Marlborough District Council Roading Assets - Activity Management Plan 2015 - 2018 SECTION 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY All meters (bollard and pay & display) have recently been purchased and installed (2006) and are all in good condition with only few faults occurring. 1.6.13.3 Level of Service The 2005 and 2006 Parking Studies show that the current level of service for parking spaces is meeting parking demand. Council’s LTCCP notes a specific level of service for parking being that it will maintain overall parking occupancy rates at not more than 85%. Council acknowledges that to meet this target, further parking spaces will need to be made available in the near future in the Blenheim CBD area. The newly constructed Alfred Street Multi Storey car park will certainly help to achieve this target. Council is also working with private developers in the CBD area to incorporate additional car parking into new commercial developments. Parking enforcement is managed under contract by Marlborough Roads for Council. Marlborough Roads have let a 3 year x 2 year contract for the parking enforcement (which also includes vehicle WOF and registration enforcement), which is due to expire in 30 June 2014. The level of enforcement is as follows: Blenheim – Two full time wardens on patrol between the hours of 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 1pm Saturday Picton – One part-time warden working any 5 days Monday to Saturday for 3 hours per day Springlands and Redwood Village Once per week The area surrounding the CBD Once per week All other areas – no enforcement Daily inspection of all off-street meters are undertaken before 8:00am to ensure they are operating correctly. All money collected from the parking meters go into the Council Parking Account. Approximately 20,000 parking infringement notices are issued each year. 70% of the fines are recovered without court enforcement. Of the court enforced fines only 90% of the money collected is returned to the Parking Account, the remaining 10% is taken by the Courts as a processing fee. Any unrecoverable fines, plus the Court registration fee of $30 GST exclusive per fine, are written off against the Parking Account. Considering all of these factors the following scenarios have been reviewed; i. Do nothing differently – i.e. continue with existing budget and management practice. The existing budget is sufficient to maintain the existing asset, however demand will soon outstrip capacity and the stated level of service will not be met. ii. Status Quo – i.e. maintaining current level of service. The existing budget is sufficient to maintain the current level of service, but as noted above, demand will outstrip capacity in the short term. iii. Desired Level of Service – i.e. increasing the level of service to meet higher expectations of Council and/or consumers. Additional car parking spaces will need to be supplied to meet Council’s stated aim of maintaining overall parking occupancy rates at not more than 85%. There are growing expectations amongst customers to have more payment options available at point of purchase. Some of the existing parking stations allow for payment by coin, text or credit card, however a large majority of the meters only accept coins. The estimated cost to remove the existing older style meters and replace with modern payment stations in the key high use areas is $300k, assuming that there is a disposal value for the existing bollard type meters. As Council have only recently renewed the parking meters to accept the new coins in 2006, and the life of the meters is 8- 10 years, the option of replacing them for Pay & Display meters will be considered in the time frame of this AMP, when the existing meters need replacing. Council have recently increased the number of wardens patrolling parking areas. This was in response to queries that monitoring of the metered parking was insufficient. The level of enforcement is now considered sufficient and a further increase in warden numbers is unlikely to be considered in the near future. iv. Reduced Level of Service – i.e. consider reducing the level of service to reduce costs. Most of the physical assets related to parking are maintained as part of adjoining assets; the road surface, signage, and pavement marking are maintained under their relevant work categories. The meters are of a certain standard that gives the customers a limited range of choices of payment methods. To reduce the level of service is not considered viable without inconveniencing customers. This option is not considered further in this AMP. 30 September 2014 Page 120 of Section 1