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What makes a city livable? This is a question we constantly ask ourselves at the City of Ballarat.
We need our cities to be spaces that are fun and vibrant, but also run like a well-oiled machine. We need them to be open, flexible, safe, convenient yet also innovative and modern.
For a while now, the City of Ballarat has needed to address its parking infrastructure. It has been a puzzle that has not been easy to solve.
We needed to create a parking plan that would balance the needs of our residents, shoppers and workers but also accommodate our traders and business owners.
The Smarter Parking Plan is an innovative system, which is designed to make parking easier, cheaper and more flexible.
The new parking meters, which are now up and running across Ballarat’s CBD, take credit card and coin, but they are also connected to an easy to use parking app called CellOPark. All you need to do is add your car's registration number to the app, and the app will know your location when you park. Just simply press start once you’ve parked and stop just before you leave the car space.
The new app means you won’t waste a single dollar if you return to your car earlier than predicted. It also means you won’t have to run back to your car and fill up a metre if you decide to stay longer.
On top this great technology, under the Smarter Parking plan, motorists will now get one-hour free parking, per vehicle, per day and you can park anywhere in the CBD and move between carparks within the time period paid for. After the first free hour, it will be $3 an hour after that. If you park in on-street carparks from 9am until 5.30pm, it will cost a maximum of $22.50. However, you can choose to park in an off-street carpark for $6.50 per day.
Our vision for Ballarat is to be a city that is open, connected and convenient; a smart city that embraces technology to make things easier, more livable and sustainable.
The new Smarter Parking Plan achieves all this and more. It is the best possible outcome for a growing, prosperous and vibrant city like Ballarat.