Stanhope to push beige bombers into the parliamentary triangle

Don’t worry – the federal politicians want to keep their key staff happy. More than they care about Canberrans’ thoughts on the issue.

Sheesh! And yet we still have no official Park N Ride spots. EPIC would be a good one for the gungahlinites.

sepi said :

Some people park at Russel and bus up to Civic.

Some other Dept’s even seem to promote this, Sepi. I was walking into Defence one day from the bus-stop and minibus pulled up with a sign saying ‘DEWR Staff only’ on the windscreen. As soon as the mini-bus stopped about 15-20 people came scurrying out of the car park to hop on it. I then watched it drive around the loop road behind R3 and R2 and head back into civic.

One problem is that the free Parlt. Triangle parking at Russel and some of Parkes is suffering from the Civic overflow. Some people park at Russel and bus up to Civic.

I’d get the parking ticket for driving too slow, for sure! I’m surprised the gov’t hasn’t thought of that one… revenue!

Stanhope’s whinge is just that. He’s after money. They should be building gov’t departments and other workplaces in the places where people live, not loading up Civic and SnowTown with more and more bulidings.

Things are about to start changing in the Parly Triangle though. Work will soon start on building the new Climate Change building on the DFAT carpark. Where those hundreds of cars are going to go is anyone’s guess.

They are going to build a multi-story carpark in front of DFAT (near the moth paddock) but I don’t think they even start work on that until after the current carpark has been taken away.

The multi-story is going to be a commercial operation, so I’m not sure how that fits in with the current policy. Although if you read the official guff about future directions for that area, they state taht they want to encourage people to use public transport.

I work in Barton (near the large paved/dirt car park behind the Ottoman) and walk to work every day, so this doesn’t directly affect me. However, you can’t compare Parkes and Barton with Civic, Belco, Woden and Tuggers. Pay parking in these centres provides an incentive for people to car pool or take public transport, and reflects the fact that there are far fewer car spaces than there are people working in these areas. Of course car parking can’t be free – there are nowhere near enough spaces in these areas for every worker to have one. The same isn’t true of Parkes and Barton.

Also, Barton in particular is not well serviced by public transport, while the town centres are interconnected by fast express services and themselves are concentration points for public transport routes.

The real cause of congestion and Canberra’s obsession with the car is poor planning. If the ACT Government released more land zoned for commercial development in Tuggers, Woden, Belco, and (particularly) Gungahlin, and stopped releasing commercial land in Civic ad nauseum, people would be able to work closer to where they live and where their kids went to school, reducing their dependence on private cars for transport.

Incidentally, I wonder how often Jon catches the bus in to work?

p1 said :

Watch out, they’ll put point-to-point cameras at all entrances and exits to the parliamentary triangle. If you drive through to fast you will get a speeding ticket, if you take too long, you’ll get a parking ticket….

haha nice one.

Since the ACT Government doesn’t own the carparks, I would expect any money from the parking to go to the Commonwealth as the ACT Government wouldn’t be directly entitled to it?

Watch out, they’ll put point-to-point cameras at all entrances and exits to the parliamentary triangle. If you drive through to fast you will get a speeding ticket, if you take too long, you’ll get a parking ticket….

Sovereign states have always been free to petition one another – without coercive power, or even a decent bargaining chip, chances are they’ll be cheerfully ignored.

If its not in the Constitution at the very least its the vibe of the thing.

Bring it on. The department I work for handed out a one off pay rise about 3/4 years ago to compensate for any future paid parking in the triangle.
Whatever they charge won’t be enough to make me use our crappy bus system.

Might we see a turf war between the NCA (whom I belive have jurisdiction over the Parl triangle) and Angry Johns parking inspectors?

And what about the dirt / mud carparks off Blackall St? will they be paid parking too?

Doesn’t worry me though, secure underground parking in the heart of Barton is great…

I wasn’t aware of the section of the Constitution that declared free parking in the parliamentary triangle. It certainly doesn’t stop people from petitioning the Commonwealth, which seems to be what Stanhope is suggesting.

If there was a good public transporation system in the ACT, parking would be a non-issue. How about Stanhope fixes or invests in some decent public transportation system first?

Argh – Jon. Not you, JB – I’m sure you’re already well acquainted with Con.

John, meet The Constitution. Con, John.

I will await news of the many ACTION busses available when I finish work at 1 am.

What is more likely is that you will get lots of people suddenly making use of their taxi entitlements for late working hours rather than doing what they do now: drive themselves home.

How would this even work in carparks where the department grants access and it is passholders only?

VY – are you suggesting that if you have to pay for parking, your wife will have to start driving as well as you? The most likely end results are you keep driving your wife and son, or wife drives you and son. End result is same number of cars on the road.

I was trying to make the point that public transport is unviable for some.

sepi said :

Traditionally places with the most services cost the most – eg Civic.

yet the ACT government decides not to have a full service shop front available in Civic *rolleyes*

Ahhh, the joys of riding a motorbike. Although I should keep quiet in case the gubmint realises all the parking fees that they are missing out on.

Except the ACT Government doesn’t own this land.

Traditionally places with the most services cost the most – eg Civic.

Sepi – ’cause the ACT govt can make a buck on it; and frankly needs the money (cue ranting about “Stanjoke” and statues of Al Grasby).

I don’t see why a place has to have services to warrant pay parking. You have a need to occupy a space. The Govt owns the space. You pay to occupy that space. You are over a barrel.

What does he mean half of The Commonwealth Govt? Most govvie depts are in Civic now.

Also, people out in places like Fernhill Park don’t pay for parking – or Tuggers. Why should the parlt triangle be any different to there – it’s not like there are any services there.

Quelle horreur! Parl triangle pubes have to pay for parking like…I dunno…everybody else!

VY – are you suggesting that if you have to pay for parking, your wife will have to start driving as well as you? The most likely end results are you keep driving your wife and son, or wife drives you and son. End result is same number of cars on the road.

In many cases (especially if you don’t have kids), getting on the bus is a better transport option. A lot of people drive because they couldn’t be bothered keeping to a bus schedule. If you need the “flexibility” of a car on a given day, drive then.

I hear a lot of bleating about how bad the busses are in Canberra, but I find them pretty damned good.

There will never be pay parking in the Parliamentary Triangle

I was thinking more of people in my own situation, where I drop the boy off, then the wife, then get to work. Reverse order going home.

It’s good to see our illustrious government is concerned with the more important details of life here in the ACT – whipping up support for ACTION.

VY – there could be a 3 for free area to continue to encourage carpooling.

god the dud departments (i am mainly thinking of DOFA, god i hated that place) over in the parlt triangle are going to find it even harder to attract staff without being able to wave the shiny ‘free parking!’ carrot in prospective employees’ faces.

In other words, we’re going to punish those people who car pool and thus need to make several stops. Another great effort.