Melbourne Zoo parking snarls: Visitors preyed upon by parking inspectors

PARKING inspectors are ruining family days out for Victorians enjoying Melbourne Zoo, issuing thousands of fines to motorists trying to wrangle a park.

A parking inspector writes up a ticket at Melbourne Zoo.

GREY ghosts are ruining family days out for Victorians enjoying Melbourne Zoo, issuing thousands of fines to motorists trying to wrangle a park.

Saturday afternoon is one of the worst days for parking at the attraction, with data revealing ticket inspectors dished out more than 6700 fines in two Melbourne City Council-run car parks at the zoo in 2015-16.

The Poplar Rd car park was the top spot for tickets when citywide fines were analysed by location and time.

Motorists were hit with 307 tickets on Saturdays between 1pm-2pm — averaging one every 10 minutes — and 293 the following hour.

Drivers in the nearby Elliott Ave car park copped 544 fines in the two hours on Saturdays.

Pascoe Vale South woman Deborah Parfitt slammed the council for preying on “innocent families” after being fined while at the zoo on Tuesday.

A parking inspector writes up a ticket for a four-wheel drive parked on a pedestrian crossing near the zoo.

She has contested her $93 fine for parking on grassland because the Elliott Ave car park was “chockers”.

“When I got back to the car (inspectors) were going car-to-car-to-car booking them,” Ms Parfitt said.

“It’s a bit low that they would try to make money off innocent people going to a major tourist attraction.”

Zoo director Kevin Tanner said the car park hit capacity on 93 days last financial year, forcing visitors to park further away or “give up on visiting”.

That was up from 40 days in 2011-12 and just 18 in 2007-08.

Mr Tanner said the zoo had from “time to time” discussed getting more parking with the council, although no formal proposal had been submitted.

“As visitor numbers here ­increase, so does the demand for parking,” he said.

Melbourne City Council raked in $41.6 million from parking fines in 2015-16 — down by $743,000 on the previous year.

Drivers along Lonsdale, Queen and Exhibition streets were the hardest hit.

RACV public policy general manager Brian Negus said parking fines and exorbitant rates for high-rise car parks were being used to encourage public transport use.

“What needs to be looked at is more affordable off-street parking,” he said.

City of Melbourne acting chief executive Martin Cutter said “compliance” with parking time limits had improved.

The council introduced a series of in-ground parking sensors in 2011, halving the number of cars that “overstayed” in those bays.

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