Paid parking killing CBD
PAID parking will further discourage residents from supporting CBD businesses.
It is also entirely unfair and inappropriate to expect hospital patients and relatives to pay for parking at hospitals.
Owners pay for parking infrastructure in shopping centres, but recover costs from retailers through prices charged to customers.
It is just that the cost of parking is not obvious to customers and CBD retailers desirably need to be able to project a similar position.
Rather than discouraging locals from coming into the city, council should be providing free CBD parking seven days a week to a maximum of four hours with fees thereafter.
Restricting CBD traffic movements via paid parking and making streets one lane is not business-friendly and not the right direction for Cairns.
We should be making the most of the wide streets to encourage free movement of traffic into and out of the city supported by as many off-street free parking stations as are needed. The parking stations would be built by and controlled by the council but paid for by CBD businesses through a special infrastructure levy.
Through streets should be for moving traffic. If traffic would be impeded, park- ing should be moved off street. Not only do CBD businesses also need locals, it would be a much better experience for visitors to be able to mix with locals doing business in a vibrant CBD area.
Cairns can be different and does not need a CBD that is virtually dead to locals as is the case with many other coastal cities. But if we continue down the present path, that will surely be the eventuality. Bob Roberts, Mt Sheridan