Cycling in Sydney Australia
A Parking Experiment
Car parking issues really interest me (I know, I need to get a life) because it seems that on-street parking is one of the biggest obstacles to providing bicycle infrastructure.
Most people have a strong feeling of entitlement when it comes to using their street to store their car. People defending on-street parking contend that it is necessary for visitors, trades-people, delivery vans etc. But in many places, the number of cars 'stored' on the street
actually means that there is not enough room left for even these uses, let-alone a bike lane.
Usually, if I own too many possessions to fit on my property, I have to pay for a storage room. But, if that extra possession is a car, then I can just put it on the street. But what if I filled a car with my possessions instead of hiring a storage room? Or better still, what if I picked up an old van from the wreckers, filled it with junk and left it on the street?
It would be interesting to see if you could get away with it. Would it be hypocritical for someone to park their car on the street but complain that someone else stores their property on the street?? It seems to be the same thing to me...
Most people have a strong feeling of entitlement when it comes to using their street to store their car. People defending on-street parking contend that it is necessary for visitors, trades-people, delivery vans etc. But in many places, the number of cars 'stored' on the street
actually means that there is not enough room left for even these uses, let-alone a bike lane.
Usually, if I own too many possessions to fit on my property, I have to pay for a storage room. But, if that extra possession is a car, then I can just put it on the street. But what if I filled a car with my possessions instead of hiring a storage room? Or better still, what if I picked up an old van from the wreckers, filled it with junk and left it on the street?
It would be interesting to see if you could get away with it. Would it be hypocritical for someone to park their car on the street but complain that someone else stores their property on the street?? It seems to be the same thing to me...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by back street boy on -
If it is registered, roadworthy and you own it and there are no parking restrictions in place (or you have a sticker) there is nothing wrong with this. If not, well it will probably get towed, but this often takes a while. Take some photos if you do it.
It gets done a lot with boats and trailers too
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Permalink Reply by Neil Alexander on -
there is nothing wrong with this
I think Tony is saying there is!
It might be more accurate to say "there is nothing currently illegal about this".
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Permalink Reply by back street boy on
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Neil, i can't disagree with your statement!
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Permalink Reply by Duncan on -
"But what if I filled a car with my possessions instead of hiring a storage room? Or better still, what if I picked up an old van from the wreckers, filled it with junk and left it on the street?
It would be interesting to see if you could get away with it. "
Bzzzt. Sorry. People are already doing that. You would have to have it registered, of course, or it would get towed.
You can hire (and I have seen on the street) large lockup trailers with "Self Storage" on the side of them. eg: http://www.containaway.com.au/portable-storage-sydney
You hire them and they come and dump it on the street outside your house, on wheels.
This, and portable signs (advertising whatever) should be banned from public streets.
If you want storage on the street, I think it should follow the 'buy a permission slip from council' model used for garbage skips.
The issue of cars on streets is much more difficult, as you need to consider that not every house has off-street parking, are this is definitely a housing-cost adder; ie: the less well off will be more likely to not have off-street parking available.
Also, how do you deal with the family (or share house) of 6 living in one house? On the one hand, they're being very low-impact (single dwelling, high occupancy rate), but they may have 4 or more cars. Compare this with a single living alone.
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Permalink Reply by Duncan on
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This thread reminds me of a funny story.. I once worked with a guy (who was a bit, let us say, eccentric).
He had an argument with the council, who refused permission for him to build a carport.. So he whacked one together with a welder and put wheels on all four corners.
Since the structure could now be wheeled around at will, it was no longer a 'carport', and so the council couldn't order him to pull it down.
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Permalink Reply by Martin Geliot on -
Very lateral thinking!
I wonder if the converse eccentric deed would be to fill crevices in cars parked on your street for a bit of a while with soil, then plant herbs, flowers etcetera. Maybe milk and such could be used to encourage lichen and moss over the remaining surfaces.
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Permalink Reply by Tim on -
Containaway only park outside your place long enough for you to fill the pod, maximum 1 week. Then they take the pod away and store it. They don't leave the pod there indefinately....
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Permalink Reply by Dan on -
On-street parking is a blight. In the suburb I live in (Rozelle), the streets are literally jammed with cars. Each resident can get up to two permits (unless you have off-street parking), plus a visitor permit - for free. This is clearly crazy; there isn't enough room on the street for each property to park three cars, but there is no incentive (other than struggling to find a park) to reduce that number.
On-street parking also ruins the streetscape, and makes it more dangerous for pedestrians. Crossing the road from between parked vehicles is more hazardous than on an open stretch of road. Perhaps even more than that, as a pedestrian you feel hemmed in on the footpaths; they are quite narrow, and with a row of nose-to-tail vehicles on one side, and houses up to the street on the other the pavement is quite an unpleasant place to be - and also very dark at night because of the shadows cast by the cars prevent the streetlights penetrating to the pavement surface.
I often fantasise about how beautiful my suburb would be if there were no parked cars. During the day, for example, when there are fewer cars parked (as people are at work), it is a much more pleasant place to be. It would certainly be more pleasant to cycle around if there were fewer cars making the streets narrow, and increasing driver / cyclist conflict (although few drivers seem to care that the whole suburb has a 40kph speed limit).
The council recently proposed to make some of the narrowest streets '10kph shared zones'. These are areas where people currently park illegally half on the footpath. (You might ask why the council don't employ rangers to deal with this problem, but apparently they don't.) The proposal is to make actual car paring spaces, but include plantings and raise the road up to the level of the curb, making it essentially a pedestrian area with vehicular access. This will actually decrease the number of spaces (as there will be less legitimate spaces than illegally parked vehicles now), but make the street more pleasant for other users (assuming drivers obey the 10kph limit).
Whilst I don't think this goes far enough (I think there should be a very substantial charge - say $5000 per year - to park a car on the street, limited to one permit per household; the revenue should then go to improving community facilities in the area, including road beautification) I think it's a step in the right direction. I just wish they would do it on all residential roads, not just the narrow ones.
And, for the record, I do own a car, and park it on the street. So I'm also part of the problem. Hey ho.
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Permalink Reply by Colin on -
But doesn't on-street parking calm the traffic, making it safer for cyclists and pedestrians? If streets were empty of parked cars they would invite motorists to drive much faster.
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Permalink Reply by Dan on
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Perhaps, although I can't say I really notice much difference in driving behaviour when there are lots of cars vs not many.
However, I think traffic calming is also a good idea; not just of the 'speed hump' type (although they have their uses), but also designs that give the illusion of a narrower street, plantings, lines and painted areas, more pedestrian crossings, replacing bitumen with brick paving etc etc.
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Permalink Reply by Bennelong Bicyclist on -
Hire one of these, affix a Bourke St parking permit from a sympathetic local, and attach large "On-street Community Bicycle Parking Facility" signs to it.
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Permalink Reply by Bennelong Bicyclist on
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Here's an idea for a street art installation: take one registered box trailer, affix a valid CoS parking permit sticker to it, good for Bourke St, park half a dozen old bikes upright in the trailer, secure them with a chain, and park the trailer on Bourke St. Add a few signs to it, such as "Bikes or cars for Bourke St". Issue press release and contact media to get coverage of it before the local car-parking residents vandalize it.
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