City needs more carparks

I REFER to the nonsense “Expert says Hobart needs fewer carparks” (Mercury, February 23). I suppose we’ll have to walk to Hobart from Bothwell, should Hobart City Council adopt Steven Burgess’s impracticable parking strategy.

If there is so much convenient parking in downtown Hobart, why do I see doctors, nurses, paramedics, police and other frontline Royal Hobart Hospital staff marching to their cars, after shift change, any time of day or night, walking as far away as Domain. If there is so much convenient parking, you wouldn’t see them walking so far, rain or shine. And, any time my wife and I have had an urge to visit out favourite pub for a meal on the corner of Liverpool and Harrington, we have to walk a block, at least. The reality is there is insufficient parking that is affordable, allows one to park all day or at least a 10hour shift, and within easy walking distance to the Royal.

Robert Cassidy Bothwell

CODSWALLOP

THE article by Steven Burgess is a load of codswallop. As an urban planner he knows successful city or urban gentrification occurs when commuter traffic is diverted from the area being developed. It seems car hating members of the HCC and the Greens dig out the likes of Steven Burgess every time the community focuses on congestion in the CBD. They always illustrate the idea of wider footpaths, expanded people areas in place of cars, but never mention the problem of commuter through-traffic, the physical terrain around the greater Hobart area negatively impacting on a successful public transport system and our cold winter and dark by 5pm, which detracts from enjoying the streetscape.

Let’s have a reality check. Despite the suburban expansion, Hobart has, in any direction, only three lanes in and out of the city. If any lane is closed, a third of available road in or out of the city at peak-times is lost and almost immediately the city is in gridlock. Hobart has low population density within 2km of the CBD therefore bike use will not significantly reduce commuter cars.

Greater Hobart stretches 40km in all directions, but because of the river, hills and valleys public transport is impractical, and by car most destinations can be reached in less than 30 minutes. Why waist an hour or more using public transport when a car will get you there in 10 to 15 minutes.

We need urban planning to accommodate people and cars not planning to placate the car-haters.

P. Kasz Glebe

COUNCIL MADNESS

I SEE Hobart City Council is pressing on regardless with its plan to disrupt midtown shopping, parking and pedestrian right of way by commencing its poorly envisioned outdoor dining and street narrowing pilot program just in time for the onset of Hobart’s cold blustery winter. How they intend to level out carparking spaces on a relatively steep gradient will be entertaining.

I hope they compensate the adjacent businesses for lost revenue. I wonder if the council has factored in how much revenue they’ll be losing from the number of parking spaces being removed?

Strange how they can’t improve visitor facilities on Mount Wellington, improve carparking in North Hobart or beautify the city with much needed landscaping, but this streetscape destruction is such a priority.

Monica Antel Cambridge

CRAZY PARKING PLAN

BOB Cotgrove labels calls for improved public transport “crazy” and asks where these ideas come from (Letters, February 13). They come from acknowledging that our road system is beyond capacity, considering the cost of alternatives, and looking at success stories in other cities of the world.

He says public transport is too intermittent and inflexible to satisfy daily travel needs, ignoring the possibility of a functional and flexible system that would enhance the city and draw people back. The proposed bus service from Kingston could leave every three minutes and take more than 1000 cars per hour off the Southern Outlet and Macquarie Street. Sufficient buses would allow special services to sporting or cultural events as required. Instead, he calls for more parking, so more cars can choke the city, even though there is no practical way to improve traffic flow. The Hobart Western Bypass Feasibility Study found that the cost would be $31 per one-way trip. Transport should be convenient, safe, quick, cheap, and complement the city.

If Bob thinks the solution is battling through smoggy gridlock, up a multistorey carpark, then walking through rain to his destination, then I laugh in his general direction.

S. Wright Hobart

SPEED CONFUSION

I AM bemused by 40km/h speed signs around the Lauderdale Primary School. As you approach Lauderdale from Hobart, there is one 40km/h electronic sign near the junction of South Arm Rd with Acton Rd, and there is another one, also facing traffic coming east from Hobart, a little further down the hill.

There is no End School Zone sign, so I imagine that theoretically and legally, when lit, the 40km/h zone extends all the way through to the 70km/h speed zone sign outside the hotel. I don’t go out of my way to check on 40km/h school speed signs, but I cannot recall having ever seen two such signs facing traffic the same way.

The other factor in my bemusement is that for westbound traffic, that is traffic heading in to Hobart, there are no school speed restriction signs at all.

Does that mean that part of South Arm Rd in morning and afternoon school times has a 40km/h limit eastbound and the other side of the road, has a 70km/h limit for westbound traffic?

Erwin Boot Rose Bay