Nobody ever likes to pay for parking, many viewing it as a cynical way for councils to raise money, but paid parking and time limits are designed to help ensure parking near places many people might want to go is not hogged by a few people staying for hours.
Higher turnover of vehicles allows more car travellers to visit. Designated car parks for those with disabilities are designed to cater for those with no choice but to use private vehicles.
Under the Sunday parking change, likely to get the go-ahead from the Dunedin City Council tomorrow, free time-limited parking in 27 slots will remain in George and Princes Sts.
The area where fees will apply includes most of the Octagon, Moray Pl, Filleul St, part of London St and Great King St, ending at Frederick St.
The fees will apply from 9am to 6pm, except otherwise indicated, the same as during the working week.
The idea of the change is to increase turnover in parking in the area and allow more shoppers to visit more easily, something some businesses had been concerned about, although some opponents suggest it will have the opposite effect.
Suggestions for more variation did not result in changes to the Sunday proposal.
Some submitters wanted a later start to allow for retrieval of cars in the inner city by drivers who had left them there rather than drink-drive on Saturday night.
The option of leaving the status quo but tightly policing time limits to ensure turnover did not find favour either.
While it is easy to interpret the move as mean-spirited at a time when many people struggle to make ends meet, there are also concerns about the hard time our bricks and mortar retailers are having trying to compete with online shopping.
If this works to get a greater flow of shoppers into the city centre, that will be great.
As we have previously suggested, it would make sense to combine the move with a push to promote Sunday bus travel.
It is good to see the decision on Sunday parking will be reviewed next year to assess its impact.
That must be comprehensive enough to establish whether the move achieves its purpose of boosting shopping numbers and that there are not unwanted unintended consequences.
The eyes have it
Damage to campaign signs in elections is nothing new.
Candidates put considerable time, and expense, in to making sure their campaign posters make them look their best, images which exude gravitas and trustworthiness.
Then they place them where they hope many people will spot them.
In local body elections where voters may be overwhelmed with the sheer number of candidates, hoardings play a part in helping people to recognise candidates, even if sometimes we suspect the faces may look a little more glamorous than the real thing.
This year, any hope of glamour has disappeared on some local body candidates’ posters with the addition of googly eyes.
Anyone wanting to peruse the eyes of the candidates on these posters to check the doorway to their souls will be disappointed. They might be better to take the opportunity to see candidates in person at one of the election meetings.
At least the googly eyes addition is slightly more imaginative than the glasses, moustache, beard combinations we have come to know, or frenzied scrawling of expletives.
Mostly, affected candidates have taken the eye makeover with good humour, but there is a more serious side to it.
Not all candidates have plenty of cash to splash on their campaigns which runs to renewing damaged posters.
While the googly eyes might be seen as a bit of fun, some candidates have drawn attention to unsavoury and more scary experiences of vandalism targeting them.
Nobody should have any tolerance for that or for the online abuse of candidates which has become increasingly commonplace.
