News & Discussion: CBD Carparks

[Will Derwent]

Bus services become unreliable when they're overloaded.
A bus that can't fit any more passengers on is as useless as one that's cancelled. Where bus stops have Countdown, it's actually worse because it deceives passengers into thinking they can catch a bus soon.

Which leads back to the main point:
When our buses run full, the government fail to provide more.
It's not a case of chicken and egg - the chicken's stopped laying.

Well said.

This is my primary issue with PT: any council making decisions on parking and roads infrastructure is relying on the good faith of someone else to deliver and efficient and effective service, at their expense. Strictly from the State Governments point of view, since they don't make any money (in the budget anyway) from buses they'd be better off with fewer buses. If the council is relying on the State to provide more buses to encourage people to use them, they're a very optimistic bunch.

(I'd also point out that if you increased the number of buses from the current number, the increased number of buses at the margin would probably have fewer passengers per bus. This means that increasing the number of services would reduce the average return per bus - or in other words, make an even greater loss than is currently the case.)

It seems awfully similar to a free rider problem (similar to pricing carbon on a global scale). Everyone would be better off if everywhere was large scale PT, but in a world of large scale PT any one town has an incentive to offer lots of free parking to attract visitors. It's for that reason that large scale PT in my mind never actually eventuates in places where car ownership is cheap; because all the separate councils will pay lip service to PT while continuing to build free car parks and car oriented developments. I think in this case the ACC is being hamstrung by its own idealism and its stubborn faith that the State government will deliver, and an Adelaide with far more cheap parking would be a busier, wealthier but nevertheless have much more traffic than it has now.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Traffic isn't the worst sin that a city can commit. If there is heaps of traffic there is at least heaps of activity - the worse sin is a lack of economic and social activity because the city wont allow it (lest it ruin the serenity).

[ChrisRT]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Traffic isn't the worst sin that a city can commit. If there is heaps of traffic there is at least heaps of activity - the worse sin is a lack of economic and social activity because the city wont allow it (lest it ruin the serenity).

If there's 'heaps of traffic' businesses will start looking to relocate elsewhere and the city will stagnate. Furthermore, excessive traffic has significant externalities which need to be considered like air and noise pollution. Cheap parking is no silver bullet to creating economic activity.

[Wayno]

From the Advertiser

THE state's peak motoring body wants to remove on-street parking from key areas of Adelaide's CBD in a bid to ease traffic problems.

The RAA says there are too many carparks in the city and removing most on-street parking would improve traffic flow by adding extra lanes for traffic and encourage the use of public transport.

The organisation says the CBD has a a big oversupply of off-street carparks which could easily cater for Adelaide's parking needs.

It commissioned a report into the city's traffic problems and found on-street parking was a major contributor to congestion.

RAA spokeswoman Penny Gale said removing on-street carparks would have a greater impact on traffic congestion than an Adelaide City Council plan to reduce speed limits from 50km/h to 40km/h.

"When you talk about reducing the speed limit and having a liveable city, really (you should) get rid of the on-street car parking, because we know that at any one time a lot of people are just driving around looking for a carpark," she said.

"If you take them off the roads, the streets will be a lot less congested and a lot safer. "Today, we have enough carparks to service our needs in 2021.

"Do we need to build any more? We are still building carparks but is that really necessary given that projected need is already accommodated."

The RAA wants the council to remove most of the city's 14,000 on-street parking spaces.

Adelaide also has 27,000 off-street public parking spaces. This combined total of 41,000 parking spaces compares with just 30,000 in Sydney, 35,000 in Melbourne, 10,000 in Perth and about 20,000 in Brisbane.

RAA transport planner Nana Soetantri identified Grenfell, Waymouth and Pirie streets as in most dire need of a shake-up, while removing parking from King William Rd and North Terrace would dramatically increase traffic flow by adding extra lanes of traffic in both directions.

"If you are looking at it from a traffic management perspective and from eliminating congestion, Adelaide could pretty much live completely without on-street parking," Ms Soetantri said.

"All that is considered central, places like Hutt St can have the parking because it can accommodate it. If the Government is really serious about increasing public transport usage then they might consider not building any more carparks."

She said the council-owned carparks could offer periods of free or cheap parking to compensate motorists who still chose to commute.

Planning, Transport and Infrastructure Department chief executive Rod Hook backed the RAA's plan, saying it could help realise the Adelaide City Council's vision for a congestion-free CBD.

"41,000 carparks, when compared to other places, is unnecessarily high," he said.

"It is about pushing for the priority to be public transport and to have a more pedestrian and cycle-friendly city."

Mrs Gale urged Adelaide City Council to consider the RAA proposal but understood the council received significant revenue from carparks.

Adelaide City Council did not respond to calls from The Advertiser but Mayor Stephen Yarwood previously has said he would be reviewing city parking.

The congestion study, completed in November, revealed that despite years of campaign promises and a litany of complaints, Fullarton's Britannia roundabout remains the most congested site on South Australian roads.

"We did some research which shows there are some big congestion spots. If you want to be a liveable city you need to fix those before you start thinking of reducing the speed limit," Mrs Gale said.

"We tend to talk about Britannia in terms of accidents but, in fact, the bigger issue is congestion."

The report says 10,000 cars a day avoid the Britannia roundabout, causing log jams at nearby intersections.

The study showed other bad congestion spots were at the corners of Northcote and Robe terrace, Main North Rd and Robe Terrace, Currie and Morphett streets, Port Rd and Park Terrace, Goodwood and Greenhill roads, King William Rd and Wakefield St and Hackney Rd and North Terrace.

Mrs Soetantri said the Britannia roundabout had been put in the "too-hard basket" by the State Government but could be improved by implementing such simple measures as traffic lights or more signs.

"If you looked at every single dual-laned roundabout in SA, that is the only one that does not tell people how to use it."

[Will]

Although I like the idea of removing on-street carparking, the RAA's motives are completely backwards.

On-street carparks should be removed to increase the width of footpaths and to create specific cycling lanes. The idea of more lanes of traffic in the CBD is a 1960s solution, not to mention completely ugly.

[Ben]

There is no way this statement is factual:

Adelaide also has 27,000 off-street public parking spaces. This combined total of 41,000 parking spaces compares with just 30,000 in Sydney, 35,000 in Melbourne, 10,000 in Perth and about 20,000 in Brisbane.

They honestly expect us to belive that Sydney CBD only has capacity for 30,000 to drive to work each day? Why are all the freeways to the CBD congested? because people have their Chauffers drop them off? Unlikely...

[AG]

There is no way this statement is factual:

Adelaide also has 27,000 off-street public parking spaces. This combined total of 41,000 parking spaces compares with just 30,000 in Sydney, 35,000 in Melbourne, 10,000 in Perth and about 20,000 in Brisbane.

They honestly expect us to belive that Sydney CBD only has capacity for 30,000 to drive to work each day? Why are all the freeways to the CBD congested? because people have their Chauffers drop them off? Unlikely...

I suspect the way the area used to measure and arrive at these numbers may be a little distorted. If they compared the suburb names of Adelaide with Sydney, Brisbane, etc. then you would find that the suburb of Adelaide is significantly larger than the other city centres in Australia by area. Somewhere like South Terrace is probably included in the figures, but this is a fair way from where people actually work and shop in central Adelaide compared to, say, Surry Hills in Sydney - which is closer to central Sydney than South Terrace is to Rundle Mall and Grenfell Street - which may have been left out from the figures.

[Will]

I would also imagine the proportion of people using PT in Sydney is significantly higher than here in Adelaide, hence the need for less carparks.

[monotonehell]

There is no way this statement is factual:

...

They honestly expect us to belive that Sydney CBD only has capacity for 30,000 to drive to work each day? Why are all the freeways to the CBD congested? because people have their Chauffers drop them off? Unlikely...

I suspect this sentence has been poorly constructed. It should read...

Adelaide also has 27,000 off-street public parking spaces. [[compared]] with just 30,000 in Sydney, 35,000 in Melbourne, 10,000 in Perth and about 20,000 in Brisbane.

I think what this misquoted statistic is meant to say is that other capitals have much more off-street parking than on.

[Wayno]

From today's Independent Weekly:

OK, I’ll bite. When the standard public suspects are lined up in a row to agree on restricting street parking in intra-parklands Adelaide “to reduce traffic congestion”, the whiff of conspiracy is in the air – or, to be more kind, the discreet scent of a genteel agreement to try to provoke public discussion.

The discussion is supposed to be nice, too. This helps to ensure we do not actually do anything. Thus it is that one week we have nice pictures of a re-imagined West Terrace which radically reduces car-space, and next week we have the usual voices wanting more lanes for inner-city traffic, and everyone just says: “Yeah. Nice. Won’t happen, though. When’s the next game on the telly? Who’s playing?”

Not even a “Hang on, where is the Anzac Highway traffic going?” Not even a “Hold on? Do we want more lanes or fewer?”

So no more Mr Nice.

They’re all mad. Everyone who wants to reduce traffic congestion within the parklands is up a wattle. And anyone who wants to provide “improved flow” by adding lanes to city streets has got it completely the wrong way round.

As I wrote last July, in successful inner-city environments, the first thing that happens in a straight fight for space between cars and walkers/sitters is that the cars lose. William Light’s grid is not an expressway. We should not care too much about slow-moving traffic within the city, so long as vehicles that have any business being there can get to their destinations.

Mostly those vehicles spend more time stopped, making deliveries, than they spend moving along the road. Simple arithmetic tells you their road-speed does not matter very much. The arithmetic is so simple it used to be a favourite of primary-school teachers, setting teasers about time, distance and speed.

We could, of course, radically reduce street-parking in the central city, but not for the purpose of adding a clear lane to improve flow. When are we going to get over the fantasy that even the wider streets in the central Adelaide grid, and most of our suburban arterials, are four-lane roads?

When are we going to take notice of the experiments that are being quietly conducted around the suburbs to reduce these roads to what they really are – two-lane roads, with parking-bays and bus-stops on the left, and turn-out lanes for right turns? There are quite a few of these, not needing any building or kerbing, just the line-marker. The one I know best, further east up Magill Road, works a treat. There should be more, and the experiment should stop being an experiment and become the normal thing.

Back in the city, the same applies. In the narrower streets, you would not have mid-road space to provide turn-out lanes. You might need to restrict the number of places that vehicles using these streets are allowed a right turn. We do that quite a lot already.

But if you want people to use public transport, and some of it is going to be buses – as it is pretty well everywhere in the world – you cannot rely on the left lane for traffic-flow. It’s where the buses have to stop, muggins – even if you reduce that lane to a series of bus-stops and short-term parking bays.

Everybody says they are in favour of more people using public transport. That is why these organised bleats about city traffic congestion always include some authorised contributor waffling about encouraging the use of public transport.

Without more, this is pretty pointless, because the argument is circular: More people would use public transport if there was more public transport; there would be more public transport if more people used public transport.

You have to break this circle, and you break it the same way you entice casual parkers off the city streets and into the ample stock of parking stations. You make it nicer for people to walk around.

It is often overlooked that Adelaide is nearer the equator than any European city. (We are on about the same latitude as southern Crete, as it happens.) Yet we do a far worse job of providing shelter, especially from summer sun, for all those people that everyone wants to see walking around the place. It should be no surprise that they prefer to go cruising with the air-con running, looking for a park that will not give them too long a hot walk.

We do not have enough trees, and those we have are not big enough. At the opposite season, our walkways are not wide enough to cope with more than one person using an umbrella. So we train the trees to grow taller, as they do in, say, Avignon. And we provide – even if only by way of respite from more open, less sheltered areas – more ample covered spaces for those on foot, as on the main drag in Nice.

Whatever we do, we don’t witter about creating extra vehicle-lanes within the central city.

[Prince George]

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, A Meter So Expensive, It Creates Parking Spots

SAN FRANCISCO — The maddening quest for street parking is not just a tribulation for drivers, but a trial for cities. As much as a third of the traffic in some areas has been attributed to drivers circling as they hunt for spaces. The wearying tradition takes a toll in lost time, polluted air and, when drivers despair, double-parked cars that clog traffic even more.

But San Francisco is trying to shorten the hunt with an ambitious experiment that aims to make sure that there is always at least one empty parking spot available on every block that has meters. The program, which uses new technology and the law of supply and demand, raises the price of parking on the city’s most crowded blocks and lowers it on its emptiest blocks. While the new prices are still being phased in — the most expensive spots have risen to $4.50 an hour, but could reach $6 — preliminary data suggests that the change may be having a positive effect in some areas.