Think local for better car parking
Grand plans aren’t the way to clear Auckland’s roads and encourage public transport use, writes Andrew Couch
If you are a climate change activist, why bother lobbying government or going to a climate change rally? You will be more effective going to your local carpark with your protest.
The carpark is the bane of the modern transport system — more carparks means more cars on the road and this equals more pollution. A carpark typifies a hugely inefficient transport system with rows and rows of redundant vehicles — there is no mechanism for using these vehicles that remain parked for 95 per cent of their working life.
And to make matters worse, many of us love carparks — both people and businesses. What could be better than to go shopping and be able to park right outside? Good for you and good for the business.
Evidence of this dilemma transpired this year with the publishing of the draft Auckland Transport Parking Strategy. The plan envisaged removing kerbside parking on 240km of arterial roads, mandatory parking fees at park and ride facilities and increased powers to remove parking without consent.
The valiant efforts of Auckland Transport — in the name of lower transport emissions and encouraging public transport patronage — caused uproar. The now departed Auckland mayor Phil Goff challenged his own council controlled organisation, the AA came out with cautious comments on these policies and local business rebelled. Small businesses needed convincing that replacing kerbside parking with busways would not damage their businesses.
The consultation following the publishing of the draft Parking Strategy produced nearly 1000 submissions. Various commentators also made claims that the policies were not equitable. The result was that the draft plan was canned until after the last weekend’s mayoral election and it remains to be seen whether it will resurface in a different form, or at all.
Analysis of this situation is fascinating. The so-called radical policy changes were being applied to only 3.4 per cent of Auckland’s road network kilometres over 10 years, so in theory there is plenty of time to introduce alternative public transport solutions. The plans to put parking fees on Auckland park and ride facilities would affect only 6000 parking spaces scattered around the city periphery. This compares to the 50,000-plus carparking capacity in central Auckland.
There are two inferences from this. First of all, it was a bit unfair on Auckland Transport to say they were being heavy-handed but second, it can also be concluded that these policies were unlikely to be effective in significantly denting parking demand.
My own research also bears this out. For example, the biggest polluting force in Auckland is the daily commuting traffic and I have found that around 40 per cent of Auckland commuters are parking for free. There are a myriad of parking spaces outside of small businesses and alike in town. Also, platforms like the innovative Parkable app that makes available surplus parking capacity at lower cost — thereby encouraging car usage.
Let us assume that the draft Parking Plan was effective in reducing parking demand. What would happen? I doubt that people would give up their cars in a hurry. The immediate effects would be greater congestion as the average time to find a park increased, even worse Auckland congestion and raised pollution levels. This is a massive issue in other countries. For example, in the United States, it is estimated that up to 30 per cent of car fuel is wasted by vehicles navigating to find parking. In addition, commuting would become even more stressful and businesses increasingly have to consider employee mental health.
All-in-all, any policy in this direction would not meet its objectives and would likely fail owing to the negative short-term consequences — no matter how effective the long-term results were predicted to be.
I do not think we should touch small businesses at this time as they are the lifeblood of the Auckland (and New Zealand) economy and it is likely that the economy will get worse in the near term. We also have large companies now reducing carparking space because of the high cost of parks for a large employer. There are market forces at work to reduce parking spaces as companies increasingly have to account for their carbon commuting profile.
Smart and targeted carparking strategies are required, aimed at reducing congestion in strategic locations that free up key Auckland roads for more bus lanes.
As the Howick local board pointed out, they could not accept the draft Parking Plan owing to the lack of planning to improve accessibility (how close businesses and residents are to bus stops) in the event that kerbside parking was removed.
If Auckland Transport and Howick had worked together to develop the local public transport strategy, then things could have been different. As with so many transport business cases (not just here but in other countries too), the aim is laudable at a high level but the delivery at the local level fails. The processes need to be the other way round with local factors considered first, building up to a goal in workable bites.
It is a combination of considering local factors and using new technologies that will make reducing the numbers of cars on the road soluble. Carpooling and ridesharing also need to have a role to fill in the gaps in the mass transit systems. The new Auckland mayor also proposes synchronised traffic lights to speed up buses — this is a step in the right direction as it is aimed at improving convenience (in this case bus run times). This could have a positive impact on Auckland CBD and, together with other well thought out strategies, could really make a difference.
Over time, those 50,000 CBD parks would decline — because they were not needed. And small businesses would celebrate as they could convert their parks to more productive land uses.
Improve convenience at the local level and the people will flock to public transport — and the emissions savings will follow.
The carpark is the bane of the modern transport system — more carparks means more cars on the road and this equals more pollution.