Plans to shrink car parks in Burleigh Heads, Varsity Lakes, Surfers Paradise, Nerang, Broadbeach and Southport
Gold Coast carparks will be shrunk to create more room under a plan to dramatically revamp the way people park their vehicles across the city. HERE’S WHY
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THE Gold Coast City Council is considering shrinking carparks to create more spaces around popular business hubs.
Line markings with council-run carparks will be reviewed as part of the city’s 10-year parking strategy in a bid to “maximise” bays.
Council staff will look at slimming existing car spaces as well as changing turning circles and other areas to determine if they too can be narrowed.
Burleigh Heads, Varsity Lakes, Surfers Paradise, Nerang, Broadbeach and Southport are all being investigated. Councillors will vote on the review on Tuesday.
City transport committee head Cr Pauline Young said many of the city’s older carparks had been designed for the wider-body vehicles common at the time.
“There has not been a review of their layout for years and there is the potential to create more spaces,” she said.
“People now chose to have smaller cars and, given parking is in such high-demand, this would make things more efficient.
“This would relieve pressure right now and, down the track, we will be able to look at smartphone apps which will allow people to check the availability of spaces before they come into high-demand areas.”
Revenue from the council’s carparks is down on pre-Covid levels from $10.6m in 2018-19 to $9.8m last financial year.
Council is in the final stages of developing its 10-year 2031 parking strategy. The strategy will be reviewed again in 2026.
It says car ownership is expected to increase by 32 per cent or 198,000 vehicles across the city within a decade.
Modern Australia car spaces are 2.4m wide. Older line markings are close to the US standard of 2.6m-2.7m.
Councillors are hoping that the clawing back of inches from each space will allow for more spaces.
Burleigh Heads’ Alex Black carpark, just a handful of metres from the future light rail extension, has already been named as one of the priorities, along with on-street bays in Varsity Lakes’ Central Parking Drive.
Area councillor Hermann Vorster was a key backer of the review and said it would be a cheap but effective way of improving the city’s parking facilities.
“It is extremely costly to retrofit parking bays because of the impact construction can have on underground services, footpaths and stormwater infrastructure,” he said.
“This is why it is so critical we look at low-hanging fruit and opportunities to create more carparks with clever design and a fresh lick of paint.
“In some situations this may mean abolishing painted bays entirely because there is some evidence that designated spaces can reduce supply by up to 15 per cent while in other cases we can change the way traffic flows and this could create more supply.”
A parking review this year led to councillors supporting a dramatic increase in parking fines which will come into effect in March 2022.
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Originally published as Plans to shrink car parks in Burleigh Heads, Varsity Lakes, Surfers Paradise, Nerang, Broadbeach and Southport
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