Competition for spaces among city’s parking woes

Parking is at a premium in Clyde St, as it is with many streets in the north end of the city....
Parking is at a premium in Clyde St, as it is with many streets in the north end of the city. Photo: Gerard O'Brien
Competition for parking spaces has led to Dunedin residents heading to work earlier and even avoiding some areas all together.

Those were just some of the findings of the Dunedin City Council’s wide-ranging online parking survey conducted last month.

A majority of the problems identified by the 881 people who took part in the survey were in the area around the University of Otago, the Otago Museum and the Dunedin Hospital.

The most common themes in the responses were availability and turnover of parking spaces, pricing, time restrictions, design and safety, enforcement, parking buildings, all-day parking and the use of technology.

The report on the survey, which will be presented to councillors next week, noted the close proximity of the three destinations put them in direct competition with each other for parking spaces.

People said they now had to leave earlier for work just to ensure they found an all-day parking space both paid and free.

Pricing was another issue highlighted in the survey — the majority of people who commented about the cost of parking said it was too high and many wanted free parking.

A discrepancy between the cost of parking in a council-owned parking building and one run by a private company was also an issue.

Parking outside the Otago Museum was also highlighted, as some people were hesitant to visit the attraction because of the uncertainty of finding a park.

Comments

Why are'nt all these people cycling like Dave said they would on his precious waste of money cycleways.

Agree lets see all the Councillors bike too and from work unless they ave a sick chit not too

If the Council gave everyone a free bicycle there would be no increase in user of these expensive, inconvenient, and useless cycleways. They are another feel-good way of spending other people’s money.
I’ll give it a maximum of 10 years, after which the Council will spend further millions removing these useless cycleways.

For many years I have long believed that parking would eventually become a political and election issue in this city , if not nationally. Sooner or later someone is going to run a mayoral campaign on this one issue. I'm convinced it will be an easy way to win votes and great way to start some overdue reforms of the city council

More cyclways being currently built are sure to make the problem of car parking worse.

But never fear - all of our terrific DCC councillors will lead by example and be cycling everywhere in no time, I'm sure!

In fact, let's start by eliminating car parking spaces and courtesy cars and give them all bikes instead!

 

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