Parking for disabled

At my work I try to do my best to help disabled people find a parking space that suits them in different parts of the city. Their problems are very well presented in this awarded short film from Greece :

My congratulations to the director Stamos Tsamis.

No parking odd sign.

While discussing parking restriction signs and regulations with my colleagues I realised that European parking signs are a lot different than those in Australia.

Take a look at some of the most common parking signs in Australia:

 

Here, parking signs are more like the USA signs:

In both countries you will find some differences between the different states (and territories).
But in Europe, parking signs are a lot different,. This is how the no parking and no standing sign look like.

Also there are some odd signs. Because of the mixed land uses in city centres and the narrow width road network there are the no parking on odd months and even months signs in Greece that look like this:

Commuting from Gold Coast to Brisbane - Part 2. What people do?

My last post was about my impressions of commuting by train from Gold Coast to Brisbane. It is indeed very slow and uncomfortable and that is why the majority of people do not use it. But there is a big number of people living in the Gold Coast and working in Brisbane and a not so big but still significant number of people commuting the other way. So what all these people do every day?

Well I suppose for the people living in Brisbane and working in Gold Coast is fairly easy. They drive each day through the M1 Motorway and find a relatively easy and cheap parking spot in Gold Coast.

But how about people from Gold Coast working in Brisbane? Here is what they do:

First option: They drive to Brisbane but not to the CBD because of the very expensive parking. Instead they drive just outside the limits of the traffic control areas and try to find a free on street parking space.

The most popular areas for this are: Lower West End and Highgate Hill, Buranda, Stones Corner, Norman Park, Coorparoo.

Second option: They drive to one of the many park and ride spaces that Citytrain provides in the suburbs and then take the train. Popular Southeast stations for park’n’ride:

Fairfeild, Yeronga, Yeerongpilly, Moorooka and some Northeast stations like Buranda, Coorparoo and Norman Park.

Third option: They drive to different inner suburbs and then park illegally wherever they think they have better chances of not getting fined.

Of course there are quite a few other options that people follow in order to move from their place of living to the place of work.

But of course all these options are not viable sustainable transportation. They create lots of troubles to people on those Brisbane suburbs and at the end of the day they don’t save that much time and money for commuters.

Shared Bikes – Way to go Brisbane

Brisbane is the one of two Australian cities with a bike sharing scheme. It is the newest in Australia and the biggest regarding the total number of bikes with 1000 operating and 1000 more soon to be offered. The bicycles in CityCycle look a lot like those of Velib in Paris where the bike sharing scheme is a huge success with more than 20000 bikes on Parisian roads. CityCycle bikes can be found in 104 (soon to become 150) stations in the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods. In order to use CityCycle you need to subscribe and then you can ride for free for a period of 30 minutes. As long as the bikes are returned to a station within half-hour intervals the user can ride all day for free. If there is a need for longer usage then there are usage fees.

Bike sharing is a great idea for the cities aiming at providing an alternative to private car use in the city centre, thereby reducing traffic congestion, noise, and air pollution. It is a great practice for cities with parking supply problems. It also aims at supporting the use of public transportation and especially for commuters as it provides the means to the last part of the home to work trip.  Besides the obvious advantages of moving by bike like benefits in health and cleaner urban environment, bike sharing schemes are great for tourists as they provide an easy way to visit more city attractions and reach more city businesses.

There is some criticism about CityCycle especially regarding that is not so successful in attracting users. Major reasons for this are the initially high daily subscription which was 11 $ and the mandatory helmet use. The first issue was recently addressed by setting the daily subscription to 2$ which had an instant effect on rising casual hires. But the mandatory use of helmet is not. Australian bike sharing schemes are the only known bicycle share schemes that operate under a mandatory helmet requirement. But who would carry with him a helmet at all times just to use it on his last part of the daily trip to work? Also who will carry a helmet on the chance that he/she might want to borrow a bike for a quick trip to run an errand? Netherlands and Denmark are the countries with the highest percentage of bicycle use and very low percentage of accidents and no mandatory helmet use. Maybe we can learn from the best.

Smart Parking

The other day  I took a trip to Robina Town Centre and while parking there, I had the chance to view the quite advanced parking management system they have installed. As they say in their website it is “arguably the best parking on the Gold Coast with approximately 6,000 free of charge car parking spaces”. The basic advantage of this car parking site is a system that helps you quickly find available parking spot and closer to where you really want it. That system addresses the foremost needs of a driver in a car parking. With a series of detection sensors, overhead led lights and variable message signs the system directs drivers to the vacant spaces. 

 

Parking management is another sector of mobility management aiming in a more efficient and fair use of mobility resources, in this case parking space. Even though on street parking management is more crucial to cities, in the case of cities like Gold Coast where shopping is separated from residential areas, off street parking management is also critical. There are a lot of ideas and approaches for parking management. From shared parking to park and ride and from parking & charging to parking metermaids innovative solutions make parking and thus mobility easier for everyone.