Parking, its a problem

Parking in our city is a real problem for both residents and non-residents.

Its getting more expensive and much more difficult to find. Non-residents struggle to find parking and are left to infringe, impacting on residents. Residents are then left to infringe in order to find a park themselves, and the only winner is the parking warden (and council) who fines everyone. No doubt this problem is a massive revenue earner for the council. Talk about stakeholder capture.

Clearly the problem is a manifestation of poor management, planning, and design.

One of the problems is poor signage. People are not able to see where residential or public parks are. I’m not a fan of signs (another form of visual pollution), and have always wondered why they don’t colour code the lines on the roads to indicate permitted parking areas.

An easy solution is to increase supply. Existing roads are a good source. We could provide more parking spaces on wide roads by having angle parks (even if its only on one side of the street). We could use idle land that is waiting re-development. Of course all of these ideas would just invite more cars coming into the city – resulting in greater congestion.

What about reducing demand? Increasing pricing would put pressure on usage. Apart from the fact, this has already been done several times already, pricing strategies merely benefit the rich, who have greater disposable income. Pricing has little impact on the decisions of the wealthy. Parking policies need to be fair.

Perhaps we could better manage existing parking spaces? For a start, we could mark out individual car spaces on the road. So often poorly parked cars result in wasted street parking, because other cars are unable to fit. Could we incentivise car and mini-van pooling by providing dedicated car-pool parking space that is free? Perhaps we could also improve our bus services. What about supporting inner city vehicle leasing and bike usage (see earlier post about the Parisian solution).

Perhaps we should ask why people are bringing their cars into the city? A study would be useful. Where are the flow of cars coming from, that puts pressure on residents parking? Is there a parking problem in another area of the town (eg, around the polytechnic) that requires attention? Taking pressure off one place, may flow though to other places, reducing parking pressures.

It’s about better management and planning of our parking.

Actively encouraging cycling

Here is another example from Europe (this time Copenhagen) on the success of encouraging cycling that is now being considered by Sydney.

Great to see Sydney is actively committed to cycling and reducing traffic congestion. Where is our study? http://www.smh.com.au/national/benefits-of-bike-network-far-outweigh-cost-says-study-20100513-v1u2.html.

Here is some information on Copenhagen’s success story http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Copenhagen

Traffic congestion is environmental pollution

Its raining today and traffic this morning was at a stand still. Traffic congestion is a major problem in our city and causes of congestion are many and varied (as are solutions).

Is WCC  really committed to solving traffic congestion and reducing pollution? Its a question Sydney residents are beginning to ask.

Congestion studies show that about half of traffic delay is non-recurring, attributable to temporary disruptions of the transportation system like traffic incidents, work zones, poor weather, and special events. The other half is recurring congestion, delay that occurs in the same place at the same time, day after day. Today its definitely the weather.

So what can be done?

I believe our thinking needs to be open to other solutions, rather than just increasing vehicle capacity (ie building more roads). Don’t get me wrong, road construction has its place. But what we need is to shift our thinking, from construction to management of the transportation system. And that includes collaboration and co-operation between traditional and non-traditional players in the transportation system.

That’s where WCC can make a difference. Transportation policies must encourage an appropriate balance between different modes of transport. Are we encouraging walking and cycling?  Do we encourage school children to walk to school? Do we encourage freight to use alternative routes or modes of transport. Why aren’t more people using public transport to get to work? How are we planning for electric cars? Do we maintain our roads properly so there is minimal disruption (so often we see roads being sealed and then dug up).

Its just crazy. Wellington is a small village in comparative terms to other cities. Surely it cannot be hard to put a coherent plan together that places our resident’s well being at its centre.

Lets reduce the emissions pollution and have better transport policies.

http://pollutionfree.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/traffic-congestion-and-emissions/, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/12/2897702.htm