Martin Spencer: Parking is what people want in a refurbished main drag

It was unfair of a Herald editorial to accuse Queen St building owners and retailers of stalling the street's redevelopment because they disagreed with the Auckland City Council's proposals.

Before planning the Queen St upgrade, the council sensibly set out to find the view of those described by the Herald as the most important group of key stakeholders - "the people who visit, shop, plan, live, learn or work" in the city centre.

De Beer Marketing and Communications surveyed a wide cross-section of pedestrians in Queen St. What did people ask for? According to a Herald report, "they complained about traffic jams, lack of parking and unreliable public transport".

In fact, so many people criticised these features that the study gave each problem its own section and analysis.

Equally importantly, what did the people not ask for? Nobody interviewed asked for more seating. (The two people who mentioned seats described them as "really grotty" and that they need to be redone.) Only one person asked for the footpaths to be widened (and in the same sentence asked for more parking).

The city council's proposal would widen the footpaths and increase the seating at the expense of removing many of the free 15-minute public carparks. In other words, it would provide more of what the people did not ask for at the expense of what they desperately want.

This is the aspect of the proposed plan that retailers and building owners are concerned about.

What is the cost to the city centre of removing one 15-minute park? Opus Consulting found that the P15 parks were fully used 11 hours a day.

Phoenix Research measured that the average P15 user spends $56.75. But that figure takes in people who spend nothing; average spending for those parkers who dip into their pockets is $140.08. Thus each P15 can bring up to $650,000 in revenue to the city centre each year.

Opus said in its study: "The results of the survey confirm on-site observations that demand for parking spaces in Queen St exceeds supply and were additional spaces to be provided, they would be well patronised."

Phoenix Research said: "A large proportion of the total amount spent (80 per cent) is done so by those who consider the unavailability of P15 spaces a problem."

If removing one stopping bay means sacrificing this amount of money, do we really need more seats? A study done in the two weeks before Christmas showed that the existing seats are used, at most, 40 per cent at the peak of lunch time on fine days. Many of those seated are smokers from nearby buildings.

Since everyone agrees that Queen St needs a facelift, where do we go from here?

First, the consultants designing the refurbishment should be given clear instructions to design the upgrade to enhance (not degrade) the public's accessibility to the city centre - in particular, free short-term parking.

Secondly, the council officers involved in the planning have come up with a number of excellent innovations that can be implemented right now with the stroke of a pen. They do not even need to dig up the footpaths. Some of the limited parking spaces can be multi-use - loading zones in the morning, P15s over lunch and in the afternoon, and taxi stands in the evening.

Furthermore, surveys have discovered 91 loading zones within one block of Queen St that are only 58 per cent used. Making them multi-use immediately creates 38 new P15s.

If we restrict taxis to taxi stands and stop them parking in P15s, as they do, we gain even more space for shoppers to use.

All these improvements can happen at once at minimal cost, and have the potential to nearly double the free, short-term parking space in the city centre. Don't wait - let's do this now.

Finally, it must be said that the building owners and retailers have more at stake in the city centre than anyone. It just does not make sense for them to stall any initiative that would bring more people into the city or improve their experience once they get there.

They wholeheartedly support the spending of $23 million of their rates to upgrade Queen St. But they want the upgrade to reflect what the people who use the street and patronise their businesses have told Auckland City they want.

* Martin Spencer is a central-city property owner and member of the board of Heart of the City. He is responding to the Herald's view that the priority for Queen St's upgrade must be the needs of pedestrians, not those of vehicles.