There's two kinds of parking bays; angled bays and stupid bays.
I mean seriously, how much nicer is it to park in front of the post office in those angled bays than the perpendicular ones that were there before? (Shoutout to Brian Taylor)
It's safer, it's quicker, it's easier. There's virtually no downside to angled parking.
Perhaps in some circumstances it may mean a couple of less bays. But have you looked around in Geraldton at the non angled bays? A lot of the time someone has parked in two bays anyway because they lack the ability to parallel park or aim their car. So angled parking would make it easier for the incompetent drivers (of which we have so many) and we would all win because they wouldn't be taking up one and a half bays all the time.
Oh, and don't get me started on people trying to parallel park in Geraldton. I'm pretty sure 90% of you don't even know you're meant to drive in front of the bay and then reverse in. Every day I see people take the parralel parking bay head first, having to drive up on to the footpath, and then back in to the bay. It's a joke to watch. I really don't know how we all passed our driving tests.
And whevenever someone DOES try to parallel park correctly, the person behind them has no idea what they're doing and drives right up their butt, leaving them no room to back into the bay. It would be funny to watch if it wasn't so sad, and didn't happen so often.
Also, the town planners didn't take into account the high percentage of us that own 4x4s. Parralel parking might be a nice idea in Paris where everyone drives Vespas and Fiats the size of toasters. But in the home of the Landcruiser, parking needs to be rethought. Heck, even parents who do school runs drive 200 series landies. And even the most competent drivers of these cars usually takes one look at the parallel parking bays in town and just keeps driving.
If the mall was angled parking, I can tell you most people would be less stressed parking there.
The only people that would be negatively affected by switching to angled parking everywhere would be panel beaters.
3. First hour free in all the paid spots (at least)
I was a participant in the recent community summit, and like 90 odd percent of the people there I voted to keep paid parking because of the income it brings in, helping other useful services that lose money to exist... like libraries and CCTV.
But my vote to keep paid parking wasn't an implicit acceptance that paying for parking is always a good idea.
The world isn't as black and white as many accountants would like us to think. On paper it looks like paid parking generates revenue for the city. But the hidden cost is ... hidden. It's hard to quantify the cost of people who simply won't pay for parking, thus won't stay in town longer than two hours, thus won't spend much money at retailers in town. It's hard to say if that cost to the Geraldton economy is greater than the net gain from the scrap of money the parking generates. I'm not saying it is or isn't greater either way (I haven't done any studies), just that it's hard to quantify.
Many people view paying to park like paying for bottled water. "It's water. It falls from the sky! Why would I pay you $3.95 for a 600 mL bottle of the stuff?! You're crazy?!"
Same with parking spaces. "It's a SPACE. There's nothing there! It's not a building! It's a nothing! I'm not paying for parking!"
To them it would be like Dome charging people for sitting in their chairs. Even if they sold the coffee for $1 and the chair for $3, people would just resent the idea of paying to sit in a chair. Does the chair cost Dome money? Sure does, probably more than the coffee beans and water they heated up and sold you. But they have to build the cost of the chair into the coffee or you'd resent them.
It's the same with parking. I know it costs money in the form of opportunity costs to keep valuable land free for parking. But if the cost of the parking was built into the price of other things, people would park in town more, stay longer and spend more money at local shops. They'd spend a lot more than the $6 you'd get if you charged for parking.
Now the city may be wondering how on earth that would ever make THEIR books look good. Sure, it would benefit all the businesses in town. But the only way the council would see a dime of that is if they were able to charge higher rates.
But here's the thing. If the CBD was thriving, more stores would be built, more premises would exist which would pay rates, and the value of those businesses would be higher too, also affecting the amount of rates charged.
So while it may look good just to charge more for parking and have more money, in the long term I would argue it hurts commerce and ends up hurting rate revenue for the city too. Encouraging growth in town and getting people in there shopping should be a higher priority.
If paid parking made economic sense, then all the shopping centres would charge for parking. But they don't. Why? Because they know the $5 they got for parking would be nothing compared to the massive amount of money they'd lose from everyone who stopped shopping there. You do pay for the parking indirectly. It's factored into the rent that the tenant stores get charged, thus it's factored into anything you buy from a shopping centre. But if you had to pay that $5 parking cost directly, you wouldn't.
I say first hour free at least because I understand if you made all parking free everywhere all the time, you'd simply get workers at all the shops taking all the good bays first thing in the morning. They're not spending money all day, and it would achieve the opposite of what you wanted.
