How is parking affected?
Three spaces are removed near the school to provide safer pedestrian crossings at Page and Council streets. One more is removed near Alexandra Parade and nine between Queens Parade and Hodgkinson Street, where ample on-street parking is available around the corner: 13 in total from a current supply of 96, with both accessible bays retained.
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The two options have very different parking impacts
There are two proposed options for Wellington Street in Clifton Hill. This site focuses on the shared street option, which we think serves our community better. See what both options involve.
Council’s proposals for the Clifton Hill section of Wellington Street (Alexandra Parade to Queens Parade) offer two options:
| Option 1: Shared Street | Option 2: Protected Lanes | |
|---|---|---|
| Current parking | 96 bays | 96 bays |
| Bays removed | 13 (no accessible bays removed) | 66 (including 2 accessible) |
| Bays remaining | 83 | 30 |
The shared street option removes 13 spaces on Wellington Street. Nine of those 13 are in the northern sub-section between Hodgkinson Street and Queens Parade, where Queens Parade has abundant on-street parking immediately around the corner.
Three bays near the school are removed to create new pedestrian crossings: 1 beside Page Street and 2 at Council Street. The final bay is near Alexandra Parade, where the bicycle street section begins. Parking in the southern sub-section near the school is not removed to make space for cycling; it is removed to make space for pedestrians.
The 66-space figure is accurate for Option 2 only. Option 2 removes 66, including the two accessible bays. Unlike the shared street option, those losses are not concentrated in one sub-section: they are distributed across the full length of the strip from Alexandra Parade to Queens Parade and they represent the majority of the parking on the whole section.
There is also a practical point about how easy those remaining bays are to use. Wellington Street carries heavy through-traffic and at busy times that traffic backs up along the street. A free bay is not much use if the street itself is gridlocked. Once rat-running is removed, the congestion that blocks access goes with it.
Accessible parking
The two accessible bays on Wellington Street North are retained under the shared street option. They are removed under Option 2.
Local access on all streets is unchanged, so those who need to drive for accessibility reasons are unaffected.
Concerns about local businesses
Nearby businesses more often benefit than suffer from parking reduction: people on foot and bike tend to visit more frequently than those arriving by car1.
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Volker, J.M.B. & Handy, S. (2021). Economic impacts on local businesses of investments in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure: a review of the evidence. Transport Reviews, 41(4), 401–431. tandfonline.com. ↩