Issue #910

by David Gibbs, QMG

If you, like me, rely on parking downtown for work you will have received a rude surprise this week, especially if you’ve been away for the school holidays and didn’t get the note left on windscreens last week. There’s been a massive hike in parking fees. I generally park at the Recreation Ground and the cost rose a walloping 200% as of Monday. Parking for eight hours increased from $8 to $24, which is $80 per week.

Varying increases cover all downtown council car parking. Anyone parking on the streets, such as Athol, Earl and Camp St, are now being slugged $6 per hour! Even Auckland CBD maxes out at $5 per hour for the first 4 hours.

For locals who had a few ‘secret spots’ up their sleeves, including Park St and the Gardens, even those last vestiges of free parking, which were first reduced to limited parking periods, are now paid parking. The streets surrounding town have been gradually shut down or turned into a revenue stream, with the ongoing ‘construction’ taking out everything else. In the morning, it’s The Hunger Games out there competing for a few spots left. Out of desperation people are parking over the yellow line areas approaching street corners, increasing the congestion.

I get council is skint and perhaps feels it is okay to fleece visitors, however for ratepayers facing a 14% rates hike some consideration should be given. Major metros have annual car stickers available for locals to park at either no cost or at a discounted rate. It wouldn’t be difficult to set up a similar system here, perhaps through the parking app as the mechanism.

If a discount is too hard or unpalatable, as a gesture of goodwill they could at least have waited until the bypass and Man St / Lakeview roading projects were completed. That will see the return of hundreds of missing parks. Not everyone has an additional $80 per week to hand over. We are in a cost-of-living crisis for heaven’s sake.

I wouldn’t be so frustrated if the increase was earmarked for real improvements in the available local parking options. Building a public multistorey car park above the existing car park next to the library in Gorge Road being one example. Then the money is at least going to a cure.

Folks also know how the council will respond to anything to do with parking in the downtown area: “Take the bus, walk, or bike to town.” Like many others, I can’t take the bus - there isn’t one, and biking isn’t an option. BTW apparently the increases were flagged in the Annual Plan. I must have missed that bit, despite reading the document. I wonder if anything else in the Plan has been implemented with such cold efficiency.