PARKING PROBLEMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 842, 10 December 1929, Page 8

PARKING PROBLEMS

THE magnitude of Sydney’s traffic problem is reflected in the announcement that the authorities there have at length found it necessary to enforce a complete prohibition against parking in some of the busier streets. The streets affected will no doubt be the great shopping thoroughfares in the heart of the city and, among the hundreds of Sydney motorists who have been accustomed to leave tlieir cars for indefinite periods, the latest edict will be considered an unwarrantable hardship. The fact is that the fault in Sydney has been largely with the authorities themselves. With all its one-way traffic arteries and similar modern provisions, actual administration of traffic laws in Sydney has been -notoriously lax, and parking that w-as nominally limited to ten minutes has been tacitly extended to parking by the hour, if not almost by the day. The abrupt termination of such methods will naturally cause considerable indignation among motorists, who have, in effect, been spoiled by kindness. Sydney’s difficulties are on a much greater scale than those of Auckland, but the same primary elements exist, and the lay-out of the business areas in the two cities has a curious similarity. In this respeet Sydney is rather better off than Auckland. It lias a better series of arterial streets, and it has the benefit of a greater area of flat land about the business quarter. These advantages are outweighed by its far greater population and the consequent density of traffic, hut this only emphasises the fact that Sydney’s problems today are those which Auckland will face tomorrow. The Auckland City Council is still exhibiting a marked reluctance to deal with the parking problem. There is no necessity at all to inflict a parking fee, as was proposed the other day, nor is it necessary to apply on slack days the stringent regulations demanded at such periods as Saturday morning and the busier shopping afternoons during the week. In these periods, however, there is a real demand for closer regulation of parking. It is, too, a common sight to see cars turning in Queen Street, a manoeuvre that at busy periods should be completely prohibited. Lastly, the City Council should keep in mind the fact that though it may do without further parking spaces in the meantime, it will certainly need them later on, when the cost of their acquisition and preparation will be greater than it is today.