Where will you hitch your horse this holiday season?
Parking in the Toowoomba CBD has been a conundrum since the old Toowoomba City Council removed horse-hitching posts in 1933. Yes, it is nearly a centenary ago, in defiance, the people of Toowoomba continued to hitch their horses to verandah poles until they too were removed by Toowoomba City Council!
Yes, really!
Since horse and cart days, car parking has become more and more complicated and controversial throughout the world. No one has solved the problem because it depends on individual philosophies. For example, in your mind, is parking a:
- service to the community – businesses and customers;
- source of revenue – because car parking land has value and costs associated with it; and
- means of controlling traffic congestion in a specific area.
Whatever your thoughts are, car parking needs to be fit for purpose and in the case of Toowoomba CBD, it needs to meet the needs of CBD customers and businesses.
Forward 89 years, Toowoomba Regional Council in 2019 engaged some terrific consultants to prepare a City Centre Car Parking Strategy. It’s online and worth a read because provides a compelling argument around the complexities of city parking.
The consultants were very thorough and advised Toowoomba Regional Council to implement a hierarchical approach to strategic parking management. They also recommended the smart parking system that we currently have in place today.
The hierarchical approach promotes high turnover customer parking through shorter park times in the busiest central areas and long-stay parks further away, that is for staff. They recommend that parking in our CBD should be one to three hours only with a few ten-minute parks scattered about. So, while the consultants recommend one-to-three-hour parks, Toowoomba Regional Council has chosen predominantly one-hour spaces in proximity, walking distance, to the CBD.
This is where things get a bit, you know, sticky. You see, there is a big difference between a one-hour park and a three-hour park. For those running a business in health, beauty, professional, hospitality and health service fields, customers frequently require more than one hour of their time. According to Toowoomba Regional Council, if they need more than one hour, the customer will need to park away from the CBD area, in the longer-term parking areas, and then walk to your business.
So, for many businesses, those one-hour parks in our CBD are simply not fit for purpose.
For the past 12 months, Toowoomba Chamber through the CBD Revitalisation Advisory Committee has been in regular communication with Toowoomba Regional Council about the lack of consistency, fairness, and equity when it comes to car parking spaces in the CBD.
Parking Model?
We understand the need for high turnover spaces, but the business community would like to see equal, fair, and proportional distribution of community 3-hour parking in the CBD. This can be achieved with the quick fix of applying our valued member Grand Central’s approach to 3-hour parking to Annand Street and the car park at Bell Street.
We don’t seem to be able to convince Toowoomba Regional Council of the merits of such a fair and equitable proposal for the community and business.
I wonder if you can help.
If you are a CBD business or customer, let Toowoomba Regional Council know you want fairness and equity, with increased opportunities and a consistent approach to 3-hour parking being applied across the CBD. If they still don’t listen, I am worried, that city business will die as customers are forced to “hitch their horses” elsewhere.
