Greater Brisbane is proud to support Brisbane City Council’s expansion of parking maximums to more of our inner city!

But this is just scratching the surface of what we need to do to make our city walkable by the 2032 Games.

Like Paris and Los Angeles have done, it’s absolutely critical that we reduce private car use in the inner city and facilitate rapid mode shift towards active and public transport in the lead up to the 2032 Games.

Council’s proposal suspiciously leaves out some very well-connected neighbourhoods with frequent public transport options, local pedestrian and cycling links and nearby shops and schools- notably New Farm, Stones Corner, Paddington and St Lucia - from changes…

Map of inner Brisbane (5km radius from City Hall) showing the proposed city core and city frame areas, with 400m walksheds for major public transport infrastructure.

Even more surprising is City West around Petrie Terrace, Caxton Street, Victoria Barracks and the Normanby, which is literally a ten minute walk to our CBD and our city’s two largest parks, not being included in the car-free City Core!

Map showing Petrie Terrace

And while this proposal just changes the boundaries that apply to existing rules, there’s still a lot of work to get those rules up to scratch. To start, the reduced minimums within 400 metres of a public transport hub STILL don’t apply to residential developments!

Table of official and our proposed changes

We’re also facing a situation where the Brisbane Central Traffic Area, which governs on-street parking restrictions, don’t align with the City Frame which governs off-street parking minimums.

The Central Traffic Area superimposed over the City Frame

All this is to say that we can afford to do a lot more a lot quicker when it comes to reforming parking in our city.

That’s why we’re calling on Council to commit to the total removal of on-street parking and through-traffic for non-commercial vehicles within the City Core and around Games precincts by 2032 — and a draw-down of 2,000 parking spaces every year between now and then!

Read our full submission here.