CEO states this will be done through the 2015-2025 Long Term Plan processes This just in from Auckland Council Council returns cheque Auckland Council is returning a $7.5 million deposit … Continue reading Council Turns Down $75m Offer for AT’s Downtown Car Parking Building
No not the consultation itself but the eventual change in parking regimes might.
This from Auckland Transport:
Opening the parking discussion in Auckland
28/05/2014 01:02 p.m.
Auckland Transport (AT) is reviewing all aspects of parking in Auckland and wants public feedback on its Draft Parking Discussion Document. Parking problems which affect the entire region have been identified by AT with some possible ways to fix them. Submissions open online on Saturday 31 May and close on Tuesday 30 June, giving organisations and individuals a month to provide their views.
Auckland Transport’s General Manager Strategy and Planning, Peter Clark, says this is the first time parking is able to be reviewed right across the whole of Auckland.
The review looks at the use of Park and Rides, residential parking zones, managing on and off street parking in the central city, clearest times on arterial roads and parking in town centres.
“We are aiming to set a clear and consistent direction for Auckland’s parking in future, which will be good for all road users, adjacent businesses and residents and we want to make sure we are making the right decisions for Auckland’s future.”
Mr Clark says, “As our city grows and develops rapidly, now is the time to take a look at how we most effectively manage the range of parking options for the city. Parking affects everyone in the region in one way or another. From the submissions we receive, we will develop a Parking Strategy for Auckland.”
“As Auckland grows, it is an increasing challenge to balance the competing demands on the road network. Parking is not only vital to the safe and efficient operation of that network, but also supports economic development and has a major impact on placemaking, public transport, walking and cycling.Auckland Transport is keen to get the public’s thoughts on a range of recommended approaches to improve Auckland’s parking, but specifically those relating to:
- The city centre, metropolitan and town centres
- Residential streets
- Off-street parking facilities (parking buildings)
- On-street parking restrictions
- Arterial roads (phasing out on-street parking)
- Parking permits
- Park and rides
For more information and to have your say on improving Auckland’s parking, please visit www.at.govt.nz/parkingfeedback. There you’ll find more details about possible solutions and an online feedback form to fill in by 30 June 2014. If you don’t have access to a computer, call Auckland Transport’s Contact Centre to be mailed a Draft Parking Discussion Document pack.
—-ends—-
Source: https://at.govt.nz/about-us/news-events/opening-the-parking-discussion-in-auckland/
The Draft Parking Strategy document from Auckland Transport can be seen below:
I am on “parental leave” until June 11 so commentary will be light or delayed until then.
Commentary on the parking strategy will go up onto the blog, it just takes a few days longer than otherwise previous.
Recently I had filed a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request to Auckland Council over the business case for the now Auckland Transport owned and operated Manukau City Centre Public Car Parking Building:
Time for a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act Request
It is time to file another Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act request to the Auckland Council. This time the LGOIMA request will be on the recently opened Auckland Transport public car park building in Manukau which I reported on this morning. The request I will be filing will be for the originalbusiness case presented to the former Manukau City Council (under Mayor Len Brown) on this $14m building before it was carried over as a legacy project by today’s Auckland Council.
I am curious to what the business case was for this parking building in trying to understand why the former Manukau City Council went ahead with this project and possibly why Auckland Council did not stop it.
I’ll be keeping the readers up to date on the request – whether it is accepted or rejected by Council officials.
But in any case it is time to take a peek and what was the methodology behind the construction of this parking building in Manukau City Centre!
And so the information requested has come in today and is posted (as four attachments) below.
This is the revised version
Now I am still reading the documents, but on first glance I think we have just been sold down the road initially with this building if we do not get any more high density development around Manukau soon (the Manukau South Rail Link adds another dynamic to the mix as well).
However check this out from AT’s website in the Ronwood Avenue Parking Building:
Ronwood Avenue car park
Last reviewed: 10/12/2012 11:55 a.m.Car park location: Corner Ronwood and Davies Avenue, Manukau – entrance from Ronwood Avenue
Parking description: Multi-storey parking facility with a Vehicle Height Clearance of 2.1m. Eight levels with 676 spaces.
Car park features:
- System for quick and easy parking (space availability signage by level)
- Well lit
- Clean and tidy
- CCTV cameras that link through to a central control room monitored by security personnel.
Contact us about this car parking facility, or if you require immediate assistance in the car park building, press the blue “assistance” button located on the payment machines.
Hours | Tariffs | Lease Parking | Debit Card | Parking Vouchers | Ways to Pay |
Day of the week Opens Closes Monday to Friday 6.00am 9.00pm Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays Closed Note: Customers can park their cars in the building for 24 hours or longer, but can only exit before the last exit or opening times. See Other Parking rates to work out the cost of leaving your car overnight. For example, should you park your car in the building after 5pm on Friday night, and remove it on Monday morning at 6am, you will pay the $5 evening rate for each night it is in the building ($15 in total).
Tariffs
The following tariffs are a guideline only and subject to change. Refer to the schedule of fees at the car park entry.
Casual parking (Monday – Friday)
Casual parking 0 – 1 hour $1 1 – 2 hours $2.00 2 – 3 hours $3.00 3 – 4 hours $4.00 4 – 5 hours $5.00 Max daily rate $6.00 * Lost ticket fee $40.00 * If customer loses their parking ticket, an instant $40.00 fee will be charged to be released from the car park.
Other Parking
Other parking Tariff Times & Conditions Early bird parking $4.00 Weekdays only Enter and pay before 9.30am
Availability during this time is on a first come basis until full
Levels 1 and 2 only
Evening rate $5.00 Enter after 5.00pm – valid until 6.00am (following morning) One entry, one exit
Pay at the machine
Lease Parking Monthly lease deals (incl. GST)
See application forms for lease parking
Concession $150.00
Level 3 No reserved allocated space -“first come – first served”
Global concession $360.00
Reserved allocated (undercover) $250.00
Level G Reserved allocated (external) $160.00
Level G Reserved unallocated $200.00
Level 4 Debit card Coded for denominations $20.00 to $200.00. Rechargeable.
Contact us for more information Parking vouchers See casual rates above Available in 1,2,3 hour; half or full day periods, parking vouchers are used at the pay machine together with the entry ticket. Request via fax or contact us
Ways to pay Automatic payment machines can take Visa, Mastercard, Diners card and EFTPOS payments, as well as cash. Help is only a button push away if required.
* If customer loses their parking ticket, an instant $40.00 fee will be charged to be released from the car park.
So what methodology was used? Love to seriously know
And I would really love to know how the diminished operating hours and parking tariffs compared to the original and revised Business Case studies are meant to assist in paying off the building as well as building a “sustainable” positive cash flow for Auckland Transport and Auckland Council. Now remember the parking building’s parking tariffs have already been slashed to these current levels to match or even underpin the All Day Park and Display street parking around Manukau. Even then that has not enticed people off the street and into the building (and it wouldn’t for me either).
I also have to ask, it is packed at Westfield Manukau Mall with Christmas shoppers and will be this weekend. Have AT even thought of opening the building this weekend to catch the overflow – you know a win-win for AT and Westfield? Probably not. So while you the shopper go round and around looking for a park, you have a perfectly empty dead parking building just sitting there – NICE ONE AUCKLAND TRANSPORT!
Why does Cabbage Boat come to mind here folks.
More in this business case later.
Ooops at the tune of $3 million a month just in Auckland. Well that is if the Herald article this morning was anything to go by:
From the NZH on this Labour Day:
Drivers fined $3m a month
5:30 AM Monday Oct 22, 2012
AA shocked at rise in amount collected by Auckland Transport for vehicle offences.
Auckland Transport has been slugging motorists with fines of $3 million a month for parking and other vehicle offences.
Figures it supplied to the Herald for its first 20 months have shocked the Automobile Association, which suspects they reflect “anti-car” tendencies of its Auckland Council parent.
The figures detail $36.2 million of fines collected from motorists in the financial year to June 30.
That leaped from $20.5 million for the previous eight months, from when Auckland Transport began business in November 2010.
Although the latest total was for a longer period, the monthly average has risen to just over $3 million from $2.54 million in the organisation’s early days.
The $17 million was Auckland Transport’s half-share of warrant and registration fines. The Ministry of Transport received the rest.
But AA spokesman Simon Lambourne believed an increase in parking fines from $4.4 million for the eight months to last winter, to $7.2 million in the year to June 30, showed too much effort put into enforcement of a flawed system and not enough into education.
That was not counting $16.4 million in court penalties for all types of vehicle infringement over the year.Auckland Transport also raised $32.7 million last financial year from standard motorists’ fees for street parking and parking buildings, and $2.1 million from bus lane infringements, although that represented an easing from $1.9 million collected for the previous eight months
You can read the rest of the article at the NZH. But what I want to get at is the AA’s rather archaic thinking here, in particular to comment from them:
But AA spokesman Simon Lambourne believed an increase in parking fines from $4.4 million for the eight months to last winter, to $7.2 million in the year to June 30, showed too much effort put into enforcement of a flawed system and not enough into education.
And
Of parking fines, Mr Lambourne said: “The amount of money being collected is alarming. It’s not being realistic about the importance of the car to mobility in Auckland.”
Oh boohoo and go back to the 1950’s as you get no sympathy from me here AA! With education; well teach your member drivers how to read the following signs: No Parking, Mobility Holders Only, Bus Stop, P60, Clearway, Loading Zone, Bus Lane, etc and then you might find the amount of fines given out decreasing. As for WoF and rego fines, well who was the nupty there for parking without a current WoF or registration 😛
As for importance of the car to mobility; dang that is 1950’s thinking knowing where the AA is going with that line of thought!
Look I do not deny the car as one of the sources of mobility in Auckland – that is ONE OF THE SOURCES! However we do have (and need investment) other sources of mobility such as public or active (walking) transport that need equal attention (if not more) as the car. In my submissions to The Auckland and Long Term Plans I gave equal weight to both car and public transport in investment for Auckland. An example was $3.6b on the City Rail Link and Rail Efficiency Program while an equal amount of cash was allocated to The Eastern Highway and the East-West link in Penrose/Mt Wellington. All three of those projects have high benefit to Auckland and are considered Priority One and Two (so completed by 2025 or 2032). There is no skewering towards one particular mode of transport over the other here.
As for the CBD, cars and parking; well the CBD is a premium place with premium parking so I somewhat expected premium parking prices here. The CBD can still be access easily whether by car, bus or train; we just have to be smart on how limited CBD is allocated to traffic and how measures can be taken to best utilise premium CBD space. My parking regime submission to AT gives an idea on what I would propose for the CBD:
ALTERNATIVE TO CENTRAL CITY PARKING ZONE REGIME
Posted by BR:AKL_Admin01 on June 14, 2012 · Leave a Comment (Edit)
Need the Alternative first before “penalising” car users
MY ALTERNATIVE LAID OUT
Last week I wrote a post on how Auckland Council and Transport were planning to change the parking regime in the Auckland CBD. In the post I spelled out the pros and cons of such a change (mainly cost of parking would be more expensive than Central London (exchange rate taken into account) and my viable alternative to such a regime – both pre and post City Rail Link.
Lets take a brief recap of the alternative I laid out:
I would support the new parking scheme if we had a viable alternative in position, but because we do not I OPPOSE the scheme – pure and simple. To get me to support the scheme you need the following in position first for the CBD:
- The CRL – so the main sections of the CBD are reachable by train regardless on how you got to the CBD from the suburbs first
- Parking Garages on the outskirts of the CBD, complemented with shuttle buses, and the City and Inner Link Buses (for the North Shore you would need a big park and ride at Akoranga Busway Station). This would allow people to drive from the suburbs to the CBD outskirts, park up then catch a shuttle, bus or train into the main CBD core. You would also get spin offs through being able to add more pedestrian malls and shared zones with reduction of inner CBD traffic.
- A working and frequent off-peak service to give better incentive to come into the CBD via mass transit from the suburbs (could mean extending timetables and better security on mass transit to discourage anti-social behaviour (a real turn off from using the bus or train).
If one was wondering where the main parking garages would be ringing the CBD I was thinking (but not limited to) these areas:
- Next to Grafton Station (the old Brewery Site is up for redevelopment) and may be Mt Eden Station on the Western Rail Line.
- Near Newmarket South (there is some under utilised car lots next to the Newmarket Viaduct that would do just nicely – and still within an 800 metre/10 minute distance gap to Newmarket Station (see Mapnificent Graphic below for areas within reach of proposed parking building)
- The Auckland Water-Frontier Transit Station (has to be built first and that is at least 20 years away)
- Orakei and G.I Train Stations which have Park and Rides
- Wynyard Quarter near Fanshawe Street (State Highway One end) (My proposed Wynyard Transit Station)
Well today I drew up some maps of this alternative scheme, and filed my submission to Auckland Transport formally opposing their Central City Parking Zone WITHOUT viable alternatives in position first.
You can see the rest of that particular post by clicking on the link above
In the end, it is about being balanced and fair (well much as possible) to all users. What the AA suggests is not fair and balanced, what I propose and advocate for is. And while my alternative is CBD focused, it can be easily translated to the suburbs including my home community of Papakura! Speaking of which I think a Town Hall meeting is required in mobility and access in Papakura, especially with 500 “social” and “affordable” houses due to be built behind me – and no access what so ever to public transport…
A little while ago I had commented (and submitted to Auckland Transport) that there was consultation taking place for the impending parking regime change in Auckland CBD. Well Auckland Transport released yesterday the final version of the regime change after the consultation (some 700+ submissions including mine) which can be read below:
From Auckland Transport:
New initiatives for City Centre Parking Zone
Last reviewed: 20/09/2012 8:12 a.m.
Media release: 19 September 2012
A new City Centre Parking Zone, along with some other new parking initiatives, will be introduced by Auckland Transport in mid-October.
Auckland Transport’s Chief Operating Officer, Greg Edmonds says: “As Auckland’s population continues to grow, we are committed to delivering convenient access to parking both on and off street as part of the transport mix which includes public transport, walking and cycling.
“The main objective for Auckland Transport in changing the management of on-street and off-street parking in the City Centre is to prioritise short-term parking over long-term parking in an area of the city which has a high degree of visitation for business and leisure activities.”
The proposal for the creation of a new zone and associated pricing went out to public consultation in June this year.
Auckland Transport received 718 submissions on the proposal and has made changes as a result of that feedback.
On-street parking prices will remain unchanged at $4 per hour for the first two hours in the core CBD. After two hours prices will increase relative to the zone, the purpose of this is to prioritise short term (less than two hours) parking on streets.
The scheme will commence with three parking zones rather than the two initially proposed with lower prices around Union Street and Wynyard Quarter. There will be no time limits on any of the zones.
Auckland Transport will also introduce a ten minute “grace period”, which effectively means free parking. It will also remove most P5, P10 and P15 restrictions for on-street parking. The grace period will allow the removal of short-term parking restrictions as people will be able to stop anywhere for ten minutes before payment is required.
“This is a customer friendly option allowing quick pick-ups and drop offs and extends parking options for the likes of couriers and delivery companies,” says Mr Edmonds.
Auckland Transport will also extend paid parking from 6pm to 10pm in the central CBD area. This will improve access for visitors to premium on-street parking in the city in the evenings for leisure activities and reduce congestion during the evening peak.
Additional changes as a result of public feedback include; reducing peak casual hourly rates to $3 an hour in Auckland Transport’s Civic, Downtown and Victoria Street car parks. The current rate is $5.50 per hour for the first two hours and $4 or $5 per hour thereafter.
Mr Edmonds says “Car parking buildings are also a good option, particularly at night, because they are well-lit and have security measures.”
In a further effort to encourage off-street parking in the CBD, a daily maximum charge of $17 per day will be introduced in Auckland Transport parking buildings for longer stays. The daily maximum currently sits at $29.
Both on-street and off street parking prices will be reviewed after six months.
The revenue impacts from these changes are not known at this stage but Auckland Transport expects it to be revenue neutral.
Chief Executive of Heart of the City, Alex Swney says: “For many years parking has been seen as a major reason not to come into the city. We see today’s announcement as a significant change in approach to parking in the city. It recognises the ‘moving feast’ of parking demands of our businesses and their customers. It’s a major step forward and we are sure we will be looking back in a year and see significant improvement as a result.”
Mr Edmonds said the changes will be implemented from mid October 2012. Details of the changes will be communicated to the public through the Auckland Transport website and through a public information campaign closer to the date.
Map of the Proposed Zone (PDF 4.7 MB – please allow time for download)
The Map can be seen in the embed here:
Personally all things considered especially per my submission to Auckland Transport on the parking regime change, I am quite happy with how the final product turned out. Of course still work to be done – but happy with the outcome.
Well done to Auckland Transport 😀
(even I can praise AT when warranted)
ALTERNATIVE TO CENTRAL CITY PARKING ZONE REGIME (basic form of my submission to the regime change)
Talking Southern Auckland 