MAJOR CAR PARKING CHALLENGES AHEAD, PARTICULARLY AT WEINAM CREEK
Car parking is going to be front and centre for most islanders in the coming months and years.
Particularly on the mainland, but also on our islands, too
Work on the Weinam Creek Priority Development Area is ramping up.
With road works over the next 12 months, and work then to start on the major feature of the development, the multi-storey car park over two following years, there is going to be some considerable disruption ahead.
It has not been announced as yet, but expect some nearby community areas near Weinam Creek to play a role as temporary parking spaces.
Redland City Council originally envisioned that the Moore’s Road car park extensions would adequately handle the need during the PDA area construction phase.
This, seemingly, is now not the case.
Thanks to the pandemic and the rush of new island residents, Moore’s Road is already at near capacity.
Expect some changes to parking regulations here shortly to help make more car parking spaces available,
This will be in the form of shortening parking periods to hours rather than days.
It is believed a large amount of long-term cars (some even abandoned) are taking up valuable spaces for more immediate parking.
It is good to see parking initiatives such as Bay Island Car Sharing is playing a major role in cutting the demand for car spaces.
For every car space taken up by a Car Share vehicle at Weinam Creek, 10 private vehicles are taken off the road. Already 1000 car park spaces have been saved via this clever car sharing scheme.
More innovations will be needed in the coming years to lighten the load until the multi-storey car park is completed.
The initial build for the car parking station will be four levels. It is believed the very large building will have the capacity to be expanded to eight levels.
Redland City Council is paying for Weinam Creek and the new car parking station by making available future sites for unit and resort development.
All these projects will be required to provide their own parking needs within their own development, All approvals are made by Economic Development Queensland, a State entity. This includes all council projects as well.
It is believed the ground floor of the multi-storey car park will also contain a major supermarket and specialty shops.
A problem that we see for the future here is that not only will Weinam Creek PDA be a car parking mainland destination for islanders; it will also be a beacon to nearby Redland Bay residents for shopping and recreation.
Paying for it is one clever way; but has an impact on the vital parking function it definitely needs to play.
Whatever way it goes in the future, we will never adequately resolve our parking issues, at Weinam Creek or Toondah Harbour and on the islands themselves.
As our population grows, so too does the parking problem.
We shall watch with interest.
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