Parking Meters

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27427, 13 August 1954, Page 10

Parking Meters

The Christchurch City Council’s decision to install parking meters in the central part of the city is wise and progressive. An impressive list of advantages in metered parking was fairly cited by the council’s traffic committee; but the overwhelming advantage for the ordinary motorist is that he or she will have some assurance of finding in the metered area a parking place reasonably near to business or shopping. That has been the experience at Auckland, where the metering system has justified the hopes that were held for it Business in the central area will also benefit from a more efficient, and a fairer, way of allocating the limited space available, because overseas experience shows plainly that difficulty in parking drives trade from the city to the suburbs. The same thing has probably been happening more or less unnoticed in Christchurch. There

will thus be compensation for any businessmen who may be inclined to park their cars all day in city streets. The proper places to leave

cars for long periods tire in the unrestricted streets outside the busy areas, or in off-street car parks. Here the revenue from the meters can be useful in helping to meet the cost of off-street parks, as several councillors advocated. The council should certainly set its face against the suggestion, apparently supported by Crs. C. Baldwin and L. Christie, that the revenue should be used directly in relief of rates. Metered parking is an interference with the rights of motorists, which the majority of motorists will gladly accept because it will give them a fairer share of parking space than they have been getting lately, while a minority has been getting an unfair share. Motorists would have a different attitude if the money they paid was a form of concealed special taxation, particularly as they are already paying heavy special taxes to subsidise road works. Such a levy would help to justify Cr. J. Mathison’s charge that the council, in adopting meters, was . interested more in revenue than in better control of parking and traffic. Any revenue should be spent for the benefit of motorists; and there is no more logical way to do so than in the provision of off-street parks. These will help not only the motorists who pay for their use, but also all other motorists, by reducing the number of cars standing in handy but unrestricted streets. Of course, this will benefit the ratepayers to some degree in the long run, if only in the way that any additional amenity in the city benefits them. In this case ratepayers will gain a particular benefit when more orderly parking, including a marked reduction in double parking, permits a more orderly flow of traffic, thus reducing road dangers for all road users—motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians.