An Adelaide City Councillor is insisting a mooted increase in on-street car parking charges is a budget move – not an attempt to deter people from parking in the city.
A council committee will tonight consider a range of new parking fee increases across the city, including adding “premium” fees of between 50 cents and $1 an hour to on-street car parks in high-traffic locations in the city’s centre. The fee increases have been recommended by council administration.
The theory is the higher on-street prices will encourage motorists to park in the city’s off-street, multi-storey car parks, freeing up the on-street bays for short-term parkers who are looking to pick up their shopping and leave.
Adelaide City Council general manager Neil Brown told InDaily the council had about 13,000 off-street car parking spaces, 10,000 of which were free.
City Councillor Houssam Abiad told InDaily the parking price increases had very little to do with the council’s overall parking strategy, and were about making sure the council’s revenue was sustainable.
The council’s Smart Move transport strategy, released last year, flagged applying a higher charge for on-street parking in key locations.
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Abiad said the latest proposal is “taking into account a path toward (the council’s transport strategy) Smart Move, but this is more a financial decision than anything really”.
“It does reflect some part of the Smart Move Strategy, but the focus in this is a budget review,” he said. “We’re talking about a 4 per cent increase, so that’s CPI plus a little bit on top – that basically focusses on business sustainability for council.
“Wages increased, everything else increased. Really it’s a normal increase from the previous year.
“This is a regulatory business increase. If you want to talk about applying a Smart Movement Strategy, then there is a longer and larger holistic approach that needs to be taken.
“This is not just about the Smart Move Strategy. If we didn’t have a Smart Movement Strategy would we still do this? Yes we would.”
Abiad supports the general rate increases but is opposed to the priority fees for high-traffic bays. He plans to take up the issue with council administration later today.
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A former council transport planner, Ian Radbone, also a past president of the Australian Institute of Urban Studies SA, says the new fees will probably only have a tiny impact on parking demand in the city.
Radbone believes, drawing from studies from other cities, up to 30 per cent of traffic on streets like Pirie St are drivers looking for a free bay.
“We should be encouraging a situation where there are always one or two spare spaces on the block,” he said.
“At the moment up to 30 per cent (of motorists) or even more on some of the high-use streets like Pirie Street are just circling the block looking for a park.
“When you get that sort of situation then clearly there’s something wrong with the parking situation – it’s too attractive for people.
“On the other hand there’s places like Flinders Street up toward Hutt Street, where you’ll see lots of empty spaces. Clearly it’s not attractive enough.”
Radbone said the new fees, if implemented, were likely to lead to a 2.5 per cent drop in total demand for city parking.
City Council modelling showed the State Government’s parking tax, if implemented, would push down demand for city parking spaces by 6 per cent.
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