Car parking - solutions?

[Jonno]

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2014/08/its-amazing-how-many-more-commuters-would-drive-less-if-they-didnt-get-free-parking/375402/

Again the supply of parking particularly subsidised is a key factor in the decision to drive.  The trips are being made to support public transport at even low density.  The key is to change the decision to drive!!

[Jonno]

http://www.streetfilms.org/parking-searching-for-the-good-life-in-the-city/#more-57130

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane parking issues need long-term solutions

Comment piece by Cr Milton Dick

[Jonno]

http://m.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/brisbane-parking-issues-need-longterm-solutions-20140808-101nbs.html

The contrast between this article and the video could not be greater.  Making unit developers provide more parking just makes it worse. True world cities learned that 20 years ago!

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane CBD discount parking extended indefinitely

[ozbob]

Couriermail Quest --> Cannon Hill residents say parking in Bombery St will get worse as developers move in

[Jonno]

Yep let's make sure there is more and more parking because that's worked so far!!!

[Mozz]

New development application at 61 Ellen Street, Oxley, high side of development is the railway line - 1500sq metre site - 22 Units, 3 storeys, 32 carpark spaces - good use of the land within 100 metres of the access pathway to the railway station and 250 metres walk to the Oxley railway station bus area :-)

[ozbob]

Couriermail Quest --> North Lakes residents get fake fines on windscreens, blame narrow streets for parking problems

[ozbob]

Queensland Times --> Ipswich City Square to introduce paid parking

[ozbob]

For interest --> Napthine government cracking down on non-commuters who park at railway stations

[Jonno]

http://www.humantransit.org/2014/10/basics-the-math-of-park-and-ride.html

basics: the math of park-and-ride
In the Los Angeles Times, Laura J. Nelson worries about inadequate free Park-and-Ride on the Los Angeles rapid transit network.  As usual, the headline is far more misleading than the article: "Lack of parking drives many away from mass transit"

This is a good time for a post about the basic math of Park-and-Ride. 
Really great transit generates high land value around stations. 
Free parking presumes low land value around stations. 
It's a contradiction. 

When a transit agency provides free or underpriced parking at a station where the land value signals that there is a higher use, it is subsidizing motorists in two ways.  First, it is forcing a low-value land use to prevail over a high value land use, and second it is making a much bigger investment in access by motorists than it makes in access by people who get to the station in other ways.  I am using the word subsidy in exactly the same sense that any other artificial limit on price is a subsidy.

Obviously the problem is much worse where the rapid transit is of the highest utility and quality and where the ambient land value is therefore higher.  This is why free Park-and-Ride is much harder to justify on high-frequency metro systems than on infrequent outer-suburban commuter rail in most metro areas. 

Low-cost Park-and-Ride can make great sense where a station area is undevelopable (floodplains etc).  There's also an important role for distributed, small-scale Park-and-Ride created by sharing existing spaces.  Transit agencies often make deals to share parking with land uses that peak on weekends and evenings, such as houses of worship and entertainment venues. These are great ways of providing some car access at very little cost to the public.   

But the law of supply and demand generates some facts about free Park-and-Ride that many people don't want to hear, but that we really can't protect them from:
Free parking at a high-utility rapid transit station is a price subsidy, exactly the way the Soviet Union's caps on retail prices were.  It has the same effect, which is to cause problems of supply: Empty shelves in Soviet grocery stores, Park-and-Rides that fill up at 7 AM. If a commodity is priced too low in a condition of high demand, its supply will be exhausted, making it unavailable.

A Park-and-Ride that fills up at 7 AM is effectively one that doesn't exist over much of the time period when it's supposedly needed.  This loss of utility for people who travel later is a direct consequence of the price subsidy, as the artificially low price prevents the transit agency and its customers from reaching a market equilibrium where supply and demand of parking are in balance.  (This equilibrium, of course, would be optimal for both ridership and revenue.  Parking that fills up too soon drives away riders as effectively as no parking would.)

The claim that Park-and-Ride is needed to attract riders is true only in the earliest phases of development, or on transit services with limited utility like peak-only express service.   Once land value rises in response to transit access, the highest source of ridership is also the economically highest use of the land: dense, transit-oriented development around the station combined with good provision for the space-efficient forms of access (i.e. everything but Park-and-Ride).  This is why Park-and-Ride is often a logical interim use of land, but not one that you should plan on having forever.  Once a city has grown in around a transit system, there may be little Park-and-Ride left at rail stations, and only massive, distorting subsidies will make it free.

Preventing high-value dense development on naturally expensive station-area land forces that development to locate away from the rapid transit system instead, creating a less sustainable urban structure in which more people and businesses lack excellent transit options.
People who take buses or bikes or their feet or Kiss-and-Ride to a rail station are being mathematically correct (and fiscally conservative) when they object to free Park-and-Ride at high-demand stations, especially if the agency is not offering a corresponding subsidy to their own preferred modes of access, which all use scarce space more efficiently. 

Free parking can be mandated by really twisted and contradictory environmental regulations, such as those that disguise the self-interest of motorists ("Level of Service") as an environmental good.    These laws insist that the solution to a problem created by market-distorting subsidies lies in more market-distorting subsidies.  California has recently liberated itself from that nonsense, and many other states and countries are watching.

All of these problems around Park-and-Ride can be resolved only by charging a fair market price for the rental of expensive, publicly owned real estate.  Once parking is priced that way, it can remain the best use of valuable land.  As always, the problem is not parking, per se.  The problem is the market distortion arising from the subsidy.

It's easy to feel entitled to a free Park-and-Ride space.  But nobody can repeal the law of supply and demand, and that's what we're dealing with here.

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane parking sensors help monitor city spots

[bcasey]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane parking sensors help monitor city spots

Hmm, I didn't realise they had these sensors and this kind of data available in Brisbane. I've read about similar setups in other cities though. Rather than just using it as revenue protection, I would suggest providing this information as part of the open data initiative, to allow developers provide a solution for finding available parking spots. Granted, its only a limited number of parking spots atm, but if this data was available to the public, it could help reduce traffic congestion caused by drivers cruising to find a parking spot.

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Free parking for 15 minutes at meters outside Brisbane CBD

Report is available online

--> http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/traffic-transport/parking-permits/brisbane-parking-taskforce

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane City Council's parking revolution

Not sure about a 'revolution' but some recognition that there is a problem.  Taken years for the BCC to look at seriously ...  not sure if these are real solutions ...

A talk back caller suggested the race course car parks could be used as park n' rides - with frequent shuttle buses to and from the City ...

You just have to love Queenslanders ...   

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> Brisbane city parking report fails to address high cost

[bcasey]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane City Council's parking revolution

I spoke too soon. It looks like they are planning on providing the parking data to the public, and there possibly will be a competition announced this week for innovative apps that will make use of it.

[pandmaster]

Couriermail --> Brisbane city parking report fails to address high cost

I assume they are referring to the cost of off-street parking being "too high". What a load of rubbish. It is simple supply and demand that dictates the high prices. Expensive parking in the city keeps peak hour traffic from being even worse. If only the demand could be reduced somehow... that would lower prices.

[Jonno]

Brisbanetimes --> Brisbane City Council's parking revolution

I spoke too soon. It looks like they are planning on providing the parking data to the public, and there possibly will be a competition announced this week for innovative apps that will make use of it.

The three most stupid comments I heard today were "Every household has and needs a car" and "people travel outside the CBD and you can't take public transport there" from the RACQ and in response to a concern about people driving whilst looking at a parking app was "there is always 2 in a car".  The debate is worse than a kindergarten playground spat.

[Gazza]

Is Yeronga the most underutilized station car park in Brisbane?

[SurfRail]

That's about 4 more cars than I've ever seen in there.  I've seen more disused fridges in there than working vehicles.

I think this is one of the carparks they (sensibly) identified can be sold for a unit development with no great loss to anybody.

[ozbob]

Brisbanetimes --> Free 15-minute parking scheme to cost $1.8 million

[HappyTrainGuy]

The three most stupid comments I heard today were "Every household has and needs a car" and "people travel outside the CBD and you can't take public transport there"

Well, there goes my weekend plans.


Well that's strange. My 359 has decided to terminate at a different location.... Hang on. Why the hell is there almost a 2hr gap at Albany Creek in the middle of the afternoon..... Well at least I could transfer onto a 338...

but that arrives...... it's 3.45 and the 338... 4.10.... THAT'S AFTER THE NEXT 357.... THE HELL IS GOING ON!


Oh for christs sake. What the hell am I reading??


Well, that's a speedy trip home from Westfield Strathpine via PT before 6pm.


Love the cross town travel times.

My bus will be coming along soon...



Any minute now.... Any minute now...

*stretches* Arrrrrrrrr---hhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Any minute now.

*Looks at watch* Still just a few minutes away. I wonder how many buses are going along Gympie Road??

AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR---HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. *Looks at watch*

My supervisor isn't going to be happy that I'm going to be a little late. Where is this damn bus? It has to be coming any minute now?

Yep. F*** this right off. I'm driving!

[ozbob]

Sydney Morning Herald --> ACT parking-fee plan to encourage use of buses

[ozbob]

Queensland Times --> Mall parks will be $8 a day - and that's the early bird rate

[pandmaster]

Queensland Times --> Mall parks will be $8 a day - and that's the early bird rate

The proposal seems sound. Free for movie goers so as not to kill off business. Free outside of working hours. Free for staff. Great work!

[bcasey]

Queensland Times --> Mall parks will be $8 a day - and that's the early bird rate

The proposal seems sound. Free for movie goers so as not to kill off business. Free outside of working hours. Free for staff. Great work!

Definitely more reasonable than Chermside's Paid Parking policies, imo. I ended up having to pay the full $20 last year when I went to see the Star Wars movie marathons, and the staff at the cinema said they couldn't validate it for free parking. I think when paid parking was first installed there, even staff had to pay for it, although I'm not sure if they have changed that since. There is a separate staff area of the car park that is cordoned off from the customer parking, so its possible they have changed that policy.

[Jonno]

Please read the parking chapters in Jeff Speck's  Walkable City.  Great explanation about the influence of cheap parking and the power of paid parking.

[Gazza]

When I was in Toronto this was one of the car parks on one of the commuter lines:

[#Metro]

Perth has used Park and Ride (all carparks now fee entry) in lower density areas where brand new bus service would be hard to supply. I see it as picking the right tool for the problem at hand.

You know, behind Central Station is a big BCC owned car park from the Clem Jones era.

[ozbob]

Queensland Times --> New car park to open as City Square parking fees begin

[ozbob]

Couriermail --> It's about to get a lot tougher for inner city residents to find a parking space

[ozbob]

Queensland Times --> Shoppers return as the boom gates come down at Ipswich Mall

[ozbob]

Couriermail Quest --> Brisbane shopping centre gets set for 'controlled' parking later this year

INDOOROOPILLY Shopping Centre has announced plans to introduce paid parking for customers who park in the centre for more than three hours ...

[SurfRail]

Good.  That's the big 4 outside the city done then.

I expect Robina and Pac Fair will eventually happen too.  Aus Fair has had paid parking for almost as long as I've been alive.

[red dragin]

North Lakes has permission to have paid parking in the future should they choose to.

Council gave in before Easter.

[pandmaster]

^ Surely North Lakes will have paid parking when the MBRL opens.

[Arnz]

Sunshine Plaza would likely be the only SC candidate for paid parking in the medium term, especially if the SC clowncil decides to raise the PT levy to fund the light rail (likely joint as a PPP and/or partial State Gov funding) and/or the state government gets off their butts on the CoastConnect busway (let's face it CAMCOS beyond Caloundra is in the foamers/Maglev bus/2040+ territory). 

If the CoastConnect busway/bus lanes do occur in conjunction with further proposed Kawana Shoppingworld extension, then Kawana S/W may also be a future "paid parking" candidate.

[James]

Couriermail Quest --> Brisbane shopping centre gets set for 'controlled' parking later this year

INDOOROOPILLY Shopping Centre has announced plans to introduce paid parking for customers who park in the centre for more than three hours ...

Needed to happen, and was always going to happen once the renovations finished. Finding a park can take ages if you don't know where to look. Expect parking chaos in the surrounding area, one thing Chermside and Carindale didn't have to contend with is 4 schools within 1km and a University within 3km. The bus cost explosion is about to engulf another part of Brisbane.

Surely North Lakes will have paid parking when the MBRL opens.

I don't think it will become that much of an issue. North Lakes' Park n Ride catchment is much smaller compared to the Big 4, and the locals there will likely be stuck in their ways of driving to Petrie for a few years yet.

These centres are mini-CBDs. I'd expect to see paid parking at Strathpine before we see it at North Lakes.