Group to review need for city j clearways

Press, 6 December 1989, Page 9

Group to review need for city j clearways

A Christchurch City Council sub-committee has been set up to review all clearways in the city to eliminate non-essential ones. Four councillors were delegated the review after a discussion yesterday at the operations committee meeting about “overenforcement” of parking killing business in the central city. Cr Morgan Fahey called for the removal of all clearways. Traffic density and accident rates in the city did not justify them, he said. He said the council put too much weight on earning revenue from parking infringement fees and not enough on making sure the central business district survivied. Cr John Hanafin said he had been a businessman in the city centre for several years and people did not shop there for fear of getting parking tickets.

Cr Fahey said the first step to a more lenient policy was to abolish the clearways. They had been created for Christchurch Transport Board buses and the lumbers of bus passengers did not justify them. On the Friday before Christmas last year the mean number on buses using Colombo Street was seven passengers. Cr Alex Clark said it was time the central city business people faced up to competing in a tight iparket with suburban centres. Parking was not the problem. They had to begin to market their services to the customer. Other councillors disagreed. The council should act to ensure the business heart of the city was healthy. The council’s parking superintendent, Mr Geoff Stevenson, reported a 20 per cent increase in

use of off-street parking. Revenue from parking meter infringements was about the same as last year, which Cr Fahey disputed. The council’s parking section acted in liaison with business people who constantly sought to have traffic parking for short terms only. The committee also discussed removing 60 parking spaces in Riccarton Avenue by extending no stopping restrictions in the avenue. The move was recommended by the traffic operations manager, Mr Mike Gadd, to alleviate a potential danger when parked cars encroached on the four lanes for through traffic. Councillors refused to authorise the removal of so many spaces without more information.