Page 3407 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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The Callam Offices (Easty St) carpark is consistently full, to the point where people are forced to park illegally because there is no other option … There are absolutely 0 available car parks at the moment except for the 2 hour paid parks. Given people are often in meetings all day, this isn’t really acceptable.
The parking has recently gone up to $6.50, as I am sure you’re aware, which adds salt to the wound.
This is another email about a suburban parking problem:
There are parking restrictions on Blamey, Getting, Jacka and Creswell—
these are streets in Campbell—
so workers are now parking and blocking up Butler Place, Jacka Place and Garsia Street (and probably others). I am not sure why this is happening but can suggest that workers at the ASIO monolith have taken spaces at the dirt car park in Borella Street and at Anzac Park East, reducing spaces available to Defence late comers. I am aware that the car parks at Russell Offices fill up each day. There has also been a dirt car park lost to construction along Constitution Avenue.
Things are only going to get worse in the suburb as workers at the ASIO building take up more spots at Anzac Park East, given that someone has erected blockades to keep people off the grassed areas (a little too late by the way as the grass is dead … The blockades should be built after construction is complete. And where are all the ASIO staff going to park? Where are the thousands of extra spaces for them?
And this one:
Because of the need to use private transport, parking availability in the various centres in Canberra is essential to enable timely, cost effective conduct of business, be it private or otherwise. Unfortunately it has been the apparent general philosophy of past, and more significantly present, governments to eliminate as much parking space as possible without attracting unwanted electoral backlash. I believe it was publicly stated some time back that the general philosophy was to discourage the use of private vehicles to encourage people to use public transport … It seems that the penny has not yet dropped for those in government, that the private vehicle use in the ACT will not go away just because they want it to. Future technology will ensure that private vehicles will remain in use for at least the long term foreseeable future.
Mr Speaker, of course, the government’s mismanagement of parking also extends to the two hospitals, where not only was the parking provision inadequate, but they sought to capitalise on their own lack of supply by charging patients, visitors, doctors and nurses. The community revolted. The fact is that this government cannot manage our budget and must drive up the cost of parking to make up for their inability to manage our finances. Or perhaps a more sinister view is that elements of the government really do have a vendetta against the car and what it represents.
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