Sydney’s first on-street charging station
The ABC reported this week on the installation of Sydney CBD’s first on-street charging station for electric cars. Whilst at this point it is just a trial for members of an electric car sharing company, data will be collected over the next three months to assess whether there is enough interest in the system to […]
Councils defend parking fines rise
Office of State Revenue figures released last week reveal parking-related notices in NSW increased by more than 200,000 in the five years between 2004-05 and 2008-09. The cost to drivers in this time jumped from almost $95 million to more than $140 million. The Local Government Association insists it is motivated by the public good, […]
Newcastle City Council plans to raise parking meter fees
Meanwhile, on the other side of Sydney, Newcastle City Council has announced a review of their parking policies, including parking fees, as part of a coastal Masterplan. Newcastle CBD has had paid parking in place for many years now, but the Masterplan is also proposing to extend paid parking to the beaches. Newcastle City Council […]
Wollongong Council amends parking meter zones again
On April 29, Wollongong City Council announced that it was changing two one-hour parking zones into 15-minute free zones. The shop that the zones are in front of, the Nut & Deli, are thrilled with the outcome and Council has indicated that additional 15-minute free parking spaces were also likely to be rolled out near […]
Australian construction industry to shrink
Economic forecasting group BIS Shrapnel has projected that Australia’s civil construction industry, including roads, transport, utilities and mining, will shrink over the next few years. In its latest report, the company says civil construction growth has more than doubled in the last five years, and further growth of 9 to 10 per cent is expected […]
Flaw in airport parking fines
Australian airports have been under increasing pressure of late in respect to the pricing of parking, following the release of the ACCC’s report into pricing and service levels in March. Last week, Transport Department officials discovered that about 70,000 parking infringements were issued at airports around Australia that are invalid, because the parking officer authorisations […]
Wollongong on-street meter follow up
Last week, PCI posted a report on the installation of paid parking meters in the NSW town of Wollongong (see post Wollongong introduces paid parking in city centre here). Indeed, the local newspaper, the Illawarra Mercury, has seized on the emotion-charged topic with Spanish-inquisition-esque zeal; publishing at least a story a day to their website […]
Wollongong introduces paid parking in city centre
On March 22, Wollongong City Council introduced on-street ‘pay and display’ machines throughout the city centre. Motorists are charged a $2 flat fee to park in half-hour, one-hour, or two-hour zones, no matter how long they stay in the parking space. “Topping up” the meters is illegal and motorists who overstay the time limit, whether […]
Lane Cove car park to install license plate recognition technology
The Market Square car park, situated in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove, is set to become the first ticketless parking station in Australia, with the introduction of license-plate recogniton technology, when it opens in June. The system works by taking pictures of each vehicle’s number plate and recording the time as it enters the […]
The pitfalls of the bicycle in Sydney
In a timely follow up to last week’s post ‘The benefits of the bicycle’, John Pucher, a US academic from Rutgers University in New Jersey, says that Sydney is one of the world’s most hostile cities for cycling. Prior to publishing a paper in the Journal of Transport Geography, Dr Pucher claims that Sydney motorists […]
Australian Parking Convention update
The Parking Association of Australia announced recently the key note speaker for its 2010 convention – Donald Shoup, Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California, and author of the landmark book titled ‘The High Cost of Free Parking’. As supporters of the ‘Shoupian’ theories of parking pricing (increasing the cost of on-street parking, […]
Davis Langdon construction sentiment findings report March
During the past three months, Davis Langdon’s Construction Sentiment Index fell by a surprising 5 points to reach 61. Davis Langdon attributes the decline in the index to a concerned property industry that is being impacted by a combination of planning and industrial relations issues. According to David Langdon, this is unexpected, and suggests a […]
Car park costs reach new levels across Australia
Following on from our recent post ‘Are car park bays good investments?’, we thought we would republish some figures relating to how much car parks are selling for across Australia: are you sitting down? The record price in Australia is $240,000 for a single lock-up space in Brighton Boulevard in Sydney’s North Sydney CBD car […]
The benefits of the bicycle
Bicycle Victoria, a self-funded community organisation, has been working with the Victorian Department of Transport to integrate infrastructure for bicycle riders with the public transport network in Melbourne. As a result, the Department of Transport has recently rolled out free, undercover bike parking cages at stations across Victoria.Secure access is provided by a card system […]
The cost of congestion
The State of Australian Cities Report released on Friday March 12 concludes that the cost of congestion in our cities will rise to around $20.4 billion by 2020, impacting adversely on Australian productivity. The report is not, however, just concerned with the economic impacts of congestion, but with the social impacts including, for example, the […]
Are car park bays good investments?
Throughout last year, a number of real estate analysts and economists advocated investing in car parks, due to their stability in pricing and ongoing increase in demand, essentially regardless of the market conditions (see old posts Car park values remain strong and What are the key things investors look for in a car park?). PCI […]
Fraud in Australia hotting up
KPMG’s latest issue of the Fraud Barometer reports that the value of fraud detected in Australia has more than doubled in the second half of last year – possibly as the result of the global financial crisis. The number of cases of fraud before the courts in the second half of 2009, at 69, was […]
NSW Government releases Transport Blueprint
As anticipated, the NSW Government released their Transport Blueprint on Monday February 22. Not flawlessly, however, with a minor glitch accidentally placing a number of documents outlining key announcements on a public website on the Friday prior. The 10 year, $10 billion plan sees the cancellation of the metro network with funds diverted to the […]
Manly on-street parking limit under review
In Manly, Sydney’s busiest Northern Beaches traffic centre, the local council has attempted to manage their growing demands for parking with a reduction in the time limit for on-street parking to 30 minutes, with the intention of providing more ‘drop-in, drop-out’ spaces, and uniformity across the entire area. The limit, however, seems to be too […]
Christie Report on Sydney’s Transportation Development
On Saturday February 13, the Sydney Morning Herald published the first synopsis of the recommendations of the ‘Christie Report’, an independent inquiry headed by the State’s former rail and roads boss Ron Christie, and backed by the Herald. PCI has previously reported on several of the interim recommendations of the report (see Sydney’s Traffic Solutions? […]
Australian Parking Convention – guess who is coming to town?
A guest post from PCI Managing Partner Cristina Lynn Dear Subscribers, The Parking Association of Australia is organising its next biennial convention which will be held in Sydney (at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre) between 7th and 9th November 2010. As the chair of the Organising Committee and Treasurer of the PAA I would […]
Preferential parking for hybrids
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on February 6 that parking operators are introducing preferential parking for owners of hybrid vehicles. According to the report, “three Sydney Westfield shopping centres now have hybrid-only parking spots, while councils such as Randwick offer priority places for hybrids and Mosman waves its $55 residential parking permit fee for the […]
Man charged with more ‘ticket rage’
In November, PCI reported of an attack on a Sydney parking officer, resulting in a broken hand, a punch in the head, and a deep bite mark to the cheek (see post Car owner bashed ranger and bit his cheek).News.com.au reported on February 2 that the perpetrator has since been charged with two additional assault […]
2009 Wrap Up
This is our last blog update for 2009, and as such I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you, on behalf of the whole PCI team, a very Merry Christmas and all the best in 2010. It’s been quite a year, I am sure you will all agree. We have seen significant consolidation in […]
Parking meter warfare in Balmoral
PCI has been closely following the heated debate between Mosman Council and residents regarding the installation of parking meters at Balmoral Beach over the past six months (see our previous blog posts, A metered debate? and Head out of the sand please, Mosman residents!). The story has taken an uglier turn recently, with the Sydney […]
Black Friday: shopping responsibly
Last week, PCI blogged about Parking ‘Black Friday’ – Thanksgiving Friday in the US, and one of the busiest parking days of the year due to the number of shoppers looking to pick up holiday bargains. An initiative called ‘Buy Nothing Day’ has recently emerged in the US to coincide with one of the busiest […]
Parking ‘Black Friday’
As thanksgiving approaches in the US, parking operators are bracing for ‘Black Friday’ – one of the busiest parking days of the year. As shoppers venture out to do their holiday shopping, filling their vehicles with turkey and holiday festive stuffings, and families fly around the country to reunite with loved ones, airport and shopping […]
Car sharing as an example of post-capitalist cultural change
This week we came across an excerpt from an essay written by Catherine Marie Simpson on car sharing – Cars, Climates and Subjectivity: Car Sharing and Resisting Hegemonic Automobile Culture? – exploring the concept of a group of people owning one vehicle and sharing the usage collectively. We briefly touched on some of the digital […]
The people have spoken: show us where to park!
These are just some of the comments we received from people using the car park: “It’s great. We should have more car parks like this” “Drove straight in, looked for the green light, parked. Perfect!” “Love it!” If you’re interested in discussing Parking Guidance Systems, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Tertiary Parking Management Workshop
The first Tertiary Parking Management Workshop was held on 28 and 29 October in Perth at Curtin University’s Graduate School of Business. The event, organized and hosted by the Parking Association of Australia, provided a forum for parking professionals from a number of tertiary institutions around Australia to exchange ideas and experiences with regard to […]