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Cheaper late night and weekend parking is to be introduced to two downtown Council Auckland car parks for six months.
The move is a joint initiative by Auckland Transport and Heart of the City which will see evening and weekend rates at Victoria Street and Downtown car parks drop from $5.50 an hour to $2.50 an hour up to a maximum of $7.50. Evening rates apply from 5.00pm.
Auckland Transport calls it a bid to attract more shoppers and visitors to the area and to offer additional choice to commuters along with evening buses, trains and ferries. It says the special rate is designed to attract more visitors and families in the weekend and free up short term on-street parking in the city.
Auckland Transport Parking Operations Manager, Eunan Cleary says: “This is a positive move, designed to assist the city’s retail, hospitality and entertainment industries.
“Aucklanders and visitors want to come to the city and be entertained and stay late. Already there are late night buses, trains and ferry services; a lower parking rate offers people a further travel option.
“Victoria and Downtown car park buildings, are under cover, have CCTV cameras installed and are conveniently placed near entertainment attractions and restaurants,” says Mr Cleary.
Heart of the City business association Alex Swney says, “The great thing about the timing of this campaign is that when the city puts its best foot forward with a great waterfront dining experience, great shows at the Aotea Centre and Vector Arena and many others, and of course the Rugby World Cup 2011 it makes visiting the city much easier.
“It creates another opportunity to return to the city and see how much it has changed,” says Mr Swney.
The new parking rates begin on 13 June and will run until 24 December 2011 and only apply to Victoria Street and Downtown car parks because both buildings can accommodate the extra vehicles anticipated.
22 Comments
Yay for Council undermining their own public transport initiatives!
Yay for dropping parking rates, instead of offering bus & train rebates!
Yay for progress and more cars in our CBD!
“Hey everybody! Now it’s cheaper to drink and drive!” -Auckland Transport
“free up short term on-street parking in the city” excellent goal.
Currently there is no such thing as short term parking in the CBD, Many carparks are taken by people staying several hours or all night.
I support a decrease in evening rates at parking buildings, but it is critical that we start charging for street parks to ensure there are always a few available for people picking up and dropping off stuff to apartments and businesses. Street parking made more expensive (as the space is more valuable) than parking in buildings. this will encourage valuable street space to be used more effectively.
I support dropping charges in buildings to achieve support this cause. Currently people will trawl for street parks to avoid building charges.
Scott, there is no such initiative you suggest to go with this. This is a unilateral move to drop parking charges. This reinforces the mindset that in Auckland you should DRIVE to the CBD, not walk, or cycle, or use public transport.
I like this idea. Currently the CBD is dead in during the weekends. Hopefully this will bring more people into the city even though it would be by car. However let’s be realistic, at the moment the car does offer more freedom and choice especially to families who are the type of people the council wants to attract.
Hopefully it makes the auckland transport more money. I think the low hourly fee might attract people who end up staying more than 3 hours, the maximum fee has only decreased by 50c. I assume there are heaps of free parks at night and in the weekends to make money from.
maybe part of the problem is evening, even early evening public transport is so bad. Bus frequency should be the same as inter-peak period from 6pm - 10pm, which would really help.
Also family passes on public transport would be a great idea, PT quickly becomes more expensive once you have to pay for 4 tickets. Maybe kids travel free offpeak, or just after 6pm?
I think Auckland Transport should just wait until the economy picks up, and then sell the car parks for redevelopment. Use the money for better PT, maybe even to go towards building that CBD rail tunnel we thought about. Surely the two sites would be worth at least half a billion together?
Now THAT would be an asset sale I could get behind.
Well, isn´t this a stupid idea. Perhaps the AT carparks dept should talk with the PT dept?
Why not 1/2 price PT fares for the weekend instead? Why do private motorists get subsidies like this from ratepayers?
The Downtown Wilsons car park building only charges me $1 for two hours parking on Sunday evenings. In fact if I pay with coins, the machine finalizes the ticket after depositing three 20c coins, so 60 cents for two hours.
It certainly makes up for the lack of trains on Sundays!
I don’t actually think it is a stupid idea, looking at it the point is to encourage people to come to the CBD, something many people avoid doing which is part of the problem we have in the first place. In the evenings the road network isn’t at capacity like it is during the peak or even during the day. I agree there should be off peak PT fares as well to compete with this but I can certainly see the benefit of having more people in the CBD as it helps the case for things like pedestrianising Queen St.
I know personally, if I want to go town in the evenings or weekends I will drive unless I am drinking as it is a 20 min trip compared to a 50 min one (the CBD tunnel would really help with that though
Hmmmmmmmm. While encouraging more cars is not ideal, perhaps for now its not so bad, if the goal is to get more PEOPLE to stay in the CBD longer. I remember when I was last in Akl a few years ago after being in Europe and I couldnt believe how dead it was. My wife decided she didn’t like the city and wanted to leave the country (we did)
I am encouraged by the improvements to the CBD that are happening now.
This is no surprise. The city is not attracting people because its too hard to get to and too hard to stay there. It is empty most nights and appears only populated by workers in business hours.
Obviously this is a reaction to try to get people to come to the place.
And forget public transport, good frequency weekdays at peak times for those who work there, average in day light hours, awful at night and weekends and expensive if there is more than one of you.
Queen Street is an utter pain in the arse to drive on or to access, blocked side roads, 30km limit and endless time spent sitting at traffic lights for double phasing pedestrian crossings. And that goes for buses as well.
Add to this parking in far away buildings that do not feel too safe for you or your car with prices that make your eyes water. Its amazing that anyone goes there at all.
Hence my worries about big spend ups on making it more pedestrian friendly. Making it to hard to get about it by making it difficult for cars will not attract the crowds.
Kurt - People shop and enjoy the city not cars, since those improvements to Queen St pedestrian traffic is up 30% already. Further to that it is these improvements and increases in people that are driving the demand for more high quality stores to open up, we now have stores like Louis Vuitton and Prada on Queen St when in the past they may have gone to somewhere like Newmarket or more likely wouldn’t have opened a store at all.
This is the dummest move I have heard for quite some time. Public transport should be encouraged by lower fares. Car parking fess should be increased. With the ever riding cost of fuel (I see Brent Oil is up over $2-00 US a barrel this morning) The days of driving cars around is coming to a close.
@Matt L. If the patronage is up why these sort of moves? I have to go in there regularly and its not busy and its not worth the money been thrown around on Queen Street.
People who shop and enjoy the city have to get there somehow and its not made easy, so they stay away. Successive councils have poured good money after bad into Queen Street and others trying to make the CBD attractive but the outcome is always the same.
For years the wisdom was make it expensive to park and harder for cars to access and people will come. How this odd logic was supposed to work is beyond me and Its failed miserably.
A balance of cars and much better public transport is the way to go.
Patronage growth has mostly been during peak hours, this is talking about after hours.
Also it isn’t pouring good money after bad, the outcomes have been good and as a result of more people using the street retailers are doing better. I work in town and it definitely is busy, go out at lunch time and look up Queen St and there are thousands and thousands of people walking up and down it.
Encouraging driving is so AK last century, where is the programme to fund full off peak, nighttime, and sunday PT services too? That is also needed.
But one thing that AT should do with their parking assets is reverse the discount given to peak travelers; the ‘early-bird’ system. Parking should instead be discounted for casuals wanting to come in between 10-3 and not as a reward for peak hour drivers. Nuts.
I don’t catch PT at night because of the danger involved. I’m 6′ 2″ & 135kgs & yet I don’t feel safe, so I take the car into town. Have been threatened on the train and of course there is no security from the platform home.
@Owen that is a disturbing story. People will not use the train at night if there is the sort of intimidating behaviour you can strike on such trains in major cities elsewhere.
What happened and where?
Bump up the weekday work price and lower the evening/weekend price. They also need an all night park on Friday and Saturday so you can park you car go on the turps and pick it up the next day.
[...] Transport has reduced car parking charges at 2 downtown car parks for 6 [...]