Nobody took more than their share of a lane; nobody drove off the deck of the parking garage, but people in Goodwood, Australia, are such bad parkers they earned themselves the right to pay for parking.
According to news.com.au, Goodwood bigwigs offered residents three hours of free parking at a local garage. Users didn’t have to pay to park, but they did have to obtain and display and parking ticket to show their time of entry. Some of them didn’t display their tickets for free parking, overstayed their welcome and received a fine. Goodwoodians found this process too confusing and complained to the powers that be.
Those in charge decided the time limit would be more easily enforced if a fee was involved in the transaction.
Cr John Koumi said the introduction of the $1 fee would allow the council to better enforce traffic controls and minimise the number of fines contested.
“We want to be able to enforce the restrictions because that was the whole intent of why we started the trial — we wanted to encourage parking turnover,” Cr Koumi said.
If there were some kind of Darwin Award for the parking industry, I think it should go to Goodwood. Now that the fee has been imposed, they’re still stumped.
Endota Spa manager Alyce Dick said customers would boycott the carpark entirely if fees were introduced.
“It’s been so confusing already with the three-hour printing of the tickets and throwing something else in there will confuse it even more,” Miss Dick said.
Sometimes the mechanics of paying for parking can be confusing (where’s the machine? how does it work? how much do I pay?), but the concept is pretty straightforward.
Read the article here.
