9 April 2009

Sunday pay parking at the Canberra Centre

| chettb
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In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the Canberra Centre has quietly started charging for parking even on Sundays and public holidays.

Such changes need to be advertised well beforehand and users need to be consulted. Even the signs offering free Sunday parking have not been changes and to that extent the charging appears illegal!

There is no grace period of say, 2 hours for shoppers or movie goers either.

The question needs to asked as to how this is possible, whether ACT goverment approval was given, and the precedent it sets for other car parks in Belconnen and Woden.

Can I suggest that everyone write to centre management as well as their local Member to ask for a reversal.

I, for one, will no more park there on Sundays. It must be remembered that it was orginally public land which had free parking on Sundays!

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Has rent for retail shops decreased due to the high popularity of paid parking nowadays? Maybe it has, but if not, seems like a double dip by the shopping centres. ”We’ll have your money to rent, and we’ll have yours too to use the shop we are getting rent from. While we are at it, we’ll allow for you to get booked by parking inspectors if you step out of line regarding our parking rules.” Great customer focus they have. Why let good service get in the way off massive profit. Winning!

Surely you must realise by now, the cost of parking in a centre is meant to represent its prestige. Canberra Centre is trying to assert itself against Westfield Balconnen.

As consumers we have more power than we give ourselves credit for. If enough of us choose not to shop in Civic on Sundays due to the pay parking then the retailers will kick up enough stink to force the government to retract.

People might complain but I bet apathy will win the day. Does anyone remember the days when you could go into the Exhibitions such as Home Shows for free because essentially you were going because you wanted to make a purchase or do some research for a later purchase. Then the government started charging an exhorbitant entrance fee. It is a bit like paying to get into David Jones.

It is only we, the consumer, that can change this by refusing to attend. There is power in numbers.

toadstool said :

If you have a Privileges card you get the first hour free in the Canberra Centre carparks which suits me as I rarely spend more than an hour there. However, as I found out one recent Sunday, they do not staff the office on Sundays so there is nobody to validate your ticket to get the free parking! So not only are they making extra money by charging on weekends, they are also saving on wages by having no staff. What happens if there is a problem with the automatic pay machines and there is nobody to let you out?

If you call the mobile number listed on the pay machines it goes through to security. Jesus Christ am I the only one that reads signs these days?

As for validation on Sunday, haha they probably haven’t even thought of that yet. You should call them up to confuse them.

toadstool said :

If you have a Privileges card you get the first hour free in the Canberra Centre carparks which suits me as I rarely spend more than an hour there. However, as I found out one recent Sunday, they do not staff the office on Sundays so there is nobody to validate your ticket to get the free parking! So not only are they making extra money by charging on weekends, they are also saving on wages by having no staff. What happens if there is a problem with the automatic pay machines and there is nobody to let you out?

I make use of my Privileges Card for the free hour but if you read the terms and conditions it does state the offer is only available when the office is staffed. If you park there out of hours (or on Sundays) you will not recieve the offer.

If you have a Privileges card you get the first hour free in the Canberra Centre carparks which suits me as I rarely spend more than an hour there. However, as I found out one recent Sunday, they do not staff the office on Sundays so there is nobody to validate your ticket to get the free parking! So not only are they making extra money by charging on weekends, they are also saving on wages by having no staff. What happens if there is a problem with the automatic pay machines and there is nobody to let you out?

I work for a retailer in the Canberra Centre and thus park there regularly, so I perhaps have a greater chance of seeing such notices than the regular Joe customer. This change has been advertised in numerous places for quite a while (someone above said most of March and that sounds about right). The prices are also advertised at the entrance (see below for legal information regarding carparks and contracts).

That the OP claims that the ‘Sunday Parking Free’ signs are still displayed is however a very interesting thing. OP where are these signs? There could be potential contractual/Trade Practices issues surrounding those signs.

As for approval and ‘asking permission from customers’ give me a break. In terms of asking permission, any good company would have done some economic modelling and that’s all the permission they need. You can write letters all you want however at the end of the day they are meaningless compared to numbers. The profitability of the carpark and the affect on customer numbers to the centre will be the only factors. Those are real numbers; your letter won’t be.

As for the price increases, yes they suck. I found the prices previously to be too expensive so I find these new prices frustrating. It will potentially negatively affect my patronage of the Centre and will definitely negatively affect my use of the carpark unless a better product is offered somehow that I feel is worth the extra cost.

We’ll see how that works out in the aggregate, and the results of that will dictate the future price.

Aeek said :

the big issue is that all the pricing info is at the top of the ramp. if you don’t accept it, you are supposed to reverse back down ?

No you continue and then you leave immediately. This is actually a contract law issue that is very commonly studied in law school.

The tickets (pretty much everywhere) have a grace period of probably about 10 minutes to facilitate this. If you cannot get out using your ticket as described, hit the button to talk to a carpark attendant and kindly explain to them that you do not accept the terms of the offer they are making and thus would like to leave. If they resist, kindly explain to them that you have the most expert in legal advice from your good friend jakez. If they refuse to let you out, then they find themselves in a very actionable position. Unfortunately jakez has not done the practical legal training and thus can’t represent you and get a piece of the pie though.

I admit there is more manure than mature in both our posts.

Excellent selective paraphrasing and self-editing to try and prove your point. Take the idiot comment in the context in which it was written rather than editing to suit your agenda. Really very mature

vg said :

Dopey

I was referring to myself as a 2 post nutbag, excuse the sarcasm, it may have been beyond you

you’re an idiot.

Well you’re the full set. Not only a nutbag but a prick as well.

monomania said :

vg said :

…and (2 post nutbag) to top it of you can

(a) afford a car
(b) have enough petrol to drive to civic
(c) go to the Canberra Centre to SHOP; and
(d) whinge about $2 for 2hrs on a weekend

Get a grip

My comment was more general than the $2 fee for a Sunday. How about going to a movie at Dendy. $8 for the movie on Tuesday afternoon, $5.30 for less than 2 hours parking.

Parking during the day can be difficult in Civic unless you use the parking stations.

Why?

Well because parking areas have been closed and built over for one thing and rather than catering for the wishes of their citizens this government is trying to influence our behaviour through making parking scarce and thus too expensive for some of us.

Social amenity is only for the well heeled?

I can count my posts. 2 post nutbag? Your posts. 2

Dopey

I was referring to myself as a 2 post nutbag, excuse the sarcasm, it may have been beyond you

How about going to the movies at Dendy on a Tuesday and finding somewhere cheaper to park than at the Canberra Centre? Is it that hard, or do you insist on door to door service. Or going on Tuesday night and parking outside for free, or catching a bus into town, or walking or……..

Sorry, but if you’re paying $5.30 for parking when going to the movies you’re an idiot. Cheaper options everywhere but you’ll have to look past the end of your nose

TP 3000 said :

deye said :

and today it was free, despite the signs saying that public holidays are $2 flat rate.

That probably has to do with the Canberra Centre being shut, so if the machines failed there would be no one would come & fix it. So you would be stuck in all night

Not all the centre was shut or I wouldn’t have been there and there were guards on duty.

vg said :

…and (2 post nutbag) to top it of you can

(a) afford a car
(b) have enough petrol to drive to civic
(c) go to the Canberra Centre to SHOP; and
(d) whinge about $2 for 2hrs on a weekend

Get a grip

My comment was more general than the $2 fee for a Sunday. How about going to a movie at Dendy. $8 for the movie on Tuesday afternoon, $5.30 for less than 2 hours parking.

Parking during the day can be difficult in Civic unless you use the parking stations.

Why? Well because parking areas have been closed and built over for one thing and rather than catering for the wishes of their citizens this government is trying to influence our behaviour through making parking scarce and thus too expensive for some of us.

Social amenity is only for the well heeled?

I can count my posts. 2 post nutbag? Your posts. 2

…and (2 post nutbag) to top it of you can

(a) afford a car
(b) have enough petrol to drive to civic
(c) go to the Canberra Centre to SHOP; and
(d) whinge about $2 for 2hrs on a weekend

Get a grip

Its been $2 for that time period for at least the last 4 years from memory. There are a gazillion free places to park in Civic. You just have to get off your ass and look if $2 destroys you.

I don’t consider myself relatively rich, just not a whinger

vg said :

rosie_bubz said :

leahcim said :

Boo hoo. Live in a real city and see what you get charged for parking in the city.

but we live in canberra so why should we pay for ‘real’ city parking

Yeah, it costs a whole $2 for up to 2 hours from memory. Bank breaking stuff

Well that depends on how big a bank you have. I suppose I have to suck it up but that doesn’t mean I have to like the fact that the less well of are being priced out of Canberra at the expense of the relatively rich and definitely arrogant like you vg.

harvyk1 said :

In reality us Canberrans haven’t got a leg to stand on when it come to complaining about parking costs in the middle of our CBD.

It’s not the legs we want to stand, it’s the wheels.

deye said :

and today it was free, despite the signs saying that public holidays are $2 flat rate.

That probably has to do with the Canberra Centre being shut, so if the machines failed there would be no one would come & fix it. So you would be stuck in all night

A sly way of getting rid of some your $900 stimulus payments.

and today it was free, despite the signs saying that public holidays are $2 flat rate.

rosie_bubz said :

leahcim said :

Boo hoo. Live in a real city and see what you get charged for parking in the city.

but we live in canberra so why should we pay for ‘real’ city parking

Yeah, it costs a whole $2 for up to 2 hours from memory. Bank breaking stuff

Deckard said :

Vote with your feet – or your wheels.

Go and shop somewhere else. If everyone does this they’ll soon make it free again.

If people don’t go somewhere else, then they’re right – supply and demand.

+1

leahcim said :

Boo hoo. Live in a real city and see what you get charged for parking in the city.

but we live in canberra so why should we pay for ‘real’ city parking

I dunno. Just because parking is outrageous in other cities doesn’t mean ours has to be.

Especially because our buses and taxis are both woeful, and we have no other transport options.

And because there used to be mega amounts of parking, until the last year or so when the govt discovered they could sell it off for millions and millions. Unfortunately they forgot to make a plan for when there was no parking left in Civic, and have resorted to asphalting the lake shores – with no transport from there to the city.

Danman said :

Is it a private parking space, or owned by the government. It is my underdstanding that if private, you have no legal obligation to pay any fines. Of course I am happy to be proven wrong, years of ACA viewing have had their effect…

But if it’s a gated carpark, you can’t really NOT pay….

leahcim said :

Boo hoo. Live in a real city and see what you get charged for parking in the city.

Damn straight, after paying $13 for a little over half an hour of parking (can’t remember what an hour was going to cost, but it would have made a taxi a very cheap mode of transport) in one of the countries other major cities I vowed to never again complain about having to pay a whole 80c for parking an hour in the Canberra Centre.

In reality us Canberrans haven’t got a leg to stand on when it come to complaining about parking costs in the middle of our CBD.

Catch a bus, ride a bike/motorbike, or walk. That’ll piss them off, and we won’t have to hear about carparking in Civic.

PS I agree about the signs.

Sneaky turds. I hate shopping there any way, it’s a giant barn… you get trapped in the inside bit with endless shops and end up buying nothing.

It must be remembered that it was orginally public land which had free parking on Sundays!

It must be remembered that originally it was an empty limestone plain near a river.
Then some people moved in and started to live off the land, gorging themselves on moths and negotiating access across the moth-harvesting ground land in exchange for things their tribe needed\wanted.
20,000 years later, some new guys (Joshua John Moore, James Ainslie, & Robert Campbell) moved in, so they could use the land to generate a profit by turning it into stock grazing territory, and a bit of arable cropland.

Times change, but that bit of land has always been (in one way or another) used by someone to fleece someone else out of his hard earned valuables.

Harden up sunshine.

Shit, and it was the only place to park free on a Sunday in town………………isn’t it?

Dry your eyes princess

yoyo23 said :

You should hear those Treasury people whinge when the carpark fills up at 9:45am!

I’ve gone in at 10am & still seen 4/5 spots. But the thing is that parking officers rarely go in there either. Only once aout of around 15 days have I seen a yellow envelope on a car-& no it wasn’t mine.

Usually you don’t have to pay for the first 5 minutes in those carparks, to allow people who have gone in by mistake to drive straight out again.

Aeek said :

the big issue is that all the pricing info is at the top of the ramp. if you don’t accept it, you are supposed to reverse back down ?

It’s not funny! I’ve seen it happen…

Oh and the amount of people who end up in the loading dock between the two entrances on the supabarn parking is just sad.

the big issue is that all the pricing info is at the top of the ramp. if you don’t accept it, you are supposed to reverse back down ?

On another matter related to Sunday’s and public holidays – next time you are charged a surcharge in a restaurant ask the staff if they are getting double time….

I did on Canberra Day and was told – “no we get one flat rate all week” – so when I questioned the owner he sheepishly removed the surcharge from my bill.

And the waiter/ess that told you that probably got fired a few days later for telling you that.

but shopping is about the only time I do drive my car, it needs to run occasionally 🙂

TP 3000 said :

As far as I could see they also removed the roof top special of $10 all day. I’ve ended up parking over in the Treasury carpark & catching the bus over. On concession faresaver 10, it only cost me $2.20 a day. That is until pay parking is introduced into the Parliamentary Triangle.

You should hear those Treasury people whinge when the carpark fills up at 9:45am!

I agree, don’t park where you can’t afford to. Go to Belconnen/Woden/Bogenarong on a Sunday if you don’t want to pay for parking. Better yet, don’t drive to go shopping and spend the money on the Internet. Saves the environment 😉

As far as I could see they also removed the roof top special of $10 all day. I’ve ended up parking over in the Treasury carpark & catching the bus over. On concession faresaver 10, it only cost me $2.20 a day. That is until pay parking is introduced into the Parliamentary Triangle.

Vote with your feet – or your wheels.

Go and shop somewhere else. If everyone does this they’ll soon make it free again.

If people don’t go somewhere else, then they’re right – supply and demand.

#8

If the owners of the carpark give the ACT government the OK to give tickets, then it’s open slather.

The carpark next to the cop shop was an ACT government carpark till they sold it to Mirvac.

The ACT government were given permission to give tickets as nobody was paying, and know they get tickets.

Granny said :

Who’s going to like it? Oh, goody! They’re charging for free parking now? Wheeeeeeeee!!

No, I don’t like it. Yes, I’ll still park there. It’s right outside the cinema. Doesn’t mean I can’t think they’re greedy, and I do and I will.

If you don’t like it HTFU.

Granny!

(shocked)

I will keep on parking nearby in the mon-fri parks. thanks all the same.

Who’s going to like it? Oh, goody! They’re charging for free parking now? Wheeeeeeeee!!

No, I don’t like it. Yes, I’ll still park there. It’s right outside the cinema. Doesn’t mean I can’t think they’re greedy, and I do and I will.

If you don’t like it HTFU.

Boo hoo. Live in a real city and see what you get charged for parking in the city.

If you don’t like it don’t park there….

On another matter related to Sunday’s and public holidays – next time you are charged a surcharge in a restaurant ask the staff if they are getting double time….

I did on Canberra Day and was told – “no we get one flat rate all week” – so when I questioned the owner he sheepishly removed the surcharge from my bill.

These surcharges were introduced to cover double time on a Sunday and in some cases double time and a half on public holidays. In most hospitality awards those provisions have been abolished. So there really should be no need for them…..

“Users need to be consulted”

LMAO

As if to expect parking should be free hahaha

Why on earth would they require gov. approval? They either own the land or have it on a 99yr lease. Would they also require gov. approval to charge rent to their stores? lolz

Classic! haha

Welcome to QIC holding what is essentially a monopoly on civic and Stanhopia bowing down to all things new and shiny.

Catch a bus. Ride a bike. Walk. Swim across the lake. HTFU.

Is it a private parking space, or owned by the government. It is my underdstanding that if private, you have no legal obligation to pay any fines. Of course I am happy to be proven wrong, years of ACA viewing have had their effect…

The roof parking is still the same. It remains at $10 for all day.

They also upped the price for the rest of the week. It’s now 80c for 30 minutes.

What!! I didn’t even notice that. What a rip.

Holden Caulfield3:35 pm 09 Apr 09

ZOMG~!!!11!! No more free parking in the city, OH NOES!

Apart from that, I agree it’s very rude to charge for parking if the signs on entry still indicate the parking is free on those days.

screaming banshee3:33 pm 09 Apr 09

Never saw any notice signs, just realised when we were there a weekend or two ago, went to pay only to see that they’d jacked up the prices and all of a sudden sunday $2.

After lunch on Sat and Sunday pretty much all other parking is free so I’ll be parking there.

We were annoyed.

While I agree that it’s disgraceful… they did post notice on signs around the pay stations (and at the bottoms of escalators) in the parking garages for most of March (maybe sooner).

I do find it silly considering surrounding street parking is still free on Sundays. I’m not sure about the surface lot along Cooyong on the back side of the Centre.

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