WHERE TO PARK?

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 14, 16 July 1937, Page 10

WHERE TO PARK?

JUST ONE PROBLEM

GROWING STEADILY

NO SOLUTION YET

y Parking is only one of the steadily- ■>' increasing traffic problems, but it c grows and grows and today in Weii lington is pretty well out of hand. i There is a good selection of bylaws s and regulations to govern parking, to " limit hours, or to prohibit it alto'•jgethcr in certain streets, and posi- ;> tions, to stop all-night parking in 5 residential streets, and generally to " keep streets and roads open for moving traffic and not as open-air gar- " ages, but one after the other the rules ' and regulations have been less vigorously applied, not because the T traffic officials prefer to ignore i breaches, but because the number o 1 cars and the use of cars (not by any " means the same thing) have so grown ' that the parking regulations just t cannot be enforced. In this Wellington's experience, [ climbing to a higher peak of difficulty . eacli week —for new cars roll along ■ daily and winter garages are being opened—simply parallels the despair of traffic authorities in cities overseas, ; where parking got out of hand three, ! five, or more years ago and where ; parking troubles have passed from the J acute to the apparently incurable [ chronic stage. The "Christian Science Monitor1' re- . cently stated that almost hopeless stage by publishing a photograph of a . Boston street, lined each side by stand- , ing cars, bumper to bumper, and carrying four travelling lines, and under- , neath the photograph one word. '. "Where?" PARTICULAR DIFFICULTIES HERE. The jam in Wellington is not as 1 bad as that, in actual car numbers, dv'; it is quite an open question whether, if cars were related to street area, Wellington's traffic and parking problems would not be found to be as serious and as apparently incurable e-s those of many a despairing city overseas., for here not only are the streets narrow, but there are few side streets of any considerable parking capacity, and 80 per cent, at least of the city's business and shopping .-notoring is packed into a narrow strip between Lambton and Courtenay .Place. Literally hundreds of breaches of the parking regulations are committed every hour of the day. The road sign orders no parking, but it cannot be seen for standing cars. The bylaws list streets where parking is limited to an hour or half an hour, and cars stand there all the morning or half the morning. In the suburbs no ear may stand on the roadside all night, but they do by dozens and scores, for there is no private garage or ground space for them. WHERE? H the traffic people were instructed to enforce the parking bylaws to the letter one of these spring days the "Christian Science Monitor's" query picture could be snapped in any Wellington street, but the motorists would be asking "Where?" And the traffic people would not be able to tell them. The only feasible answer would be to tell them to keep their cars at home, not a satisfactory answer from the motorist's point of view, and for obI vious reasons it is an answer that could not be given.

t Street parking in excess—that is, parking as it is in Wellington and •. in every other motorised city—is bad. j a It holds, up traffic movement, intro- ? duces new traffic dangers to motor-! - ists and pedestrians; it hampers shop- j 2 ping, and business. When a few j 3 years ago restrictions upon parking time were proposed in the shopping streets there was. an outcry that business.in these streets would be ruined; now shopkeepers are as much for more restriction as against it—their customers can't get near for other people's customers' cars. That, too, is overseas experience all over again. PARK GAINED, PARK LOST. Recently the City Council agreed to a proposal that it should amend its parking bylaws for Te Aro flat area r to make street parking so uncom.fort--1 able, by limitation of time, that motor--1 ists would turn for relief to a parking area in Taranaki Street. The bylaws i are in process of amendment, and the : two acres of ground are being cleared, i but not so far -/istant an acre of ■ ground used for parking (but never . nearly filled) is to be closed to that • purpose for the building of the new ■ City Library. So there is a gain and ■ a loss, but though two acres will ; accommodate a good many cars, say 350, anything up to 3500 unattended ■ cars are parked in the city area (Kent i Terrace, Buckle Street, Wellington Teri race, Bowen Street, and the water- ■ front) on a good morning. The park • will help, but in the immediate vicinity only, and to enforce bylaws rigorously in one area and to pass over breaches elsewhere will leave a feeling of hardly even and out of pocket treatment with some motorists. More parks may be established, multiple-storeyed garages may be built, if any group can. see a - possible return for their money, but it does seem impossible that in Wellington, where open land can be counted i:p to a very few acres and land for garage building is all high priced and highly rated, a 100 per cent, parking capacity can ever be provided. ANYTHING FOR RELIEF. No city has found a real remedy, but all of them are trying partial remedies. lln 1935, the meter system, under which a charge is made for a limited standing time by the kerb or on a central street park, was introduced in one American city; now thousands of meters have been installed, praised, and condemned. The meter system is better than no control or swamped control, but it. is no real cure. Even in the greater cities parking buildings do f < not apparently pay their way, other-11 wise there would not be a demand that municipalities should put up these < buildings or should clear wide spaces and get what they could in space c rental return. New York's parking l garages pay no dividends, but they may £ be bright exceptions. Sydney seems I to patronise open-air parks profitably <■ to those who manage them, and upon this point the City Engineer will have * new information. A few cities and c towns have been able to plan for park- c ing in new lay-outs and developments. c but the town planning of fifty years > ago did not see as far as motor-cars, • and only an earthquake, a conflagration, or a new world war will clear a wide acres now. f!

The London County Council has had its share of requests to do something for the parkless motorist, and has returned the compliment by a decision that in future plans for large buildings within !<• area will have little chance of approval unless (hey make provsion for parking and garaging cars. In a number of instances already this year plans have been sent back under that decision. American cities are thinking in the same way, and in Los Angeles and New York basements and roofs of newer buildings are set aside as parks, ground plans provide for an Inner car "plaza," or for n rank of cars within