Sayers says it
By Rodney Councillor Greg Sayers
How are the new parking fee charges in the Auckland Central Business District (CBD) going to affect people driving from Rodney?
Auckland Transport recently announced car drivers will be stung with new 24-hour parking charges covering overnight, at weekends and on public holidays.
These new parking charges are for on-street parking in roads near the Viaduct Harbour.
The reason is so Auckland Transport (AT) can produce more income and thus soften the impact on the need for higher rate increases to support its own operational costs.
As from July 1 parkers will face new charges for Sunday and public holiday parking, which had previously been free.
For example, for streets close to the Viaduct Basin the fee for weekend and public holiday parking will be $3.50 an hour for the first two hours and $6 for every additional hour.
From 1 October parkers will also face new charges for overnight parking, which also had previously been free.
The overnight charge will be $2-$3 per hour, depending on the exact inner-city street.
Possibly some good news for Rodney’s residents is that the changes do not apply to the Fanshawe Street downtown carpark. These costs will remain at $5 an hour with a maximum charge of $24 to park until 6am. On weekends, the charge is a flat $7 per day. That carpark operates from 6am until midnight and is closed on public holidays.
The council sold this carpark building to private developers requiring them to provide 200 short-term carparks, however, future parking rates could change under the new ownership.
AT had to backtrack over the rollout of its controversial changes delaying the implementation of the new overnight charges until October 1 and apologised to Mayor Wayne Brown over inadequate communication to stakeholders.
AT defended itself saying it’s been told to take a “more commercial approach” to managing public assets to reduce the burden on ratepayers.
One of AT’s points was with more and more people living in apartment buildings with no parking facilities their residents are instead choosing to use the roadside parking to store their cars for free.
This in turn had a knock-on effect of reducing the number of street spaces available for people travelling from out of town, such as those driving from Rodney.
AT also argued that even if an apartment building had gained consent to build without providing car parks, that still didn’t mean ratepayers should be providing them free car parks on publicly funded roads.
In fact, it is ironic that Auckland Council’s theory is if you build apartments, or houses, without providing off-street parking then people will use public transport, cycle or walk instead of needing a car.