Councillor Column: Cr Pat Murnane from the City of Greater Geelong, August 20

FREE car parking in the Geelong CBD is one of the most talked about issues in our region.
It is estimated that a “free car parking” strategy in our CBD would mean a loss of approximately $50 million of revenue over the next four years.
Reducing Council’s budget by $50 million could have adverse effects on other elements of our operations, which might manifest itself in a number of different ways.
This is likely to include higher increases of rates and charges than would have otherwise been the case, a reduction in Council services and/or a lack of capacity to fund these services at current levels, and a reduction in the number of community projects.
With the population in the Geelong region set to double in the next 50 years, the appeal of the Geelong CBD as a place to work, visit and live will decrease dramatically – unless there is investment, now, into better public transport and alternative transport options.
So, where are the benefits?
The key point for supporters of this policy is that free parking will be good for CBD businesses, as it will bring more people into our city, by car.
This is true under certain circumstances.
Firstly, the journey into the CBD must be an easy drive in the future. Secondly, commuters must be able to find one of these highly sought-after free parking spots. Thirdly, the CBD must remain an environmentally pleasant place to visit and shop, even with this “car promotion” strategy.
I was interested to learn that other cities who have promoted a free parking strategy had actually been forced to reverse their decisions later on.
The key reason for this policy change is that their CBD businesses found that free parking ultimately did not work in their favour.
What these businesses discovered was that free car parking actually worked against the turnover and availability of parking spots – and this meant that shoppers were unable to easily locate a park.
If our city is to promote a “car” strategy for its CBD – instead of investing in public transport and alternative transport options – then we will need to build a lot more parking capacity, at the ratepayer’s expense, to cater for the inevitable demand that will come with population growth in the decades ahead.
There is also the dilemma as to whether Council should be forgoing $50 million in revenue to support the 10 per cent of businesses that operate in the CBD – when the other 90 per cent of businesses in the Greater Geelong region operate outside the CBD.
There are big picture questions to consider. Would businesses in the CBD have a better chance of prospering in the future with a more even balance of transport options, rather than a high dependence on the car?
Over the past 10 years, all investment in commercial office towers in our CBD have provided excellent “end-of-trip” facilities for their employees, thereby encouraging the use of alternative transport.
The environmental health of Geelong’s CBD is also an important factor in the City’s strategy to substantially increase the number of people who call our CBD ‘home’ in the future. Many are escaping the capital cites to say goodbye to those wasted hours in long lines of traffic and looking to experience the clean air of regional living that we all currently enjoy.
Establishing the Geelong CBD as a desirable place to live in the coming years will be a major economic benefit for our CBD businesses. Many of these future CBD residents will not be car-dependent.
Instead, they will be extremely reliant on the number of active green spaces available to them, and the natural linkages around our city connecting these key pieces of community infrastructure.
Ultimately, we have to decide what we want our CBD to look and feel like in the long-term. We can never know what the future holds, however I think we all agree that tomorrow is likely to look far different than today.
If this latest period of uncertainty has taught us anything – it’s the importance of good health.
So perhaps revisiting our priorities around the importance of higher levels of physical activity will become another central element in the debate on free parking.
Maybe, for smaller journeys, a willingness to walk or to ride into the CBD will emerge as part of our DNA for the future.
And we might be happy to leave the car in the garage.

Cr Pat Murnane
Kardinia Ward, City of Greater Geelong