News & Discussion: Adelaide City Council

[david]

Notes from Councillor Plumridge's Desk - Issue No 96

- National Reconciliation Week 2013
- Libraries - A better investment than Gold
- National Trust Makes its Mark

- Decisions of Council Meeting 28 May 2013.

Notes from Councillor Issue 96.pdf

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Cllr David Plumridge AM
Adelaide City Council

[david]

Notes from Councillor David Plumridge's Desk

- Local Government Referendum
- City User Population Research 2012-2013 - A Snapshot

Decisions of Council Meeting held on 11 June 2013

Notes from Councillor Issue 97.pdf

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Cllr David Plumridge AM
City of Adelaide.

[Wayno]

Yarwood is understandably annoyed with the Ragvertiser, contrasted against the below Indaily article.

News Corp editor Mansell's comment about the Advertiser having 'balanced' reporting is baloney. Shame on you for serving crud to your readers.

ADELAIDE | South Australia’s media is “driving a stake into the heart” of the city with its coverage of city parking policies, Adelaide’s Lord Mayor says.

Stephen Yarwood described the coverage of Adelaide City Council’s budget over the last week as a “complete and utter furphy”.

“You’re driving a stake into the heart of your home, people’s homes, people’s businesses, and the confidence of the state of South Australia,” Yarwood told InDaily.

On Tuesday The Advertiser ran a front-page article headlined Street Fight detailing a Council proposal to increase the parking fees for some on-street bays by up to 25 per cent, from $2 to $2.50 an hour.

A second proposal for a “premium” fee charged in peak times on certain on-street bays would increase the hourly rate by between 50 cents and $1, to a maximum of $4 per hour for the city’s busiest traffic bays.

The theory behind the increases is they would discourage people from circling through the city’s streets looking for an on-street car park and instead park in a multi-storey car park, reducing congestion on the city’s roads and making them safer and more walkable.

Yarwood said the fee increases were small, and The Advertiser’s story made no mention of the fact that according to a council study Adelaide’s parking prices were the lowest on average for any capital city in Australia.

“And on the basis of the facts nothing could be further from the truth, and it does so much damage,” Yarwood said.

“We’re actually talking about ridiculously small fees communicated in a way that actually turns people away from the city.

“I’m going to be maintaining a vigil to call on the media to be part of an informed discussion that is actually going to make the city a better place.”

The Advertiser’s story featured interviews with leading city businessman Theo Maras and Business SA chairman Nigel McBride, who both criticised the tax.

Yarwood said The Advertiser’s report suggested the council was making city parking unaffordable, and the newspaper’s treatment of the issue would damage the city’s small businesses.

“By promulgating what I would argue is an inaccurate portrayal of council’s policy, (it) actually affects the confidence of the city, and in turn the confidence of our state.

“But also it does damage to the small business owners who are trying to put food on their table.

“We were all genuinely disappointed. The real headline is we have the cheapest on-street car parking, the cheapest off-street car parking in the entire country.”

Melvin Mansell, the state editorial director of News South Australia, which publishes The Advertiser, hit back this morning.

“As always, The Advertiser report was accurate, fair and balanced,” Mansell said.

“The Advertiser constantly and strongly champions its state and its readers.

“What the Lord Mayor must recognise, if indeed these quotes are accurate, is the newspaper is here to serve its readers, not the administration.”

On Tuesday night a council committee considered the budget and knocked back the priority parking fee proposal, although it kept the other price rises.

Despite being highly critical of the coverage of the budget, Yarwood said the backlash in no way shaped the council’s decision to scrap the priority fee proposals.

“I wouldn’t say we didn’t support it because there were two recommendations. One we’ve supported and the other one we’ve said ‘let’s not rush into this’. We need that to be considered over the next six to 12 months in a rational way with more detailed investigations.

“We will always want to do this in partnership with the media and the community. Setting up this infrastructure under the radar was never going to be a good way of getting people to understand what we were trying to achieve.”

Much of Yarwood’s unhappiness about the media treatment of his parking strategy seems to stem from the fact that he feels he is on the right side of expert thinking and research about traffic.

“What I’m trying to do is develop a dialogue that moves from the academic and technical to helping people understand the realities of behaviour and people and how it influences cities,” Yarwood told InDaily.

“If one hour of on-street parking is literally half the price of off-street parking, there is absolutely no question that a car will drive around the block at least once looking for a park.

“That’s what my mother does. but if you then extrapolate that to the 10 or 20,000 vehicles or more that do the same thing every day you are actually starting to look at very big numbers of increased movement of vehicles through the city.”

Yarwood has a background in planning, and through the council’s Smart Move strategy has been trying to impose modern transit planning theory on Adelaide’s streets – a move which has been backed by several transit studies undertaken by council consultants.

Smart Move – which was driven largely by Yarwood, InDaily understands – is predicated on the theory that everyone in Adelaide, from consumers to businesses, will be better off if there are less cars on the city’s streets.

“A City with calmed traffic is safer and more enjoyable,” the Lord Mayor writes in the strategy’s foreword.

“A City where cycling is popular has healthier people. A City with more pedestrians has more interesting streets which benefit from passing trade.

“Adelaide is the most car-reliant City in Australia and has the greatest number of car parks of any capital city. By 2020, road congestion will cost Australia $20.4 billion in lost productivity per year.

“If we only plan for cars, all we will get is a City with cars. If more people used public transport, changed to bikes and carpooled, there would be less traffic on the roads and that makes your driving experience better. It’s a logical transition that cities throughout the world are consciously pursuing.”

[Splashmo]

Of course, he attacks the media because it would be politically difficult to criticise people like Anne Moran, Theo Maras and all the other stakeholders who came out against the move.

I read the articles and saw the TV stories - the council did a terrible job of explaining its position on the parking charges.

[jk1237]

I read the articles and saw the TV stories - the council did a terrible job of explaining its position on the parking charges.

but how do you know if the media didn't edit out all the important bits that the council did explain, which I believe is Yarwood's argument. The commercial media just never edits stuff to make a story out of nothing and sensationalise, do they?

[Splashmo]

The council had the opportunity to be upfront about these higher charges - it's clear they felt they had something to hide by burying them in documents and hoping nobody would notice. If they'd come out and said there'd be a modest increase in fees, after consultation with traders, as part of their push to discourage congestion or something... it may have been more sympathetic.

[david]

Notes from Councillor David Plumridge's Desk - Issue No 98

- Council adopts 2013-2014 Business Plan and Budget
- More from City User Survey - City surrenders to Drunken Yobos
- The People are Revolting

- Decisions from Council Meetings 25 and 27 June 2013

Notes from Councillor Issue 98.pdf

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Cllr David Plumridge AM
City of Adelaide

[Wayno]

thanks David, nail on the head with this statement (wrt Adelaide Oval, SMA, etc): "Here the basic problem is not of the Council’s making; the answer lies in the State Government and the Stadium Management Authority maximising public transport and other incentives to reduce the use of cars to access the Oval."

I doubt you'll get any objection from folk in this forum. PT is the panacea to much that ails us.

[monotonehell]

Have a good trip David. *jealous*

[Vee]

Kudos to the ACC for the success of its free Adelaide City Bikes hire scheme.
Great for visitors, residents, city tourism and our environment.

Looks like it is about to be expanded. Hopefully, the proposal to be able return a bike to any hire location rather than the original point of hire comes to fruition soon as this will add to the appeal and usability of this scheme.

Article from the City Messenger. June 2013.

More tourists hiring free Adelaide City Bikes through City Council
BOOMING numbers of tourists are exploring Adelaide on two wheels under the City Council's free bike hire program.

From January to May, 9745 Adelaide City Bikes were hired, up nearly 50 per cent from 6662 for the same period last year.
Almost three-quarters of users are tourists - 59 per cent from overseas and 14 per cent from interstate.
Visitors are taking their time to see the city sights, averaging 3.4 hours on the bikes.

In March, a record 2614 bikes were hired for 7795 hours.
The figures have given Bicycle SA fresh impetus for its push to expand Adelaide City Bikes across metropolitan Adelaide.

Bicycle SA general manager Michael Bridge attributed the boom to better promotion of the scheme to tourists, new hire locations at UniSA's City East and City West campuses and Adelaide Zoo, and the expansion of the program to the Charles Sturt and Unley council areas.

"In a multitude of languages people tell us how fantastic it is," Mr Bridge said.
"Every day there are fantastic stories from people of all backgrounds and persuasions.''

There are 180 bikes available across 12 city locations, 30 bikes at five places in Charles Sturt and 10 bikes at two hire venues in Unley. The "vast majority" are hired in town, Mr Bridge said.

The City Council launched Adelaide City Bikes in 2005. Councils fund the bikes and Bicycle SA volunteers maintain them.

Bicycle SA is in talks with councils from Onkaparinga to Gawler to expand the scheme.
"The scheme has grown significantly since it started and we have a healthy number of bikes and locations," Mr Bridge said.

"The bigger vision is to get all councils on board to make it a metro program that has 1000 bikes."

Under the current scheme, bikes have to be returned to the point of hire. Mr Bridge said as the program expanded, the goal would be to allow people to leave bikes at any hire venue.

Bicycle SA has calculated that people who have hired bikes this year have saved 240 tonnes of carbon dioxide compared to driving and burnt 7.6 million calories, the equivalent of 18,500 iced coffees.

http://zite.to/12usgs7

[Wayno]

Thanks Vee. Yep the free bike scheme would be an absolute success if you could return to any hire station. Want to travel from the SouthEast Hutt st precinct to Rundle mall? Jump on a bike and you're there in a few short minutes!

[cruel_world00]

Cr Plumridge, I respect the fact that you have an open dialogue with this forum as well as the community but this is straight up crazy talk:

"In my opinion, the bottom line here is that no self-respecting person, let alone a family, would want to go anywhere near the city at night because we have decided to give free reign to the drunken yobos who have been allowed to take over the city. They may be a minority and they may be confined to the West End but perception is that they inhabit the whole city. Recent changes to Licensing laws may help but Council contends that they have not gone far enough; they certainly fall far short of what SAPOL and Council wanted to make the city a better destination."

This is not helpful language at all. I know a lot of self respecting people (myself included) who frequent the city at night. We even venture down to the dreaded "WEST END" . Are you calling us "drunken yobos"? Sure, it might not be family friendly at night, but realistically, are families ever going to use the city at night. What time does that entail? What about the hordes of students who swarm the mall on Friday afternoons... do they keep people away? I find them annoying, can we stop them too? Puh-lease.

Maybe we could discuss drunk and disorderly behaviour without the alarmist tone next time?

If you want to stop the ACC from having a bad reputation as a bunch of wowser, NIMBY dinosaurs, this kind of display certainly isn't the way to go about it.

Let's keep some perspective.

[Shahkar]

[david]

I agree that my comments may have been a little more extreme than usual for me but I was responding to some similar views expressed in the mainline media recently, saying that the City had ceased to be a destination of choice for many night-time revellers.

You may not like to hear it but the statistics speak for themselves and binge-drinking is an ugly problem that does nothing for the kids who pre-load and then come into the city to make a nuisance of themselves. The SAPOL reports all talk about this problem and the need to control it with earlier closing times and lock-outs after 1.00am or 2.00am.

I'm sure night-clubbing is a great thing which many good people come into town to enjoy. I am equally sure that the majority would prefer to not have to mix it with the minority who downgrade the city and can rightly be described as drunken yobos!

....and yes, I am probably in the dinosaur category!

[shaun]

I agree that my comments may have been a little more extreme than usual for me but I was responding to some similar views expressed in the mainline media recently, saying that the City had ceased to be a destination of choice for many night-time revellers.

You may not like to hear it but the statistics speak for themselves and binge-drinking is an ugly problem that does nothing for the kids who pre-load and then come into the city to make a nuisance of themselves.

Because it has become so god damn bloody expensive to go out these days!, including cover charges (eg $10-20+). It is much cheaper to get drunk at home before heading to town, instead buying ridiculously priced drinks at a city nightclub which are way overpriced. 95% people I know here and interstate, get majorly drunk at home then head into town.

The SAPOL reports all talk about this problem and the need to control it with earlier closing times and lock-outs after 1.00am or 2.00am.

Earlier closing times will only give people another reason to leave Adelaide and cause chaos for revelers wanting to catch a cab home. It's been a disaster in other cities, so why would it work here?. The big problem with Adelaide is the bulk of venues are along Hindley Street, which lures tens of thousands of people each weekend to narrow footpaths which can cause major dramas. What both the City Council and State Government need to start doing is spreading out Adelaide's nightlife by enticing venues outside of Hindley Street. A few places along Rundle Mall wouldn't hurt and will allow a safer connection between Rundle St and Hindley. Even a few more venues along Gouger St, East End, Riverbank etc. Hell even turn Victoria Square into more of a late night destination, Dragonfly for example is fantastic.

Sure there is definitely a national drinking problem and there are the tossers that should be forbidden from the city. Though Adelaide needs to start thinking outside the box and look at spreading the entertainment precinct outside of crowded Hindley Street. Ofcourse more CCTV cameras and police patrols wouldn't hurt either.