HEAD-ON PARKING

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 195, 14 May 1940, Page 6

HEAD-ON PARKING

Wellington Experiment POSSIBLE EXTENSION Since Tuesday last the Wellington traffic department has supervised the new system of head-in parking on Lambton Quay from a point opposite Panama Street to Woodward Street. Hero the spaces have been marked off at an angle of -10 degrees from the line of the western footpath, nine feet being allowed between the painted lines. So far the departmental officers have not reported formally on the new system, but they agree on one point, that it is effective in preventing any part of a car from encroaching on the space set apart for pedestrians. Mr. L. S. Drake, the chief traffic officer, said yesterday that nine feet might seem a fairly liberal space for a car, but that was decided upon deliberately, for if a motorist parked in the centre of that nine feet, he would be able to back out without encroaching on the nearest tramway track. Mr. Drake said that some of the new seven-seater cars, with elongated bonnets and long hang-overs at the rear, were from 17 to 18 feet in length. Taking the measurement at the former figure, and multiplying it by the number of feet each car is being allowed under the new parking system (9), it worked out that such cars occupied 153 square feet of roadway. Most of the standard streets, such as Cuba Street, Taranaki Street, Tory Street, and Vivian Street, were only 49ft. 6in. in width, so that if a 17-foot car were allowed to park straight in it would reduce the width of the road at that point by more than a third.

If the head-in angle parking system was officially approved, as the result of the week’s test, it was likely that it would be extended by the city council to other angle-parking thoroughfares— Jervois Quay, as far south as Mercer Street intersection; Lambton Quay, from a pofiit opposite Panama Street to the tramway stop opposite Bowen House; and the northern side of Bowen Street.

Mr. Drake said be was of the opinion that in busy commercial streets where angle parking was allowed it would 'be necessary to preserve here and there a “loading zone,” so that people who did business with the tiid of motor-vehicles would be able to find space for a few minutes in which to drop or pick up cases and parcels from business houses on either side of the zone.

Mr. Drake was not able to say whether the parking place on the northern side of Bowen Street, immediately opposite the Parliamentary Buildings, would be retained as at present when the new double tramway tracks were constructed along that thoroughfare. That point could only be decided after the cars were running.