In Perth, the Motorcycle Riders Association is calling on the government to allow motorcycles and scooters to be able to park on public walkways in Perth city.

According to ABC online, they are calling for a trial policy similar to Melbourne, allowing motorcycles to park on footpaths and concrete public spaces, providing the vehicle is walked there, the vehicle is parked at least a motorcycle length away from buildings and the vehicle doesn't inhibit pedestrian access.

The MRAWA claims that the system would encourage motorcyclists to commute, which will ease traffic congestion especially at peak hour. In addition to this, they want extra free, all day parking locations to be scattered throughout the city.

Proposals are also under development for motorcycles and scooters to be permitted to use the emergency and bus lanes on Perth’s roads during peak periods.

The City of Perth, meanwhile, has ruled out any plans for footpath parking in the CBD, citing that 75,000 people walk into and around Perth’s CBD everyday; and that motorcycles parked in public spaces would cause obstruction to this free movement. Currently there is a report recommending an expansion and an additional 30 bays at the Mounts Bay Road parking lot due to go to council. If the report is approved, the Mounts Bay Road park will accommodate 102 motorcycles. 

Colliers International, in conjunction with Parking & Traffic Consultants, have released a white paper into CBD car parks in Australia.

The paper, entitled Australian CBD Car Parking – The Next Decade, examines the current trends and the expected future of car parks in Australia. With the number of car spaces in Australian CBDs increasing only marginally from 141,690 in 2006 to 153,400 in 2011, car parking is a finite product, with the supply of car parking expected to moderate over the next decade.

A key finding of the report was that the ratio of car parking to CBD workers is declining, along with the importance of parking relative to other forms of transport. Since 2005, proximity to public transport has remained the most important driver in attracting and retaining staff by tenants when choosing an office location and has steadily increased in importance over time.

Real estate and property yields for well-established commercial car parks are generally slightly above commercial buildings in the same price range in comparable locations, with a slight risk premium factored in to allow for increased uncertainty surrounding changes to Government legislation, casual parking as a discretionary spend which generally diminished in times of economic uncertainty, and a smaller market for car parking assets.

Parking & Traffic Consultants' own Managing Partner, Cristina Lynn, was a co-author to the report. Cristina said that with changes to technology and the cost of car parking on the rise, owners had to become more innovative in the services they provide. The benefits of new technology coupled with greater awareness of customer’s needs should ensure on going profitability and value maximisation for car park owners.

Click here to view the full white paper.

A recent paper published by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics has quantified an ongoing trend in Sydney – that drivers are driving less every year than the year before.

Since 2005, the average number of kilometres driver per year has been on the decline. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in 1965, the average Sydney resident drove about 4000 kilometres a year. The figure advanced steadily past 6000 kilometres a year, by the late 1970s. By the mid-1990s, the average Sydney resident was driving 8000 kilometres a year. And by 2005, driving kilometres had crept up to about 8400 a quarter.

Since peaking in 2005, they have since slipped back to 1995 levels and are likely to stay for the next decade or so. The report shows that Sydney residents drive less than those in other capital cities. Residents in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth drive closer to 10,000 kilometres a year.

The Southern Precinct project and expansion of Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport is part of a proposed program of investment by Melbourne Airport over the next five years. The expansion project is budgeted to cost in excess of A$1 billion.

According to MICEBTN magazine, Stage 1 of the project is focused on the area south of the existing T3 terminal and around the T4 terminal, and includes the phased development of:

• A new domestic terminal facility designed to cater for up to 20 million passengers per annum and an ultimate area of 35,000 square metres;
• 35 additional aircraft parking aprons and taxi lanes to accommodate future growth;
• Two new multi‐level structures for ground transport services, additional car parking spaces and access to other services such as taxis, shuttle buses and public transport and upgrading the airport road network to provide access to the new terminal precinct and also to support the future growth of Melbourne Airport over the next 30 to 40 years.

Stage One of the Southern Precinct project has an estimated cost of up to A$300 million, and is planned to commence in October 2012, with the new terminal open for operation by July 2014.

The NSW government has recently changed legislation for on-street parking, paving the way for the introduction of ‘phone parking’.

After registering their details with a third party operator, drivers would then either use a smartphone application or call a toll-free number to send their car registration details to the system, advising of their arrival in the space. The “meter” is then stopped again by the driver on return, and the parking fees billed to their credit card. The system alerts the driver by text message 15 minutes before their paid parking time expires.

According to Fairfax Media, the NSW Roads Minister, Duncan Gay, said the change has been agreed to by Roads and Maritime Services, with the phone parking to complement existing payment methods.

The system should prove popular with local councils as it will reduce the costs of parking meter maintenance. Proponents of the technology claim that it benefits drivers by removing the risk of overpaying the meter, and reducing the risk of overstaying. 

Fairfax media published an article this week exploring the range of benefits that a car share scheme is able to provide to residents, developers and councils of a city.

The car-sharing model is one that’s growing rapidly in many countries, and reflects a shift in the way that people are using their cars. In recent years, the increase in car ownership has slowed in Australia, and the distance we drive in each vehicle has begun to decline. Meanwhile, public transport usage is on the rise.

Car sharing is a key player in greening cities, reducing congestion and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Operators of the scheme tend to purchase energy-efficient vehicles – as petrol is included in the cost of the hire, there is an added incentive to run the cars as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

Research by consultants Frost and Sullivan in the US found that in 2009, every shared car replaced 15 private cars, and car sharing members drove almost one-third less than they would if they owned a vehicle. Widespread growth of these schemes would mean fewer cars, used more efficiently.

Car sharing company GoGet says that the penetration of their ownership in Sydney’s Surry Hills has now reached 2 in every 10 license holders. The company is increasingly providing shared utility vehicles at residential developments, working with councils and developers to reduce the minimum parking requirements through the provision of access to a shared vehicle. 

Here is an update on Melbourne’s underground street art project we wrote about recently, as the project has started to take shape. Around 90 artists from New York, Paris, Amsterdam and Melbourne came together to paint over 8,600 square feet of wall space over the 3 levels of Emerald House in South Melbourne.

Reminds us a little of the recent project in Perth’s Condor Towers. If you have an interest in street art and car park refurbishments you can see our post about Condor Towers here.

Below you can see some images of the Melbourne project thanks to the 12oz prophet site, as well as a short video below on the car park’s artistic progress. Amazing stuff!

Last week, the Australasian Railway Association claimed that Australia was being ‘left behind’ as the only continent without a high-speed rail network.

The federal government released a study last August on the feasibility of a high-speed rail system on the east coast, linking Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. The $20-million study said a 1,600-kilometre speed network could reduce travel time between Melbourne and Sydney to three hours, with customers needing to pay $99 for the trip.

The proposed Melbourne to Sydney high-speed rail network could cost between $61 billion and $108 billion. Due to the very high cost of the project, the government has commissioned a second study, due to be finished by November 2012.

Should a project of this scale get the green light, it would see major tunnelling construction work expected to begin in 2014. It would be the biggest transport infrastructure project in Sydney since work started 90 years ago on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and supplement the harbour and rail network system being put in place across Australia to serve the storage and rail and sea transport requirements of the country's booming resources sector.

A while ago, we posted about the ‘Cheap Parking’ application for iPhones – it will tell you the prices charged at all of the car parks around you at any given time of day, with the aim of helping you find the cheapest parking for your needs.

The company behind the app has recently published a list of some of the most and least expensive parking in each of the major capital cities of Australia.

The information published includes most expensive and cheapest 1 hour rate, most expensive and least expensive 9 hour rate, and most expensive and cheapest Early Bird rate, covering Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Unsurprisingly, Sydney took out the highest rates for all three categories, with the highest rates being $40 for one hour; $142 for nine hours, and $42 as the most expensive early bird rate.

The ‘car parking guru’ website has also published several other findings from their parking rate surveys, including an analysis of demand for car parking. They found that there are more searches for car parking as the week goes on, peaking on Friday. They also found that the peak demand for parking, again not surprisingly, is between 10am and 12pm.

Useful data for all of us, and not just for use in our car parking data projections! 

Melbourne Airport has introduced a new ‘Ring and Ride’ waiting area in its long term car park, where drivers can wait for arriving passengers to phone to say that they are ready to be picked up from the airport’s terminal.

According to the Australian Business Traveller, Airport CEO Chris Woodruff explained that the Ring & Ride area was created in response to "growing concern about drivers parking illegally on the Tullamarine Freeway or other roadways while they waited to pick up arriving passengers." Melbourne Airport is also hoping that this will reduce congestion in front of the terminal.

The first twenty minutes in the Ring & Ride zone will be free, while a 20-40 minute wait will cost $2 and up to an hour, $4. After the hour, regular long term parking charges will apply.

Ten extra pick-up bays will also come into play at the terminals this week, following the extensive forecourt reconstruction works that have taken place over the past few months.