Published in the Otago Daily Times, 13 July 2007

What about the walkers! (They didn’t use this title, but I like it.)

 

I like snow days.  I like putting old woolly socks on over my shoes to give them grip, and tramping over the softened footpaths and icy compression of the roads to the local supermarket. I like how few cars are on the road, and how many cheerful shoppers are stocking up locally on supplies. I especially like watching the many couples and family groups laughing and exchanging greetings and the odd snowball across the road. Those of us over a certain age can remember when every day was like that, when everyone walked and we recognized our neighbours by their faces, not their cars.  

 

Dunedin still has a dedicated army of walkers, who walk for transport, for health and for recreation, Some people have no other choice. But conditions do not always make it easy for them, and the DCC is about to consider a change that could make it significantly worse in the long term – removing restriction on parking on footpaths in some streets.

 

The Council has done some excellent work in the past in considering pedestrian needs, such as the 2003 Pedestrian strategy, and the project in South Dunedin to make the streets safer for both pedestrians and cyclists. The Long Term Community Plan has a 10 year budget of $4 million for pedestrian issues, nearly half a million a year.  But the footpath improvements and fine words of the pedestrian strategy will be lip service if new resolutions from the Council’s Infrastructure Services Committee are carried through. They have requested that streets under 5.5 metres wide be considered for allowing parking on footpaths. The ostensible reason is to allow the unimpeded passage of emergency vehicles such as a fire-engine or ambulance, though perusal of the Committee’s minutes suggests that vociferous objection to parking fines for illegally parked cars on some well-heeled Dunedin streets might be a more immediate trigger. Allowing emergency access is a commendable aim, and could possibly be accepted as a justification for an exemption in exceptional cases. One such exists already in upper Frame St. An audit by traffic engineers identified 23 out of 233 narrow streets where footpath parking exemptions might allow safe passage without unduly affecting pedestrian access.  But the Committee has gone further, and resolved that residents of other streets can apply to be considered for exemptions.

 

This is where the walker in me gets really worried. If other streets are invited to be considered in this process, including those that have already been audited, and those that did not qualify in the first place, what additional criteria are going to be applied?  I want any exemptions, if they must be made, to be made because the street is genuinely too narrow for a fire-engine, even with legal parking on only one side of the street, and then only if foot access can still be preserved. I do not want requests to be considered where car parking has overwhelmed a narrow street because some households have four cars, or some residents do not like using their driveway as off street parking, or someone else’s garage is full of the goods they are selling or buying on the internet. Particularly, I do not want exemptions allowed because parked cars are being damaged by inconsiderately driven vehicles. If side panels are getting scraped and wing mirrors are getting knocked, that is an inter-vehicular conflict, and must not be resolved by compromising footpath users’ convenience or safety.

 

There are so many creative ways to resolve the issue of over-parking on streets without taking over footpaths. Permits could be leased for exemptions for designated vehicles in defined spaces that do not affect pedestrians, in the same way as resident parking permits in central city areas are. Or the Council could hand over resolution of the problem to the citizens who created it. A street could exercise real community spirit and share resources together to ensure that the numbers of cars parked safely on the street do not exceed the number of spaces.  Visitors could be asked to park in the next street and walk.  Households could be asked to (gasp) limit the number of their cars to ensure that one at the most is parked on the road. 

 

If exemptions are to be granted that bypass the national LTSA rule that states: “A driver or person in charge of a vehicle must not stop, stand, or park the vehicle on a footpath or on a cycle path” this should only be done on a case by case basis, applying the most stringent criteria, and direct inspection by ambulance and fire-engine drivers, and the whole gamut of footpath users from mothers with pushchairs and schoolchildren to senior citizens in mobility scooters.  We need time to do this properly, otherwise that army of walkers is going to become very upset at the encroachment of private property on their designated public space.

 

Judy Martin is a pedestrian and a member of a group recently formed to support walkers’ interests. She can be contacted at jmartins at ihug.co.nz. Submissions on the DCC proposed exemptions on footpath parking are due by July 18.