Infrastructure Committee endorses new CBD parking strategy

Toowoomba Regional Council plans to adopt a new Toowoomba City Centre Car Parking Strategy, following endorsement at the Infrastructure Committee.

Toowoomba Regional Council Infrastructure and Services Group portfolio leader Cr James O’Shea said it was an opportune time to adopt the new strategy.

“In March 2014, Council adopted its inaugural Toowoomba City Centre Car Parking Strategy as a key element of its Toowoomba City Centre Master Plan,” he said.

“Since then, the city has matured and gone through a number of changes, including the Grand Central redevelopment, which have had a major impact on how people commute and park throughout the CBD.

“When significant changes like this occur it’s important you allow enough time to gain an understanding of how user habits adjust in response to these changes.

“We now believe the right amount of time has elapsed and we are now in an ideal position to implement a new strategy that will deliver significant outcomes and customer benefits over the short, medium and longer term for this Region.

“The endorsement and adoption of this strategy represents an opportunity for Council to introduce contemporary car parking management practices over the next few years that will greatly enhance the management of parking operations across the CBD and provide customers daily with smart parking tools to more conveniently locate and pay for their parking.

“In putting the new strategy together an extensive community engagement exercise has been undertaken.

“The programs and strategic principles proposed under the strategy are all based on contemporary parking management practices that are being adopted by local governments in cities and regional centres across Australia and internationally to deal with the issues of sustainable transport and parking within city centres.”

During the Infrastructure Committee meeting, Council also endorsed plans to consider the provision of guaranteed long-term car parking spaces at the Toowoomba Bus Station Carpark.

“This is an important step towards what we are trying to achieve with parking in the CBD,” Cr O’Shea said.

“Over the past few months we’ve made positive changes on non-guaranteed parking, discounted parking, weekly tickets and increasing parking turnover. Guaranteed parking was the one gap which we are now addressing.

“We know the top level of this carpark has 30-100 parks available daily, so this is the most logical choice for this type of parking. We can now go out to the community and see what level of interest motorists have with leasing a permanent parking space.”

These two items will now go to the Ordinary Meeting of Council on 17 December 2019 for consideration.