Carer squeezed out by parking meters

[p858snake]

For the people that hate parking meters.

Carer squeezed out by parking meters

A disabled unit owner has called for Brisbane City Council to review its metered parking after he, his carer and flatmate collected $600 in fines in one month.

While the council had since waived his carer's fines, quadriplegic Tony Leggett said his position mirrored a hidden problem being faced by many of Brisbane's inner-city residents since more meters were introduced in 2009.

Mr Leggett needs a carer twice a day, but despite being given residential parking permits, his carer and his two flatmates are racking up parking fines outside his Teneriffe unit.

Flatmate Stacey Mewett, who worked in a small business on Vernon Terrace, said businesses were concerned their clients could not find parks.

Mr Leggett and Ms Mewett live in the Winchcombe Carson building and have been given resident parking permits. However, they are unable to use those permits on meters that expressly allow them to be used.

Of the 44 parking bays in the block around Mr Leggett's building, just 11 allow for residential parking.

Mr Leggett and Ms Mewett said they believed the problem was the way the parking meters were introduced into Teneriffe in 2009 without community consultation.

A spokesman for Lord Mayor Graham Quirk rejected the claim, saying there was consultation.

Mr Leggett recently started a website asking other Teneriffe and New Farm residents if they have also had parking problems.

"I am just trying to get as many people as possible who have been pinged for a ticket to just tell their story about whether it was just a case of them being a resident who couldn't get a spot, or if they in the wrong, but it was their fourth for the year and they just can't afford this," he said.

The council's community services chairman Geraldine Knapp said the council would continue to work with Mr Leggett and would issue him with free visitor permits for his carers.

"This is a very unique circumstance and up until now we've waived fines issued to Mr Leggett's carers while we try and find him a solution," she said.

Mr Leggett said he raised these problems with the council in 2009 and had spoken to council officers in the past fortnight. He conceded some of his recent fines had been waived.

But he believed parking meters were simply not working for residents or local businesses.

The Winchcombe building has 127 units and underground parking providing one car space per unit.

Other residents with cars have to park on the surrounding streets, which now have a mix of one- and four-hour and unmetered parking areas.

"So there is the overflow of at least one car per unit onto the streets," Mr Leggett said.

"It is a game of musical parking spots."

Mr Leggett said one street, near many unit complexes, should be set aside for residential parking permit holders.

"Make all the current parking spaces along Dath Street and Florence Street 'resident permit excepted' spaces," he said.

"That still leaves the metered car spaces along Vernon Terrace if council insists there's a problem with turnover of spaces.

"If council insists there are already enough resident permit spaces along Dath and Florence streets, they've got nothing to lose by making more resident permit spaces available."

Neighbouring ward councillor David Hinchliffe said the problem was a failure of the LNP's planning, despite Labor supporting the introduction of extra meters in general terms.

"I have pleaded with Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and Cr David McLachlan to install more signs at parking meters exempting residents with permits from having to pay," he said.

"The opposition's policy is that all parking meters in residential areas should allow residents with permits to park without paying."
Cr Knapp said that approach would have a detrimental effect on local businesses.

"I'm not sure allowing residents to park out all parking spaces in inner-city suburbs would be very fair to local businesses and visitors who need those carparks to keep turning over," she said.

"Unfortunately the real problem here is the lack of off-street parking in many of these unit blocks and while we try our best to help out local residents through our parking permit scheme there's got to be a balance to ensure the competing interests of all stakeholders are met."

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/carer-squeezed-out-by-parking-meters-20111221-1p5j5.html

[O_128]

Why assume that everyone has 2 cars, there is great PT in tenneriffe and I bet most people only have 1