Wellington Parking - They are about to clamp down on bike parking

**Drogen Omen** · 5th October 2009, 09:52

Originally Posted by Jon Visser

That is a great example:
* The building owner has historically cleared with the Council that such parking is OK (a few property owners along Willis Street have done so where Council has not purchased the extra strip of land that was going to be used to widen the road).
* There are permanent physical obstructions present (e.g. the church fence & trees) that channel pedestrians away from the area used for parking (other property owners along here have put in bollards).
* There is a vehicle crossing adjacent to the location where motorcycles can safely get on & off the road and across the footpath.
(Note that the red property boundary is not actually quite right - the church car park encroaches onto the public footpath)

cool so we are ok to keep parking in that location?

would i be able to get you to write a letter advising that we are permitted to park here, just in case park wise issue any of us a parking ticket.
that way we could present it to park wise or the council to get the tickets revoked.

you can email it to: christian.moore@energyintellect.com

cheers for the clarification Jon.

**FatHead** · 15th October 2009, 11:55

All, I have just been to see Candice from wilson parking wellington@wilsonparking.co.nz and she has identified several spots in the James Cook carpark that they are happy to mark as bike parking

. I told her I was going to post on this forum and she was happy for anyone to discuss with her through the wilsons website www.wilsonparking.co.nz If you let her know I (Brian Martin) sent you she will do a deal for you.

The more requests for permanent parks they get the more spaces they will put aside (including car park spaces if the numbers are high enough) and they are willing to make access for us motorcyclists easier as well (I don't think I should discuss how here but I think the solution will be fine for all)

. They also have places in other buildings around the city that they are willing to talk to us about on an as needed basis.

Well done Wilsons and thank you Candice

Jon Could you let us all know when the next lot of flyers will be going out and when our friends with the ticketing machines will start leaving us love notes.

Now to read about the ACC Levies

**StoneY** · 15th October 2009, 12:04

Guys and Gals

There is a Bike Park, semi covered, secure behind barriers and cams at the Clifton Tce parking (building?) under the Tce Motorway

Pix to follow

You drive IN the BLUE private entry lane and leave the same way FREE of charge
Only uber wide HD's or other sidebag carrying cruisers will have an issue fitting

My ST4 parks there now and its totally alone bar a wee scooter so , off street, safe, camera coverage, semi weather protected......
Keep my ST4 company

Oh and Mr Visser, there are several OTHER places in Clifton suitable to be marked for bikes, any chance of you and I walking throgh please?

**Jon Visser** · 15th October 2009, 14:42

Originally Posted by FatHead

Jon Could you let us all know when the next lot of flyers will be going out and when our friends with the ticketing machines will start leaving us love notes.

We're just finalising the fliers now (just waiting on confirmations from Wilsons, Tournament and Carepark for all of their details on the fliers) and I am hoping to distribute them around Thursday 22 October. As soon as they are finalised I will post them electronically here, as well as to all those who have contacted me individually for them.

There are currently no plans to recommence with enforcement yet as I am waiting to see what the response to the fliers and posters is first. I am still optimistic that we can address the bulk of these issues without needing to resort to fines. When we do recommence with enforcement, our intention is to issue $0 notices at first so that it is clear what is and what is not OK, and to iron out any issues such as private property boundaries.

It is good to see some positive progress in some areas (e.g. Grey Street is looking a lot tidier than it has for many months), some positive remarks (e.g. on this forum) and some reports of increased utilisation of off-road facilities.

I am even more pleased to announce that we have just agreed to install a few more on-road motorcycle parking spaces in Panama Street (off Featherston Street just before Grey Street). As was suggested on this forum, we are looking a bit more closely at the "yellow" sections of road that cannot be used for parking larger vehicles. There are some sections of no-parking on Panama Street that, because of fire hydrants and old dis-used vehicle crossings, can not be used for car parking but can quite easily be converted to motorcycle parking without any loss of car parking space. It would be good to hear if there are any other such locations around the city.

**davebullet** · 15th October 2009, 16:00

Originally Posted by Jon Visser

When we do recommence with enforcement, our intention is to issue $0 notices at first so that it is clear what is and what is not OK, and to iron out any issues such as private property boundaries.

Good idea.

**davebullet** · 15th October 2009, 16:02

Originally Posted by Jon Visser

There are some sections of no-parking on Panama Street that, because of fire hydrants and old dis-used vehicle crossings, can not be used for car parking but can quite easily be converted to motorcycle parking without any loss of car parking space. It would be good to hear if there are any other such locations around the city.

Excellent thinking... I'm sure there are other clustered areas near multiple fire hydrants that bikes could fit and not be an obstruction.

**Bodir** · 15th October 2009, 20:23

Hi Jon,

you do know that there is a quick fix for short term bike parking (for all the outsiders that want to travel to Wellington and have a good time).

Short term (60 or 120 min) car parks are used, as you stated pages ago, to regulate frequency. These car parks are in no way there to generate income. The time restriction is there to allow more short term customers to get to the shops without walking too far. This is necessary to avoid car parks being blocked for the whole day and therefore shops miss out on sales etc. The car parks are monitored so that everyone obeys the rules. (That is a short description of what you stated)

Now the solution for short term bike parking: Allow bikes to use these car parks.

How does this work? Simple. A bike cannot park longer than the allowed time there or it gets fined/towed. You got the system in place to enforce that, so no extra cost. Up to now - no disadvantage.

How to charge the bikes. And here comes the trick! BTW the one that council does not like. You don't. As per your argumentation the short term parking is only a regulating too, not a revenue tool. Hence no income required.

Now this would be unfair to all the cars that park and pay. But guess what - why do they have too? P&D zones get extended each year because they are solely there to generate income. The parking times don't change but now you have to pay to use the same spot for the same time. In your example the city would loose 1m if the converted P&D to bike parking. That shows that the revenue is already build in the budget (same as the fines for not obeying).

Conclusion of this example. It is easy to provide short term parking for bikes, but it is far more convenient to pretend to find solutions and cash in on the fines once there is not enough parking anymore in private owned places for the casual biker.

Looking forward to your response in how you want to rationalize your way out.

**StoneY** · 15th October 2009, 20:29

Bodir, get the fuck out of this thread

New member, 1 post, from Jaffaland...this is Wellington you moron and Jon's shown some bloody good faith here so FUCK right off out of it

**Jon Visser** · 16th October 2009, 10:26

Originally Posted by Bodir

you do know that there is a quick fix for short term bike parking (for all the outsiders that want to travel to Wellington and have a good time).

Short term (60 or 120 min) car parks are used, as you stated pages ago, to regulate frequency. These car parks are in no way there to generate income.
...
Now the solution for short term bike parking: Allow bikes to use these car parks.

Hi Bodir,

I am not entirely sure what you are suggesting. Motorcycles are already allowed to use time-restricted parking, for free, for short term parking. Any motorcycle or scooter may use any P5, P10, P60, P120 etc for up to that time restriction. However, to my knowledge there are very few of these in the Wellington CBD. The only ones I can think of other than P5s and P10s (which are effectively "loading zones that anyone may use") is a P60 at the top end of Cuba Street. Typically we have a lot of P60, P120, and P240 spaces in the suburbs and these may be used by riders (up to the posted time limit).

Our metered parking does exist to generate income to offset the costs involved in providing parking amenity in Wellington City (as opposed to being rates-funded). Metered spaces controlled by a single-head meter may be used by riders. The ones covered by the "Pay & Display" machines may not currently be used because of technical issues around the displaying of receipts. If we can find a reasonable solution to that technical issue (i.e. which does not unreasonably disadvantage riders, car drivers or our ratepayers) then I'd be happy to let riders use these spaces as well. We would need to publicly consult on any such change to our Bylaw, so I would need to put forward a case and consultation document that, when considered by all car drivers, would receive majority support. If we simply said "lets allow all riders to use any P&D spaces all day for free" we would simply get thousands of objections from car drivers (who outnumber riders 40 to 1 and are also pressuring me to increase, not decrease, the number of spaces available to them) and the change would be rejected. Even then, it would only solve the problem for short-term parking needs, whereas most of the riders are commuters looking for all-day parking.

**Bodir** · 16th October 2009, 11:49

Originally Posted by Jon Visser

Hi Bodir,

I am not entirely sure what you are suggesting. Motorcycles are already allowed to use time-restricted parking, for free, for short term parking. Any motorcycle or scooter may use any P5, P10, P60, P120 etc for up to that time restriction. However, ... top end of Cuba Street. Typically we have a lot of P60, P120, and P240 spaces in the suburbs and these may be used by riders (up to the posted time limit).

Witch is a great thing, but for short term bikers not the ideal solution as they are far away from the cafes and shops and if you are on a trip you have a little more luggage on your bike than the average commuter. Hence you would like to park preferably in line of sight unless you want to dismount everything and carry it.

Originally Posted by Jon Visser

Our... Metered spaces controlled by a single-head meter may be used by riders. The ones covered by the "Pay & Display" machines may not currently be used because of technical issues around the displaying of receipts. If we can find a reasonable solution to that technical issue (i.e. which does not unreasonably disadvantage riders, car drivers or our ratepayers) then I'd be happy to let riders use these spaces as well. We would need to publicly consult on any such change to our Bylaw, so I would need to put forward a case and consultation document that, when considered by all car drivers, would receive majority support. If we simply said "lets allow all riders to use any P&D spaces all day for free" we would simply get thousands of objections from car drivers (who outnumber riders 40 to 1 and are also pressuring me to increase, not decrease, the number of spaces available to them) and the change would be rejected.

The statement that I was trying to make only targets the short term bikers. They might be a minority, but they still require parking and are the most likely to park "illegally" (edit: (even after commuters are all sorted in day spots)) as they have a different parking need as stated above.

I am not suggesting to allow P&D parking spaces to be used for the entire day, just for the amount that they are designed for. Again, this does not help the commuters that are looking for a whole day spot, but it also helps the commuter that wants to quickly jump in a shop and grab something. (I guess shop owners will not mind if you park in front of their shop while you are inside anyway, but it would not be legal)

As the technical issue is that motorcycles cannot display any prove of purchase at the moment, I understand that a "free parking" is hard to sell to car drivers.

Originally Posted by Jon Visser

Even then, it would only solve the problem for short-term parking needs, whereas most of the riders are commuters looking for all-day parking.

Yes it would only solve one tiny problem, but one problem less is still one worry less and a couple more bikes off the footpaths. Not all solutions have to cover the whole crisis. Sometimes it pays off to divide a problem into its smaller issues and cope with each of them individually rather than to find the one stop shop solution. And you are doing it for the commuters at the moment by finding space for them wherever possible, either in the private sector or on government property. It is hard to find 500 spaces at once. But finding 480 (just a random number) is easier.

**cindymay** · 16th October 2009, 12:12

Originally Posted by Bodir

Witch is a great thing, but for short term bikers not the ideal solution as they are far away from the cafes and shops

Second post from a witch from Jaffaland - fuck I love watching this site.

**BMWST?** · 22nd October 2009, 19:18

I parked in Tory street to day in a pay and display in my carto go to Motorad.None of the machines and none of the signs indicated that a motorcycle could NOT park there.

**StoneY** · 22nd October 2009, 22:58

Ups to mr Visser gentlemen

In this thread we have ragged him a bit at timea and all along he kept a sane and level attitude, never getting emotional, never responding with anyting except VERIFIED facts.....

Kudos to you John

You have been honest with us from day one

Thank you

**Jon Visser** · 28th October 2009, 15:26

All going well the next lot of flyers will have been issued today. Fingers crossed that the weather will remain dry until everyone has returned to their bikes.

A sample of the flyer is attached. There are three versions: CBD North, CBD Central and CBD South. This was done to maximise the scale for printing and there is a decent overlap between the areas.

A full map covering the whole city is also attached. This will be posted on our external web pages, which are currently being updated.

**ajturbo** · 28th October 2009, 15:35

Originally Posted by StoneY

Ups to mr Visser gentlemen

In this thread we have ragged him a bit at timea and all along he kept a sane and level attitude, never getting emotional, never responding with anyting except VERIFIED facts.....

Kudos to you John

You have been honest with us from day one

Thank you

at least he can show his boss's what he is doing on KB all day... lol

wow what a job.. get to talk to us bikers on line and get paid!!!

well done!!!