Teneriffe resident calls on Council to fix up ‘ambiguous’ street parking
Is Brisbane City Council’s “ambiguous” street parking just revenue raising? One resident thinks so, and she wants motorists to call on council to put a stop to it.
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A TENERIFFE resident is waging a battle to get better street parking signage across the city after she realised Brisbane City Council was pocketing almost $250,000 a year from two stretches of road near her home.
Sonda Banney has started a petition calling on council to remove its “secret” parking signs and stop profiting off unsuspecting motorists who she said legitimately believed they were parking correctly.
“The whole thing smacks of BCC ... hiding behind unfair legislation while making money off unsuspecting residents of Brisbane that have nothing to go on but misleading insufficient signage,” Ms Banney said.
Figures obtained by Ms Banney through an RTI show “face value” revenue in 2017-18 from Harcourt St and Kent St (New Farm and Teneriffe) was $248,667 or nearly $5000 a week.
She said the streets were barely more than a kilometre long each.
In Ms Banney’s street (Harcourt St from cnr Chester/Harcourt to Commercial Rd/Harcourt), which is approximately 300m, figures show Council collected $73,405 in 2017-18 or $1411 a week.
Ms Banney said it was wrong council set targets to increase its street parking revenue.
She said the current city signs relating to the citywide two-hour zones and myriad of local street signage was ridiculous, ambiguous and ineffective for motorists.
“One side of the (Harcourt) street is very clearly signed with 2 Hour, No Limit and No Parking signs, the other side has absolutely no signs, but is covered by signs on main roads kilometres away which state that it’s a 2 Hour Zone.
“It is not possible to know about this secret sign unless you happen to spot it while navigating three lanes of traffic and then link it to where you will ultimately park many kilometres away in a different direction from that you were travelling when and if you saw the sign.”
Ms Banney said two parking inspectors told her they believed 200-300 motorists were being hit with $97 fines in Harcourt and Kent Sts “each week”.
In a letter from Council to Ms Banney regarding the RTI information Council said “please note that the face value of the infringement notices issued is contained in this spreadsheet, rather than the actual value of revenue collected from the issued infringement notices. The actual value collected for these two streets is not readily available.”
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The Courier-Mail revealed earlier this year Council had budgeted to collect $37.5 million from parking fines in 2019-20 – a whopping 65 per cent increase from the $22.7 million it raised last financial year.
Ms Banney acknowledged the fines were issued legally but said “just because it was legal did not mean it was fair”.
She also disputed Council’s suggestion to her that any more signs would create “visual pollution” saying all Council needed to do was create a fair parking sign system across the city that all motorists could be sure of.
“It’s not okay to continue to hide behind the law instead of fixing the grossly inadequate signage,” she said.
She is calling on Brisbane residents’ to sign the petition to help “make Brisbane City Council accountable for fixing this situation”.
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One parking victim Henry Auton, who was in Newstead earlier this month to take a course, said when he turned into Harcourt St, Teneriffe he did not notice any signage for parking limits along the east side of the street “whereas the west was littered with them”.
“This along with an abundance of parked cars …. let off the misrepresentation that I’d potentially be able to park there for a decent period of time,” Mr Auton said.
“In the back of my mind I’m never certain about parking anywhere in the city, however based off obvious signage .... I was disappointed (to get a ticket).”
He said after getting the ticket he looked into the legislation and said there was “undeniably” a need for better signage.
“I do not deny that I should have been more informed but nonetheless the misrepresentations and confusion caused by the rest of Teneriffe having very obvious signage … coupled with the amount of money the local council supposedly makes on parking fines in that street alone seems like reason enough for the local government to erect signs in order to counteract uncertainty and put the money they’ve made to some use that’s better for the community, rather than to continue revenue raising,” Mr Auton said.
Council did not respond to questions from the News.
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