PARKING LIMIT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22903, 10 June 1936, Page 13

PARKING LIMIT

DISCUSSION BY MOTORISTS CITY COUNCIL’S ACTION CRITICISED “We note with satisfaction,” stated Mr E. J. Anderson in a report to the Automobile Association at its monthly meeting last night, “ that the City Council has adopted the suggestions submitted by this association. The live-minute limit for parking in George and Princes streets was not suggested by this association, but as the City Council has decided to enforce this restriction the motorists should be prepared to give it a trial.”

Mr P. W. Breen said it seemed that the smaller a town was the more regulations there were imposed. If the City Council could not enforce the 15 minutes’ limit on parking, he could not how it was going to enforce a five-minute limit. It would require the services of a host of inspectors to do so. “ We are told that v/e can find plenty of places to park in the side streets,” he continued. “ but that is not the case. Vou can go to Hanover street or St. Andrew street any afternoon and you will have to go below King street to find parking room. It is ridiculous to suggest that a man can transact business in five minutes, and the action of the City Council seems to me to bo a definite show of weakness ”

Mr Breen went on to speak of the regulations regarding parking at night. It was intended, he said, to make motorists park with the nose of the car to the kerb. He considered that the present way of parking parallel to the kerb within 30 feet of a street light was preferable, in that cars occupied less road space, “The association is behind the City Council in any reasonable legislation.” Mr Breen concluded, “ but I think that in this case the association should defend the first motorist to be charged with a breach of the five-minute limit by-law on the grounds that it is unreasonable.”

The chairman {Mr F. J. Williams) said that in Willis street, Wellington, which was a very busy street, cars were parked with the rear to the kerb. Mr G. H. Watts said it was ridiculous for any member of the City Council to say that a man could leave his car, transact business, and get away again in five minutes. " The council is trying to stop parking in the main streets altogether,” he said. “It is working on the premise that if motorists cannot comply with the law they will not park in the main streets at all.”

The chairman said that when a deputation from the association had met the General Committee to discuss tralfic control in the city the committee had been extremely reasonable in all other matters, but had refused to listen to

argument in respect to this particular regulation. Mr Anderson said the committee had met the association’s representatives in a friendly way. He wished members to know that the delegates had gone to the meeting with concrete proposals in writing, and everyone of these had been accepted. It was only fair to the committee to make it clear that the initiative in this matter of traffic control in the city had come from the association. The delegates had had no definite proposal to make in connection with the by-law under discussion. When he had been speaking on the subject of white lines in the city streets he had stated that from a business point of view the restrictions which were being put on the business people constituted a retrograde move. To a large extent the bona fide shopper on Friday nights was being subordinated to the young people who used the highways merely to walk up and down. The Friday night restriction on parking was a very drastic one from the point of view of the business people. “There would lie no danger to human life and safety,” Mr Anderson concluded, “ if the pedestrian traffic were properly controlled. Every Friday night you will see people standing in the fairway at the Rattray street intersection, and no attempt seems to be made to check the practice. Yet if there were any trouble I have no doubt that the motorists would be blamed.”

Mr H. 11. Henderson said he thought the association should make a protest against the adoption of the five-minute limit. It would show where the association stood in the matter. Mr H. S. Reid said the association was being blamed for the new regulation.

Mr Anderson: Only by the uninformed section of the community.

The report was adopted without further discussion.