NOBODY HAPPY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 113, 16 May 1939, Page 10

NOBODY HAPPY

THE PARKING BYLAW

TIME FOR REFLECTION

GENERAL OPPOSITION

Nobody is particularly happy over the. revised, amended, and enlarged traffic bylaw which came before members of the City Gouncil, at such short notice that councillors themselves admitted that they did not know what was in it, a month ago and which, presumably, will be before the council again at its next meeting for confirmation. However, the interval since the draft was placed before the councillors—7o pages thick —has given opportunity for reading and reflection, and the probability is that if at last the bylaw is confirmed quite a few of its clauses will have been amended again.

Seventeen business, professional, and other interests made their protests against the proposed 30-minute blanket restriction upon parking, at a combined meeting called by the Automobile Association, and later by deputation to the bylaws committee, and to that list is to be added the Wellington Ratepayers' Association. The Automobile Association has stated its attitude as in favour of the enforcement of the present hour parking bylaw in a reasonable manner before any more' paper bylaws are made, and that attitude was unanimously supported by the representatives at the combined meeting.

One striking statement was made during the hearing of the deputation to the bylaws committee: it was that there is in Wellington "off-street" parking (garages and recognised open-air parks) for only 375 of the 15,000 cars registered in the city and the several thousands which come into Wellington from the Hutt Valley, the eastern bays, Johnsonville, and beyond each day. Three years ago there were approximately 12,000 cars in Wellington and a tally then made showed, that on an average day. about 3000 cars stood in the city streets, parked for short or longer periods. There was discussion then of the coming of a new parking age, when cars would be stored in commercial parks, in multi-storeyed garages—or somewhere. Nothing was done because, on account of the difficult topography of Wellington, nothing could be done for more than one-tenth of requirements. The present bylaw draft was not preceded by discussion of ways and means of providing for cars ordered from the streets; the discussion had taken, place three years ago, without result, and those councillors who had read the 70-page draft could not discuss it in any case. TAX ON VISITORS. A suggestion made by one council- j lor that a toll should be levied upon all visiting drivers has moved motorists to wrath. The plan, they say, could not be worked, and if it could be applied would undo what the motorcar "had achieved in the last fifteen years of .its development in providing quicker and easier contact between city and country, and between city and provincial towns. . "Parochialism in 1939, the year of the opening of the Centennial Exhibition," said one motorist. "Has the City Council considered at all the detrimental effect such a bylaw as is proposed must have upon the number of visitors to Wellington next summer. The motorist who comes to Wellington for the Exhibition is not going to spend all his time at Rongotai; he and^his family will spend at least half their time in the city and some of their money in city shops, but motorists who are expected to spend money at Rongotai money in the city, and money in fines for which they will see no earthly reason, are going to be sore -about it. There is not another city or town in New Zealand where blanket parking restrictions apply, and though you may fine visitors you will not be able to ( convince them. It would be bad^city and Exhibition business to enforce such a bylaw next summer." THORNDON QUAY AN ALL-DAY PARK. Wide-spreading though the 30-minute parking blanket will be, covering 36 miles of street side from the railway station to the Basin Reserve and from the waterfront to Wellington Terrace (with eleven miles of the thirty-six altogether prohibited for day parking), yet it does not stretch to Thorndon Q ua y_today the main city entrance, tomorrow, if the bylaw is confirmed, the city's chief all-day park. It has substantial advantages for that purpose, for it is within tramway distance ox business and shops, and when the widening is completed the loss of road width will be made good, though a. some expense. Aotea Quay will be available if Thorndon Quay is mamly given over to all-day parking.

NON-STOP IN SHOPPING STREETS.

Motorists and business people alike doubt whether the proposed prohibition of the stopping of cars, goods vehicles, everything on wheels except taxis in the shopping lengths ol Cuba, Manners, and Willis Streets and the narrower length of Lambton Quay between 4.30 and 6 p.m. would stand up under test, for even though drivers and passengers in private cars might be ordered away from the shops where they wished to do business— to the sharp discontent of shopkeepers as well as of themselves— shopkeepers consider the prohibition of calls by goods vehicles an impossible restriction; and some councillors at least agree with them. No other city in New Zealand has any such prohibition. Auckland comes nearest to it with prohibition of parking in Karangahape Road, Queen Street, and Symonds Street between 430 and 6 p.m. from Mondays to Thursdays, 4.30 to 9 p.m. on Fridays, and 11.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. on Saturdays, which is a more complete time schedule than Wellington's, but the folder issued by the Auckland City Council to motorists softens that blow by pointing out that: "It is lawful for a vehicle to remain stationary for a period not exceeding five minutes in any street while the driver or person in charge is actually engaged on lawful business in the vicinity or for the delivery or receipt of goods." That is no special dispensation from the Auckland City Council, but is simply in accordance with the motor regulations, for "parking," under the regulations, does not encompass vehicles remaining stationary for up to five minutes while legitimate business is being transacted. The bylaw proposal has nothing to do with allowances for legitimate business:, it simply says that vehicles shall not remain stationary (and in another place shall not "stop"), though taxi car drivers may hand active old ladies, with two trunks and three hat boxes, in and out, provided that they can do it in one minute. Neither may motor vehicles (if the bylaw is confirmed) "stop" on the landward side of Oriental Parade between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., and as the clause is drafted there are no exceptions whatever, not even for the exigencies of traffic nor for one-minute eruptions of passengers, trunks, hatboxes from taxi cars. The reason for the inclusion of this clause is apparently to give residents of the Parade

some rest from motor noises, a precedent for like claims from most other residential streets.

The "loading zone" proposal is a new one. The legal adviser of the Automobile Association told the meeting of protest that the council has no power to mark off portions of street surface in that way: whether that be so or not, there, the provision is, and, more than that, loading zones were marked off on certain streets before the draft bylaw was submitted to councillors.