people are carrying as they head to their cars … just what they bought at the supermarket is enough to fill the boot of the car, how do you think they are going to get that stuff home using public transport?
Reducing parking at stations is a very bad idea because people will just park in the surrounding streets – they have no choice.
Fran – I’m not sure about what a private benefit is compared to a necessary service: my nearest big shopping centre has the only post office open on Saturdays, the public library, a medical centre – all kinds of stuff you might need to go to. Say you’re taking your elderly, ill mother to a doctor’s appointment there – you need to park. Over the year thousands of other people will also park in that spot – is parking there just a private benefit?
23
Not everybody going to a shopping centre is going to buy a boot load of stuff. Lots of people are going there to work, eat there, use services (including post offices, medical centres, etc.) and/or buy small items. There are also private shopping trolleys available for medium loads. Parking would then only be needed by people with large loads. There are also grocery delivery services. People will also spread out their shopping to a certain extent rather than one big carload of shopping.
You have missed the point. Buses and trams providing decent feeder services to stations would dramatically reduce the number of people who have no realistic option other than to drive. Parking in surrounding streets can be restricted with parking restrictions.
TFB: “People will also spread out their shopping to a certain extent rather than one big carload of shopping”. Well they might but it will be lot more time consuming – most people highly value their time.
“Parking in surrounding streets can be restricted with parking restrictions.” The Cottesloe Council tried this not long ago at the Grant St Station – commuters were parking on the Grant St median strip (which is very, very wide). So, when the restrictions were brought in, the commuters moved further up, and then the Grant St residents complained that the restrictions were annoying to them, and residents living nearby, who were the ones doing the parking, complained, and then the Council backed down. People who get off the train, with their shopping perhaps, want to get in their cars and drive the less-than-kilometre home.
Bicycles and electric bicycles enlarge public transport catchment areas, making cross suburban travel easier across radiating rail and express bus routes. Australia needs to better integrate between alternative transport modes they do in Europe and Japan. Europe and Japan have greatly reduced car use and multiple car ownership in households because of their need to be less reliant on fuel price increases and future fuel shortages.
The price of Australia’s imported oil is now U$ 984 a barrel and will inevitably double in a few years. Outer suburban households are going to need bicycle networks and shared carservices that connect with new stations and new trunk express bus routes. e
Netherlands, Germany, denmark and japan are also promoting bicycle access to stations and other transport stops/hubs which is an effective, practical way of increasing the catchment area of each station.
Riding a bicycle uses the ergonomic ‘mechanical advantage’ of pedalling over walking to go at least 3.5 times as far, for the same physicaleffort. Cycling rather than walking increases the number of homes with access to stations by around a factor of 10.The electric bicycle increases the number of homes with access to public transport by at least a factor of 20 over walking . The limitation of radiating rail lines for commuting is largely eliminated by the pedelec.
This is why Australian modal interchanges and rail stations need to become a highly visible focal point of surrounding bike networks and become the objective of land use development and urban renewal. The use of pedelecs could become the main means of local transport and to access rail stations or express and trunk bus routes, providing that secure parking is available.
Our capital cities have sprawled In the hilly parts of Australia and 250 watt electric bicycle would enable able-bodied people to cycle much more than they do now which is an important safety consideration because of the need to ride up hills without weaving. It reduces the speed differential with motor vehicles when riding in the kerb lane or a bike lane. This why the Australian cycling organisations recommend a 250 watt power output for electric bicycles .
Electric bicycles could be used to enhance personal mobility in hilly areas much the same way as bicycles do in flat cities. In Japan , housewives and elderly cyclists start to give up cycling when it becomes too strenuous but with 250 watt power assistance they will use them. In the last five years 500,000 elderly cyclists in the Netherlands have bought 250 watt electric Bicycles.
A strategic transport planning perspective of investing in urban bikeway networks and reduces the demand for coal fired electricity which is the most sustainable way of all to reduce GHG emissions.
A private benefit is one that is largely dicretionary. There’s nothing to stop you taking public transport or walking or cycling to and from. I agree that people for whom public transport may not be apt (eg those with mobility issues) might need some sort of parking sticker, and perhaps others could buy a quarterly pass if it’s a regular event.
That’s a reasonable point, though it’s still better than them driving the whole way into work if those are the two basic options. When EVs are common, the objection will decline as their energy usage is no larger on start up than in continuous driving. Parking at a shopping centre with a recharge facility (for which they pay) can both improve the viability of PEVs and also act as a V2G load balancing strategy. Right now, limited battery range is a constraint, but this could foreclose our technical limitations.
Worthwhile going back to the original text. Workers previously got free parking, now they have to pay $60 per month. Shoppers used to get free parking, now they have to pay, amount varying with time. The valuation Westfield has put on the spaces means that someone who stays seven hours or more pays $20. Full time workers would stay more than 7 hours, so would be occupying a space that in a 20 day working month would cost them $400. Effectively they are being subsidised $340 per month. Part time workers would be charged less, so their subsidy would be greater.
The scale is set to increase turnover of parking spaces. Allowing persons to park for free, or at a heavily subsidized rate, means that paying customers may be denied a car park, and will go elsewhere.
Workers do not have to pay the $60 per month – they can park elsewhere, ride a bike, a motor bike, cadge a lift, catch the bus, get a job elsewhere.
Parking diverted into neighbouring streets? Good, it is a reasonable use of the road space that is not required for moving vehicles. But there should not be time limits on parking in side streets – instead there should be suitable charges – individual parking meters. The householders are rented the parking meters and collect the revenue. Rental charges for the meters should be such that the householder can make a decent profit on the space. And if householders wish to use ‘their’ kerb space, they can be provided with hoods for the meters – when the ‘hood’ is on, NO PARKING except for the householder or his guests.
Use of bicycles – just watched a small segment of 2012 or some such program where a bloke wanting to exit the building picked up his folda3ay bike and tried to exit – couldn’t as everything was locked at 1900 – bad luck! But the foldaway bike looked good.
Fran Barlow has got the right attitude to my way of thinking – but councils should charge for all on-street parking. It is an asset owned by the ratepayers, who paid for it in the first place, and councils should have a duty to make a reasonable rate of return on the asset.
Please login below to comment, OR simply register here :
Thank you for registering, we have just sent you a confirmation email, which includes your new password to be entered below.