The newly elected council of the City of Sydney is considering introducing 15 minutes free parking throughout the CBD.
The first meeting of the council voted unanimously to conduct a feasibility study on the idea. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, parking allocation, charging and restrictions were the subject of debate between many of the candidates in the September election, with the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, acknowledging that there were wide-ranging views on the issue.
The City of Sydney council’s jurisdiction includes around 160,000 parking spaces, including almost 39,000 on-street spaces and around 1 million people in the local government area on any given day (according to the SMH). The Lord Mayor moved that the council develop new draft parking policies, based on evidence-based research, international best practice and public consultation, with the council’s challenge being to “responsibly manage the limited capacity and to balance the needs of those who have to drive with the serious economic and environmental impacts of congestion”.