Should parking be charged for at places where capacity is close to or full?

[#Metro]

2 day poll.
Results will be available one the poll has expired.
You may change your vote until poll expiry.

[Jonno]

Remove car parking and replace with mixed use development and cross-town feeder services.  Charging just encourages politicians to see it as a revenue growth opportunity and soon or transit stations ate surrounded by ugly, unsafe, single use car park structures. 1960 policy not suited to the 21 century.

[#Metro]

Remove car parking and replace with mixed use development and cross-town feeder services.  Charging just encourages politicians to see it as a revenue growth opportunity and soon or transit stations ate surrounded by ugly, unsafe, single use car park structures. 1960 policy not suited to the 21 century.

Putting TOD on everything is not the solution IMHO. It is a solution, but only a partial one.

Many stations on the QR network do not have the mobility level that would make it attractive for TOD. The frequency and scope of hours are too low.
This also does nothing for people who do not have alternative access for the reasons I outlined above. Some places you just can't get a bus, yes really!!!

The second thing is that with decent access you can stimulate development outside the 800 m catchment, as shown in Perth with the NewMetroRail Project.
Their logic- we want transport NOW, we can't wait for TOD.

To make a transit system productive when homes are not intensively concentrated,
facilities like park-and-ride lots should be provided to encourage people to get themselves
concentrated, but on their time, not the transit system's. In this way a transit system can
start out well loaded, offering reasonably fast high quality service that can be productive even
in low density areas.

King Cushman cited in PTA presentation by Peter Martinovich.

The killer part of this presentation for "TOD is the only answer" is when it comes to the
section where it says "Transport & Land Use Integration for Low density"

90% of the total catchment area is OUTSIDE the 800m walk space. There is a 10 minute
frequency penalty against buses vs car. They even go into a calculation which shows how
they estimated the PT patronage and you would be appalled to know that their estimate was
only 5% of of total trips to PT.

Our views approach the same problem from different starting points.
My view (Development oriented transit or DOT) is that we have the city we have and the fastest way to
fix things is to fix up the network
and fix up the access to it that caters for the current pattern. This gives up quick results.

Perhaps your view (Transit oriented development or TOD) is to increase densities and TODs everywhere- but this requires the city
to re-organise and the timescale for that is decades and decades to take effect.

Neither view is "wrong", both work to increase PT patronage, but we are just dreaming if we think
town centres are going to pop up at all or even a significant amount of QR stations. Even the busway
which carries 150 000 passengers per day and up to 20 000 pphd in peak hour only has ONE TOD
on it- Wooloongabba.

[#Metro]

Application of a commuter railway to low density settlement
http://www.bitre.gov.au/publications/18/Files/Peter_Martinovich.pdf

Peter Martinovich, PTA, Western Australia

[somebody]

Remove car parking and replace with mixed use development and cross-town feeder services.  Charging just encourages politicians to see it as a revenue growth opportunity and soon or transit stations ate surrounded by ugly, unsafe, single use car park structures. 1960 policy not suited to the 21 century.

I think charging for parking is a useful move.  At least then there would be public pressure to improve feeder buses.

[ozbob]

Fees could be variable as well.  If the clowns are stupid enough to build more park n 'rides in the inner suburbs these attract a higher rate, than say a park n' ride at Rosewood.

A park n' ride at Milton could be say $5, Rosewood, 50 cents.  Cost inversely proportional to the zones ..

There would be a cost establishing the payment system. Best to use go card I reckon.
'

[#Metro]

In the outer areas (Rosewood) you wouldn't bother charging because the carpark isn't full.
In places like Toowong, where it is always full ( I suspect the shoppers are using that car park) you would charge.

It's not free parking if it's not free!

[Golliwog]

I support charging for parking, and it shouldn't be related to if the car park is close to full or not. There should be a charge, period.

[#Metro]

I support charging for parking, and it shouldn't be related to if the car park is close to full or not. There should be a charge, period.

I don't think it is worth charging for a car park that's not in demand. But we'll see how the discussion develops,
interesting views...

[Jonno]

Remove car parking and replace with mixed use development and cross-town feeder services.  Charging just encourages politicians to see it as a revenue growth opportunity and soon or transit stations ate surrounded by ugly, unsafe, single use car park structures. 1960 policy not suited to the 21 century.

I think charging for parking is a useful move.  At least then there would be public pressure to improve feeder buses.

Same pressure if you just remove it.

[Arnz]

What's with anti-car "get rid of the cars all-together mentality" going on?   Common sense please guys.  

If you apply that anti-car mentality, you might as well get rid of buses too because it spits out so-called "poisonous C.N.G" and "diesel", depending on the type of bus.  You might as well bring back the Horses to replace the car, the horse is "environmentally friendly" after all and doesn't spit out "poisonous" gas like the "big, bad, evil" car..

[#Metro]

Same pressure if you just remove it.

Yes, but removing a carpark has the same effect as charging a price of infinity dollars to park there
thereby also creating a push to put a park and ride there. Be careful!!!

Look, it is already an election policy issue with the LNP. That's how much people want to park there.
Charging lets them have it but at a costs, and also funds the alternatives.

Mobility means that we look beyond the vehicle-- that includes if the vehicle happens to have four wheels.

[#Metro]

If you apply that anti-car mentality, you might as well get rid of buses too because it spits out so-called "poisonous C.N.G" and "diesel", depending on the type of bus.  You might as well bring back the Horses to replace the car, the horse is "environmentally friendly" after all and doesn't spit out "poisonous" gas like the "big, bad, evil" car..

Ah...

In the early days horses were used. That kept the city compact but it also meant horse dung - tonnes of it - absolutely everywhere
and the city STANK to high heaven. The ride quality was also truly awful. Then came horse drawn trams which had smoother ride
and decent capacity.

Trams were then electrified- which got rid of the poo problem. Though lot of land was not near a tram and as the city grew
it became profitable to open that land up. With the advent of the car, you didn't need to wait for tram etc, and so we have the
sprawl we have today.

I work on the principle that it is going to be hard, though not impossible, to unscramble an egg.
There needs to be options for everyone. People who have cars also pay taxes, so if they want a park
at a train station, they should pay for it.

While building new carparks near inner city stations may or not make sense, certainly there could be some limited parking
provided in streets around these places without having to build carparks - all you would need is a spray can and signs
and a parking meter. The road space is already there, it just needs to be allotted.

[Jonno]

I think the concept of density being required for good transit ridership is false and proven to be false.  People are making the trips as evidenced by our roads being hideously congested in peak and many times throughout the day.  So the trips are being made just in the wrong mode. What is not there is the fast (dedicated ROWs), frequent (our Motto), legible (easy to find your way around without a math's degree) and networked (jumping on an off all day).  

TOD's come in all shape and sizes from CBD's, to Town Centres, to Urban TODs to Neighbourood Hood TODs. The key is that they are well designed, walkable, safe urban spaces that are serviced by the fast, frequent and network public transport system.  

Why I hate park n' rides is that they are expensive, limited, ugly, unsafe at night, a single limited-hours use of land and encourage people to always think Car First - Walking, Cycling and Public Transport 2nd.  They are just bad policy and waste time and $ on fixing a symptom not the cause.

My preference is for a mixed use development that is vibrant, safe, attractive which encourages transit usage.  Just good urban design not asphalt with no trees or work multi-storey parking structure. I spent 10 years of my career building housing for people who needed/wanted housing other than 3 bedroom, double garage and study house.  The pent up demand for alternative housing in every suburb is massive.  Unfortunately most alternative housing is in expensive urban enclaves which force many back to the 3 bed'er.

Finally, we have the choice of investing in road expansion to cater for the 93% of trips by an ineffienct and unsafe mode of transport where every $ invested makes the problem to fix worse or in forms that are far more efficient and that actually solve our transport issues. We have the funding available because we are trying to cater for the 93% in the least efficient way.    

[#Metro]

Why I hate park n' rides is that they are expensive, limited, ugly, unsafe at night, a single limited-hours use of land and encourage people to always think Car First - Walking, Cycling and Public Transport 2nd.  They are just bad policy and waste time and $ on fixing a symptom not the cause.

It comes down to "The gap" issue I talked about earlier. I suspect that people actually don't care how they get there, they just want to get there
in the way that optimises journey time and cost. It could be that simple, yes really!

Jonno, I think you will really really like Toronto. Take a look at it on Google Earth sometime and around the streets if you can. Toronto is a very nice example of
a very minimalistic rail network (just 69 stations, QR has 85 within Brisbane) supported by massive network of core frequent network feeder services.

For example, the 504 TRAM (yes ONE TRAM LINE, Not even LRT) carried 50 000 passengers a day, which is ONE THIRD of the SE BUSWAY carries. The #25 Don Mills Bus carried 41 000 passengers a day.

So I'm happy with that from a network perspective. But you'd be happy too because around the subway stations towers of condos have also sprung up like mushrooms. And yes, they ALSO have charged parking (as Simon has dug up).

So. We all can have cake...and eat it too.

[Jonno]

Toronto is a great example, as is Munuch, Vienna, Vancouver, Cophenagen, etc..  Unfortunnately we are just getting Park n Ride's and not of the feeder/cross trown services, or TOD's, Trams, Light/Heavy Metros.

[somebody]

Toronto is a great example, as is Munuch, Vienna, Vancouver, Cophenagen, etc..  Unfortunnately we are just getting Park n Ride's and not of the feeder/cross trown services, or TOD's, Trams, Light/Heavy Metros.

As much as you hate it, I don't think RAILBoT should publicly hate parking like you do.  It would be just negative campaigning and likely to turn off many people.  Sorry, but Park 'n' Rides are a part of most transport planning in the developed world; the problem in Brisbane is that they don't have the other aspects as well.

[SurfRail]

Toronto is a great example, as is Munuch, Vienna, Vancouver, Cophenagen, etc..  Unfortunnately we are just getting Park n Ride's and not of the feeder/cross trown services, or TOD's, Trams, Light/Heavy Metros.

As much as you hate it, I don't think RAILBoT should publicly hate parking like you do.  It would be just negative campaigning and likely to turn off many people.  Sorry, but Park 'n' Rides are a part of most transport planning in the developed world; the problem in Brisbane is that they don't have the other aspects as well.

Indeed, TransLink's policy on them is more or less spot on (altohugh there can be some debate about whether the 10km exclusion should in fact be pushed further out - I have debated with others about the relative merits of the Parkinson PNR for instance.)

[somebody]

^ That would be a point we could make, I mean about pushing out the radius.

[Derwan]

A colleague at work has received a couple of parking fines for parking outside designated parks at Richlands.  By the time she drops the kids off at school, she gets to the station after the car park is full.

Sure there should be feeder buses and better public transport to get kids to school, etc, but sometimes it just isn't practical - particularly if you have younger children.

If another level or two was built at the Richlands carpark, a nominal fee could be charged for access, which would've paid it off.  Instead the carpark is full every day and people are getting fined for parking in the wrong places.

If car parks were big enough, you could have an insecure (free) area and a secure (nominal fee) area.

[Golliwog]

Or, if you charged for it, leaving it the same size it is now, you may find a number of people actually think about how else they could get to the station to avoid paying that charge? Thus you could end up with space left later in the morning. Or, you could just fence off part of it and not allow anyone to park there until after say, 8am?

[ozbob]

In Woogaroo Street Goodna, a section of the car park next to the sporting grounds has restricted parking 6am to 9am M-F (15 minutes only).  My observations are that it doesn't seem to be abused, you can go there after 9am and always a few spots left.  It does get progressively parked out with later commuters most days.

[Jonno]

Cities all over the world seem to be able to operate very effectively without massive car parking availability. Kids get to school, groceries get delivered, shop open, soccer games get played, concerts get attended.  What is need is the leadership to develop a transit city not a car city.  Nothing more than that!

[BrizCommuter]

Toronto is a great example, as is Munuch, Vienna, Vancouver, Cophenagen, etc..  Unfortunnately we are just getting Park n Ride's and not of the feeder/cross trown services, or TOD's, Trams, Light/Heavy Metros.

These cities have a much higher population density, and thus have less requirement for park and rides. Brisbane having a semi-rural population density by European standards has little option but for car access as one of the station access modes. To charge for station parking would just make people drive all the way to work instead. 

[ozbob]

Perth seems to manage fine, $2 per day or part thereof ..  --> http://www.transperth.wa.gov.au/UsingTransperth/CarParking.aspx

There is  some limited free parking as well.

[#Metro]

These cities have a much higher population density, and thus have less requirement for park and rides. Brisbane having a semi-rural population density by European standards has little option but for car access as one of the station access modes. To charge for station parking would just make people drive all the way to work instead.

Disagree. Toronto has a lot of park and ride, but it isn't free parking because they charge for that.
The density of Brisbane is also artificially low because there is also a lot of bushland within the city bounds- think of all those
hills. And does the calculation include stradbroke island as well which is officially part of the BCC area but will never have PT?

I think there should be some parking because no city has ever been able to get a bus down all, or even most streets and in
many cases this is impossible or uneconomical to do decently anyway (as much as people may want to minimise that point).
So I think park and ride does have its place- otherwise how are you going to get to the station?! Bit unreasonable to ask
someone living in the backstreets of Toowong to walk or ride bike up and down huge gradients and it is also too slow.

The argument against park and ride isn't that people won't use it. The argument is that TOO MANY people will use it
and that it will be so convenient that it will fill up like crazy and spill over into neighbourhood streets. Personally I think
it is acceptable to park on the street, provided spray can and signs go up so spaces are alloted- and this is cheap to do
because the space is already there and it's not like the 1.8 m x 2m space on the road has development value. Charge for
it and put parking meters in the streets as well to catch overflow, within an 800m radius.

If the thing becomes too popular, just increase the price!

Other times the bus is simply too slow and infrequent. And we can't blanket Brisbane with BUZ everywhere it would
take far too long (50-100 years) and the cost would be astronomical. We haven't even got the Core Frequent Network (Bus)
fully sorted out yet, which is a pre-condition for frequent suburban feeder bus services.

Charges deter people who have an alternative from using the park and ride. For those who don't they pay,
this generates cash in the process which then can be spent on fixing up bike access and bus access.

There isn't a single solution. Charging for parking is also politically speedier and easier than introducing road and congestion
tolls and by offering those funds to go into feeder buses, you get a fair deal.

[SurfRail]

These cities have a much higher population density, and thus have less requirement for park and rides. Brisbane having a semi-rural population density by European standards has little option but for car access as one of the station access modes. To charge for station parking would just make people drive all the way to work instead.

None of these statements are borne out by evidence.

1. Many cities with much higher transit ridership (eg Toronto, or even Sydney) still have extensive park n ride facilities.

2. Density is not required for good transit service.  It just creates a greater imperative.

3. People already drive all the way to town and park there, at considerably greater cost than we are suggesting.

[Jonno]

Toronto is a great example, as is Munuch, Vienna, Vancouver, Cophenagen, etc..  Unfortunnately we are just getting Park n Ride's and not of the feeder/cross trown services, or TOD's, Trams, Light/Heavy Metros.

These cities have a much higher population density, and thus have less requirement for park and rides. Brisbane having a semi-rural population density by European standards has little option but for car access as one of the station access modes. To charge for station parking would just make people drive all the way to work instead. 

As advised before and easily researched.  The assumption that low density means that transit won't work does
not add up as all the residents are making trips. They are just by car

[#Metro]

2. Density is not required for good transit service.  It just creates a greater imperative.

I think it does matter to some extent. Zero development means zero passengers.

Transit-Oriented development (TOD) works on the idea that you put people near the transit system- that is
you change the city so that the access time to PT is cut. The issue here is that people move towards benefits (time savings)
and away from disbenefits (time waste). If the public transport service is crapola or congestion is low,
then there will be no market incentive to live near PT.

Canberra is probably the most appropriate model here. It has entire town centres built around public transport but unless you
live on the main corridor, forget it. The bus frequency off the main stretch is terrible (sounds a lot like the off-busway services
in Brisbane). While these are helpful, it has taken decades for that to develop (not saying that shouldn't be done, just saying you
will wait a long time) and the city had the advantage of being built from scratch.

Development oriented transit (DOT) works on the ideas that we have the city we have and that we accept that. We don't
wait for the city to look like Paris, London, New York. We build service level improvements such as a Core Frequent Network and
park and rides (like Perth) so that even if the density is low we have developed a PT system that can work under that condition.

Perth's Mandurah and Joondalup lines are the EXACT OPPOSITE of the "Paris Metro Model" that seems to be all-pervasive in the
planning establishment. Brisbane is not Paris! And it will be a long time before it ever will be! The Perth / Toronto / Vancouver models
are more appropriate. Perth's lines are spaced widely for high speed (gets from one side of the sprawl to the other, unlike Paris where the
metro is terribly slow) and are NOT designed for walking access, but for motorised access (by feeder bus 50% or by motor vehicle, which is the other 50%).

Density matters, but trying to make the City into something that it is not requires huge amounts of time and expenditure.
There is no need to wait for the city to get dense or the urban planners to get finished. Use the right tools for the right city.

3. People already drive all the way to town and park there, at considerably greater cost than we are suggesting.

Absolutely! People will pay for convenience! Why insist on forcing people on giving something free but crap when they
demonstrate by actions that they are quite willing to pay. For those who can't afford it (concession/welfare), give them discounts.

[#Metro]

http://www.humantransit.org/2011/01/basics-conceptual-triangles.html

Density is good - but don't wait for it!

[Jonno]

TT, the form of our cities is not that bad and providing a fast, frequent, legible, networked system is very very doable.  That will then allow urban infill development to improve the urban design of our city, increase choice of housing and treat cycling, walking and public transport are treated equally. 

The key is provide that service.  Cost need not be a limiter becausebifbthe service is not provided more is spent on catering for motor vehicles by expanding roads capacity.

[#Metro]

TT, the form of our cities is not that bad and providing a fast, frequent, legible, networked system is very very doable.  That will then allow urban infill development to improve the urban design of our city, increase choice of housing and treat cycling, walking and public transport are treated equally.

The key is provide that service.  Cost need not be a limiter becausebifbthe service is not provided more is spent on catering for motor vehicles by expanding roads capacity.

I agree.

As we have seen in the time calculations for the Ipswich line http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=7243.msg78778#msg78778
the thing holding back decent PT is frequency, speed, capacity constraints and access issue (park and ride/feeder bus). At the moment, it's just not that
competitive. People are (generally) rational and aren't going to waste their time.

They key to getting out of this is to focus on the core - in both service level and infrastructure level projects
which complement each other.

Service Level - Fast, cheap services that cut waiting time dramatically.
Core Frequent Network (Bus) - BUZ 230, BUZ 235, BUZ 400, BUZ 359, networks for Ipswich/Gold Coast/Logan/Sunshine Coast
Core Frequent Network (Rail) - 15 minute services to Ipswich, Ferny Grove and wherever else it is possible on *current* infrastructure

Once core frequent network service level improvements are in place, you can start terminating non-BUZ buses at shopping centre interchanges,
busway stations and rail (where capacity permits). In time infrastructure will become limiting- which brings us to Infrastructure level improvements.

Infrastructure Level - slow, expensive but increase speed and capacity.
Core Capacity (Bus) - North-South Subway conversion of the core section of busway and in the CBD or CBD Tunnel, bus lanes.
Core Capacity (Rail) - CROSS RIVER RAIL, small projects to remove single track and flat junctions.

Anything else is non-core and therefore a less priority.
Sorry, but this means line to Yarabilla, Ripley, new motorways out there, Kippa Ring, CAMCOS, Eastern Busway, Springfield Rail extensions, Gold Coast Line
extensions, Beaudesert/Bethania lines/ Greenbank lines/ Light Rail extensions etc are less priority IMHO. If the core is blocked, you can't feed anything into the network.

Although no-one likes to say it, frequent bus can do these tasks while the core in unblocked.

[#Metro]

Results are now in.

[Set in train]

In Woogaroo Street Goodna, a section of the car park next to the sporting grounds has restricted parking 6am to 9am M-F (15 minutes only).  My observations are that it doesn't seem to be abused, you can go there after 9am and always a few spots left.  It does get progressively parked out with later commuters most days.

This is the same in streets surrounding SE busway stations. I use it after 9am and it is very helpful.

[Set in train]

A colleague at work has received a couple of parking fines for parking outside designated parks at Richlands.  By the time she drops the kids off at school, she gets to the station after the car park is full.

Actually within the station or on surrounding roads? Who was the fine by?