In-ground parking sensors would be introduced to Ballina’s central business district under changes to council policy recommended by consultants hired to carry out a recent parking study.
Submissions close end of day today on recommendations for changes to parking rules in Ballina’s CBD based on the study carried out in November 2022.
Current time restrictions on parking in the CBD are based on parking data from 2005, the Ballina Shire Council says.
But last year’s study was restricted to a single day, Tuesday 29th November, with consultants reporting it ‘may not represent a typical weekday’.
‘Further, this study did not give consideration to parking demands during weekend days, or during special events,’ the report from Bitzios Consulting says.
The study included large private carparks but smaller off-street car parks were not surveyed.
‘As such, the effects of recommended on-street parking changes to off-street parking demand cannot be quantified,’ the consultants say.
Ballina Shire Council staff say they will report back to the council either late this year or early next year with results of the public submissions process due to finish today.
Businesses cite shortage of parking for Ballina CBD workers
Ballina’s CBD was found in the study to have nearly 62% of its available parking spaces taken up with ‘overstays’ i.e. cars parked longer than the designated time limits.
This was a significantly higher rate of overstays than found in studies at Palm Beach, Coffs Harbour and Gunnedah, where Palm Beach had the closest rate of overstays at 56%.
The consultants said informal feedback received from local businesses referred to a shortage of available staff parking within reasonable walking distance to the core area.
‘This has led to staff parking in time- restricted spaces, and either exceeding the signposted time restriction, or the continuous “shuffling” of cars within the area,’ the consultants reported.
‘It is noted that unrestricted spaces on River Street are available within 250m walking distance of the CBD,’ the report said.
The busiest time observed for parking in the commercial area, identified as everywhere in the study except Crane Street, was between 11am and 11.30am, when nearly three quarters of spaces were full.
By contrast, Crane Street spaces were only around half full at the same time.
Angled parking and in-ground sensors recommended
Bitzios has recommended delineated angled parking in the busiest part of the CBD as a way to increase available parks.
The highest demand for parking in the study was in the area bound by Grant, River and Tamar Streets.
In-ground parking sensors in half-hour parking spaces are also recommended as a way to counter Ballina’s rate of parking overstays.
The worst areas in terms of parking non-compliance were River Street between Cherry and Martin Streets, with 56 overstays recorded and the privately-owned Tamar Village Car Park with 49.
Some parking spaces in the Tamar Village Car Park were restricted to two hours but the average time recorded for cars parked there was three and a half hours.
The longest stays observed in Ballina’s CBD were for ten hours, with the record achieved in an unrestricted space as well as in a two-hour space and a one-hour space.
Council staff availability was noted as ‘one of the largest constraints of parking enforcement’.
Parking sensors to log data
The new in-ground sensors would be positioned in the centre of individual parking bays and detect cars entering the space, the consultants said.
They would then consistently monitor a vehicle’s presence in a bay until the driver re-entered the vehicle and the vehicle left.
The sensors typically worked via short-range magnetic fields, with all information pertaining to the arrival and departure of vehicles logged and broadcast to a central management system that processes it and makes it available to field officers via portable devices.
Bitzios Consulting, a firm with offices in Sydney, Brisbane and on the Gold Coast, said data would be recorded and managed according to the time of day, the bay location, any applicable parking restrictions, and any extra event or clearway information that may affect the status of the parking bay and the vehicle parked within it.
Changes to parking limits recommended
The consultants also recommended various parking time limit changes, including the introduction of two-hour limits in four unrestricted zones: Tamar Street between Grant and Moon Streets and between Cherry and Martin Streets; on Fawcett Street between Cherry and Martin Streets; and 56 spots in the Tamar Village Car Park.
Meanwhile, another four new unrestricted parking zones were recommended: 53 spots on River Street between Kerr and Grant Streets; 17 spots across two zones in Kerr Street and 11 spots in Moon Street.
The new unrestricted spots are all currently restricted to two hours.
Nineteen unrestricted parking zones were included in the study, with more than half considered ‘at capacity’, defined when the median occupancy of spaces reached 85% at any time during the day.
While nearly 49% of spaces studied were classed as unrestricted, that left more than half with time limits for parking.
More than a third, or 35%, of spaces were restricted to two hours’ parking.
Less than ten per cent were reserved for an hour or less and less than two per cent for four-hour parks.
The four-hour spaces were full from 9am to 2.30pm, the study found, while one-hour spaces were full up until 4pm.
Nearly 2,500 car park spots were included in the study overall, all between Kerr Street, Crane Street and Norton Street in the Ballina CBD.
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