Parking

Australian cities have some of the highest carparking costs in the world. Why? Can anything be done about it? And what might happen if it gets any worse?

It's hard to fathom but the cost of parking a car for a day or even a couple of hours can apparently cost you more in an Australian CBD than downtown Manhattan, or London, or Paris. The latter are global centres of commerce, with populations that dwarf that of Australian cities. New York City's 8.4 million residents are the almost the equivalent of our three major capitals - combined. Ditto London, with its 8.4 million residents or Paris with 10.5 million residents.

Manhattan Island alone has 1.6 million residents, plus it adds another 1.6 million commuters, every day, swelling daily to over 3 million people. By comparison, the City of Sydney (the CBD plus surrounds) is roughly equivalent in area to Manhattan Island but home to only around 190,000 residents and a daily influx of workers and students of around 450,000. Yet it can cost more to park in Sydney, or even smaller cousin Brisbane (under 200,000 employees in the inner city), than Manhattan.

Why?

On the supply side, there has been a history of anti-car planning culture in many Australian cities for some time. Sydney was the first to impose a parking tax on CBD car spaces, in a bid to force up the price of parking and divert people to public transport. It forced up the price alright, with a number of subsequent increases in the tax over the years (the tax is now around $2000 per car space), but it made no real impact on public transit.

Here's an example of the thinking from then NSW Transport Minister David Campbell back in 2009:

The parking space levy is all about encouraging people to leave their car at home, and take public transport.

In the same story, it took someone from the Nature Conservation Council (the irony is delicious) to point out the bleeding obvious:

I don't think it will have too much of an impact on congestion… Any increase in parking levies probably isn't going to make too much of a difference to the people who can afford it right now, what it will make a difference with I suppose is the people who really don't have any other options and are currently driving in.

Incredibly - and idiotically - the South Australian Government is trying the same thing with Adelaide, where a $750 per annum parking tax takes effect this July. You'd think they'd be desperate to bring any economic life they could find into Adelaide, but evidently if that economy arrives in a car, they don't want it. Great place Adelaide. All it needs is an economy to go with it.

The punitive policy stance on CBD parking visits itself in other forms too. Restrictions on building new CBD parking spaces has had the effect of limiting supply as the cities grew. New multi-deck parking stations could alleviate the supply-side problem, and there seem to be enough sites suited to them in most cities, but the policy stance doesn't support them. New commercial towers are also limited in terms of the numbers of additional basement spaces they can deliver into the pool, in a bid to limit the supply of additional parking.

This public policy view is connected to deeply held faith (and the operative word is 'faith' because there's little evidence to support the view) that by pricing or policing private vehicles out of Australian CBDs, the same people would be forced to use public transport, and we'd all be better for it. "We just need to get the cars out of the city" is the sort of view you'll hear often on talk back radio (particularly the ABC; sorry Aunty but your listeners have been drinking way too much Kool-Aid).