Dunedin Parking Roadmap

Dunedin City Council (DCC) was seeking advice on ways to address parking issues and provide a path to better manage their supply of parking in the city centre. The Dunedin Parking Roadmap (the Roadmap) provided a thorough analysis of the current state of parking supply and management in Dunedin city centre. It assessed the strategic direction, key stakeholder feedback and requirements, and explained the benefits of good parking management.
The report provided a clear pathway to better parking management in a way that helps deliver on the council’s strategic objectives. The report contained recommendations for DCC for improving parking management and including car sharing.

The Roadmap identified as series of key issues including the fact that plentiful and cheap all-day parking was undermining efforts to achieve transport mode shift to more sustainable modes. It also identified that while parking is an important part of the transport system and for some people the only feasible transport option, the full costs of the parking system need to be well understood. The justification for, and implications of, subsiding parking should be made clear. Further, continuing to provide a large supply of cheap parking is very expensive; in recent projects around New Zealand, construction costs have been as high as $50,000 per parking space created. Additionally, creating additional parking will induce private vehicle travel over other modes such as walking, cycling and public transport.
Scott Ebbett as project lead was able to draw on the Waka Kotahi National Parking Management Guidance, which he also contributed technical specialist knowledge to. This assisted to DCC to understand through the Roadmap that well managed parking can positively contribute to transforming an urban environment and supporting travel choices, but that these goals can be undermined by poor parking management which doesn’t recognise the true costs.

The project led to further work with the council in starting to develop a framework for their parking management policy and a parking wayfinding plan.