The number one reason I have a car is for the convenience.  Public transport in Brisbane is not very convenient.  Now I don’t drive to work, I do take the bus or train for that, but I certainly need to drive in the evenings and on weekend.  Outside of peak hour there is very little transport and it’s also not very safe at all (I’ve been assaulted three times in my life, once was walking to a train station and the other time was at the South Bank busway stop.

When I first started working in town – about 4 years ago – I drove into work about two days a week.  This was because I had university in the evenings and by the time I finished at 8pm or 9pm my next bus was at 8:45pm or 9:45pm and I had no desire to wait in a poorly lit area near King George Square full of kids drinking just being invited to be assaulted.  It was actually quite affordable with early bird parking costing $15-$18 depending on where you went.  Since then King George Square has been dug up for the bus way (it used to be a car park) and at least two other parking buildings that I can think of have been redeveloped.  I don’t doubt that most of the people driving in probably lived in areas where public transport was rather inconvenient and they all now headed for the Myer Centre or the Wintergarden.  Last time I looked early bird parking was $30 and climbing.  Given that many smaller places to $40 a day max, it really wasn’t that much of a discount and for someone like me that lives 5kms out of the city it’s now cheaper to catch a cab.  It is really inconvenient that the council and the state government have allowed all the parking to be taken out of the city with no thought about the consequences, but I have noticed more than a few.  First of all the South Bank carpark that use to be $15 a day is now only that price if you’re there for a few hours as all the people who have to drive into town but now have no where to park have now headed there.  And the other thing I’ve found out is that people are now parking in at the Mater hospital as there is a busway station just down stairs.  It’s also extremely expensive, but it is convenient and I’ve had one relative not been able to get a park there for a medical appointment and another friend who has been quite generously given discount vouchers to park to visit her very sick mother.  However instead of seeing consequences like less parking in town = people using up parking for other places, I am pretty sure that the government has been thinking less parking in town = more people using public transport.

The answer to this is yes and no.  No because some people can not use public transport as it is infrequent, inconvenient, dirty, crowded and generally inaccessible for anyone who lives further out of town than I do.  Yes because there are just more and more people living in Brisbane than ever and not all of them can afford to drive.  It has annoyed me for some time that there are no car parks at my train station after 7:30am, even after being expanded a few weeks back.  And train stations like Park Road that would be really convenient to catch the train from, have only 10 parking spaces and the surrounding streets are in the Gabba 2 hour parking zone (which is not well signed and I only found out about this from getting a ticket).  Also most trains are standing room only by the time they’ve gone a few stops.  I wondered about this the other week, thinking it would be nice if they put more trains on, only to realize that between 7am and 9am there are actually about 5 per hour going through my station (plus some express ones I don’t get to catch).  That’s heaps.  And they already hold up traffic fairly significantly as the level crossing just in front of the station is over a main road.  (Don’t even get me started on level crossings).  Busses are more frequent for me, but hardly less crowded and definitely slower and dirtier.  I never really noticed until one of my friends who moved here from the states noted that it took her over an hour door to door to get to work.  Last week as well I spoke to a fellow at a rival firm who lived not too far from where I am who said he’d taken to jogging home as it only took 15 mins more than catching the bus.  (I’m actually thinking of walking one or two nights a week now!)

But the thing that really bugs me about parking at the moment is the suburb that I live in just seems to not have enough of it.  There are a lot of units in my area.  And most units are 2-3 bedrooms, occupied by 2-3 young workers, and has one garage for their 2-3 cars.  In my area I’ve also noticed we have quite a few tradies and cabbies, who have their private car, work car and usually a flat mate or two with their own vehicles.  Needless to say there is never any parking in the street for all the residents cars (fortunately I’m related to all of the body corporate members for my building so I get to park on the grass).  The street in front of my unit is highly prized parking and we frequently get people parking in the mail zone and also right up to the corner.  Some authority has responded by painting a yellow line all the way around the corner, making the highly prized parking space even more at a premium and the residents in my and the neighboring block now have to compete for parking in the side streets – which are also full of units with residents competing for space on the street.  And whilst the yellow line out the front has temporarily solved the problem of people parking where they shouldn’t, it does little to solve the underlying problem which has been created by not mandating sufficient parking in unit development and also that units have an increasing number of occupants due to extortionate property and rental prices.

So all I have to say to the state government and to the city council is stop trying to punish us for having cars!  You can do two things to help us, first of all ensure that there is more parking – in our residences, our city and out public transport facilities.  And secondly put some decent public transport in if you want less people to own and use cars.