Free parking ends next week

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/free-parking-ends-next-week

The Dunedin City Council’s free parking ends next week, bringing to a close what the council calls nearly $1 million in community support.

As paid parking returns to the city, the council is encouraging people to take the at-present free Otago Regional Council-run city buses as an alternative form of transport.

Dunedin City Council community services general manager Simon Pickford said in a statement on Friday the council generally collected about $135,000 a week in parking revenue at this time of year.

The meant that since retail shops reopened and many people started to return to work at the beginning of Alert Level 2, on May 14, the council had ‘‘supported the community to the tune of nearly $1 million’’ through free parking.

When paid parking returned from Wednesday, the cost of casual all-day parking at several off-street car parks - Railway North and Thomas Burns and Parry Sts - would increase to $6.

Mr Pickford said the increases were planned well before Covid-19 to take effect from July 1, and that they were not an attempt to recoup lost revenue from free parking.

All on-street parking fees would remain unchanged.

The regional council-run public buses are free until a new bus card system - the Bee Card - is introduced later this winter.