Coburg Street Parking

[P!N20]

Spotted a poster on Sydney Rd, Coburg calling for the retention of street parking amidst moves to implement a 24 hour clearway. Jumped onto the 'Discover Coburg' website and wasn't overly surprised to find quite the anti-cyclist rhetoric. This is my favourite:

Experience with Beach Road and elsewhere shows what is likely to occur with a “free” run for cyclists: the road fills up with fast cyclists reaching very high speeds.

God, could you imagine the plague of freeloading freds this will create? And high speeds, too. Because cars travelling at high speeds is fine.

Perhaps Discover Coburg needs to add a few more cars to its logo.



Anyway, there's a survey there that you can fill in and/or facebook or e-mail to let them know they're stupid.

http://discovercoburg.com.au/2017/05/cl ... dney-road/
hello@discovercoburg.com.au

[Leaf T]

No idea of a solution but I can understand shop keepers concerns. Discover Coburg present a very poor argument. Moreland BUG are aware of the plans as far as I know. I haven't lived in Coburg for a while but when I did I commuted Sydney Rd and there was plenty of room for improvement.

[BJL]

Roads aren't for parked vehicles. These shopkeepers are using public infrastructure for their own benefit to the detriment of other road users. Maybe it's time that roadside shopping strips were informed that they're the dinosaurs of the retail world and no longer have a place. They're from the time of horse and cart and when people generally walked or took public transport everywhere. Time for them to either be forced to provide off road parking for their customers or move to large shopping centres.

These are the same types of arguments used against cyclists. That we don't belong in the modern world. Applies to these shopkeepers as well.

[antigee]

"And high speeds, too. Because cars travelling at high speeds is fine."

reading the discoverCoburg fb post they appear to be (accidentally) arguing to reduce the speed limit in the residential streets adjacent to Sydney rd to match the 40km/h limit on Sydney rd which of course would be pedestrian and cyclist friendly

I'll admit to being a whinging pom only living in SE Melbourne for a few years - it took me about 4 weeks to work out that car drivers would go around the block and queue for parks outside the shop they wanted to visit while meanwhile there was plenty of empty car parks and on street spaces all of less than 5 minutes walk away

meanwhile I'm sure moreland bug have it covered but there is plenty of evidence out there that removing immediate on street parking isn't detrimental to businesses

https://www.citylab.com/solutions/2015/ ... es/387595/

....though I do reckon the local council sports centre would go out of business if there was no parking within 50m judging by the competition for parking near the entrance doors ;-(

[find_bruce]

Perhaps they should talk to the folks in Oslo where a complete ban on cars in the city was watered down to a gradual process