The Ipswich City Council (Council) has developed the draft City of Ipswich Parking Pricing Strategy (the draft Strategy), a key deliverable of iGO – The City of Ipswich Transport Plan, to provide a framework for parking management (including priced parking). This will allow council to respond to different parking contexts in a systematic and consistent way.

The draft Strategy provides guidance on parking management within the City of Ipswich, including the management of time restrictions and priced parking in the Ipswich City Centre, Springfield Town Centre and other activity centres experiencing parking pressures.

In December 2019, Council sought input from the community regarding several components of the draft Strategy. This report provides a summary of the results and key findings from the online questionnaire, which ran on Council’s ‘Shape your Ipswich’ platform from December 2019 to February 2020.

Key Findings

The online questionnaire was structured on the recommendations and key themes within the draft City of Ipswich Parking Pricing Strategy. Below are some of the key findings from the questionnaire.

 More than half of respondents indicated that improved public transport would provide them with a viable alternative to driving and parking within an activity centre (Question 4). Poor service frequencies, poor coverage and high costs were the most common themes/barriers identified for public transport uptake.

 The hypothecation of parking revenue to sustainable transport initiatives was widely supported in the questionnaire (Question 11). This is consistent with what is considered ‘best practice’ and currently undertaken by the City of Gold Coast.

 More than half of respondents did not support Council’s current fee structure (Question 8). However it should be noted that the majority of responses were opposed to the concept of priced parking rather than the fee schedule itself. The parking management framework within the draft Strategy could be a tool that Council can use to increase/or decrease pricing within parking areas based on occupancy levels (demand).

 The draft Strategy recommended that a 15 minute free parking ‘grace period’ be investigated further. Feedback received from the questionnaire (Question 9) indicated that the public were very supportive of this concept. Based on this feedback, Council should consider the implementation of a free parking ‘grace period’ system similar to that implemented by Brisbane City Council.

 Based on the feedback of respondents, there was confusion regarding use and purpose of the Parking Management Framework (PMF) (Question 7). This is understandable given its technical nature. To fully understand the purpose and function of the PMF, the respondent would have had to read the Parking Pricing Strategy Technical Report in some depth which was also located on the ‘Shape your Ipswich’ platform.

 The draft City of Ipswich Parking Pricing Strategy recommended that weekend paid parking remain unchanged within the Ipswich City Centre. However, based on community feedback and low parking occupancy rates within the Ipswich City Centre, Council should reconsider the necessity and purpose of weekend paid parking.

 Many respondents used this questionnaire to voice their dissatisfaction on the status/lack of ‘free’ long stay parking options within the Ipswich City Centre. Whilst this is acknowledged as a common theme by respondents, this Strategy is an operational framework, providing guidance to Council officers when making parking management decisions. iGO and the Ipswich Parking Strategy remain as the key pieces of policy for commuter parking within the city.

 Whilst the majority of respondents supported the payment of parking via a smart phone (cashless options), several respondents highlighted that alternatives should remain available. Further investigation is needed to understand the implications of executing such a system.

For the full report, please go to Shape Your Ipswich.