Page 510 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 13 February 2013
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The Telopea Park school grounds were also opened up, and Rotary did an excellent job in running that. I think you had to pay $5 for that, but that gave you a car park about 200 metres from the front entrance of the ground. By experience in walking past that about a half hour before the start of one of the matches, there were still parks available there.
Of course, Manuka Plaza and the Manuka multi-level car parks were also available. I acknowledge there were would have been some shoppers utilising them, but the advice from those who did a survey during the match was that there were still many, many, many free parks available at Manuka Plaza, the Manuka multi-storey and at Kingston.
Of course, we had in place free public transport, so anyone who wanted to go to the game from the city could catch dedicated shuttle buses from the CBD where, of course, there are 27,000 car parks available, and you would have been returned to, again, a very short walking distance from your car after the match if you chose to park in the city. Similar arrangements were in place in Woden.
I think it is important to recognise that all other major event venues in this country put in place a variety of measures to ensure that patrons are able to get to and from major events, and I think the best case study of this is the stadium formerly known as Lang Park in Brisbane, which used to have an arrangement where about 80 per cent of the crowd got there by car and 20 per cent utilised public transport. That would be about the ratio you see in Canberra at the moment. Well, as a result of some heavy promotion of public transport and some changes to the parking arrangements, that ratio has reversed and it is now only about 20 per cent who attend matches at what is now Suncorp Stadium who do so by private vehicle and 80 per cent come on public transport.
There is a combination of things that have worked there—park and ride being a very important part of it but also the free public transport to all ticket holders for the event. We are encouraging the hirers of Manuka Oval—be that cricket, AFL or any other organisation—to incorporate free public transport as part of their ticketing arrangements. Over time with a process of education advising people about all of those park-and-ride opportunities, where legal parking is available around the ground as well as promotion of public transport, we will see a culture change in Canberra towards accessing events at Manuka via those alternative means. Because, as Mr Smyth has acknowledged, it is not practical to provide a personal car park for every patron attending those events.
I note that in terms of future car parking provision within the broad precinct that there is a stated intent for a multi-level car park to be part of the Kingston Foreshore redevelopment, and the government will be pursuing that. That will provide more car parking within a short walking distance of Manuka. In fact, part of the investment in Manuka Oval and perhaps changing where the entrances are will encapsulate the possibility of parking at that structure in Kingston Foreshore and then walking up through Telopea Park to the event. We would hope, particularly in football season, to create the sort of approach to Manuka that you see walking up to a game at the MCG
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