In 2023, the City of Melbourne introduced a Parking and Kerbside Management Plan that committed to regular reviews of the kerbside parking system based on proactive engagement in local areas and sharing the data that underpins decision-making.

Kerbside space is limited with on-street parking making up just 4 per cent of road land use across the City of Melbourne.

Across Carlton, 46.8 per cent of households own a car. In 2021, 4,540 residential vehicles were registered. To support the community’s parking needs, Carlton has 4,018 on-street parking bays and approximately 5,000 off-street parking bays.

To make parking more reliable and available across Carlton, a series of parking improvement works were rolled out across Carlton from May 2024 to June 2025. Find out about the Carlton parking improvement works.

We returned to hear your feedback on the parking improvement works to gain a better understanding of how all residents, visitors and businesses use on-street parking across Carlton.

A key principle of these parking improvements is that the changes are not 'set and forget'. As part of our commitment to review them each year to make sure they are working well, we checked in with the Carlton community in July 2025.

This check-in process included three online workshop consultations held with external facilitators and online surveys.

We also spoke to stakeholders through local business and resident associations. Following this check-in, the short-term actions outlined below will be delivered from October 2025.

We will be back in Carlton in 2026 to review how these changes have worked and hear from the community again. We will also provide an update on the longer-term actions we will investigate, as outlined below.

This check-in was part of our ongoing engagement with community around parking. We are constantly taking feedback from community members in a range of ways including surveys, workshops, meetings and on site visits. Since engagement began in Carlton in November 2023 up until the end of August 2025, we have heard from:

• 75 people in person
• 387 residents, visitors and businesses via survey.

You can continue to have your say on Carlton parking at any time via the always on survey.

Key themes identified in the community check-in have informed immediate changes, plus some additional recommendations that we will explore as part of our annual review of on-street parking in Carlton.

We received 87 responses regarding short time limits. Respondents expressed frustration about existing short-term parking such as one or two-hour limits.

We received 30 responses regarding loading zones. Businesses wanted less Loading Zones in the Lygon Precinct in the evenings and weekends to support increased parking options for customers.

We received 76 responses regarding lack of parking options. Respondents raised concerns about the ongoing shortage of on-street parking for both residents and their visitors.

Example of feedback we heard about lack of parking options:

We received 70 responses about weekend and evening restrictions. Respondents expressed concern about the duration of parking restrictions, particularly those extended into 10pm on weekday evenings and Sundays.

We received 44 responses about residential permits. Respondents reported challenges related to the residential permit system.

We received 13 responses about engagement and communications. Respondents requested more engagement and communication adjustments.

We also received a range of feedback from individuals regarding parking in key locations. (eg. Station Street and MacArthur Square, Barkly Street, Drummond Street).

Improvements scheduled for October 2025:

• Update 60 Loading Zones in the ‘Lygon Precinct’ to dual use. This will create additional two-hour (2P) parking spaces in the evenings (after 4pm) and across weekends for businesses, visitors and residents.
• Update two-hour (2P) parking time limits to three-hours (3P) on Lygon Street parking, between Keppel Street and Palmerston Street, to support longer stays for visitors to this area.
• Reduce council-only permit parking located on Rathdowne Street and Cardigan Street to increase the number of parking spaces available to the community near key public facilities, such as Carlton Baths and Carlton Family Services.
• Two additional 15-minute parking spaces on Drummond Street, between Elgin Street and Faraday Street, to support short stops in the shopping precinct.
• Update more than 200 two-hour (2P) parking time limits to three-hours (3P) on parking south of Pelham Street to Queensbury Street to support longer stays for visitors to this area. The impact on parking when Parkville Station opens in late 2025 will be assessed for the annual review.
• Update two-hour paid (2P Meter) bays around MacArthur Square to three-hour paid (3P Meter) bays.

Key recommendations we'll explore as part of our next annual review of on-street parking in Carlton:

Review short-time restrictions that are not meeting the needs of visitors, workers and businesses in key locations, including:

1. Pelham Street
2. Cardigan Street
3. Lygon Street
4. Carlton Street

Review weekend parking restrictions that are not meeting the needs of visitors, workers and businesses in key locations, including:

1. Lygon Street
2. Elgin Street

Our commitments under the Parking and Kerbside Management Plan

Under the Parking and Kerbside Management Plan we have already committed to the following which address key concerns from the Carlton community:

• Develop a Strategic Parking Permit Policy that updates the current parking permit framework.
• Refresh and communicate our parking enforcement approach.
• Improved communications and engagement processes, (e.g. increased letter box notifications) to reach community members that have not yet engaged.

Read more about the feedback we heard and the engagement process in the Carlton check-in report below.

We won’t set and forget the new conditions.

We will be returning to Carlton in 2026 to see how these changes have worked in our Annual Review.

Over the coming weeks, any immediate actions identified from the Carlton check-in will begin to rollout with adjustments to some parking controls.

Any further feedback regarding these changes will be incorporated in the next Carlton parking review, which will happen in 2026.

For more information about the general improvements to parking we’ve made in Carlton and changes in your street go to parking improvement works.

You can have your say any time on parking in your neighbourhood by completing the survey.

In 2023, the City of Melbourne introduced a Parking and Kerbside Management Plan that committed to regular reviews of the kerbside parking system based on proactive engagement in local areas and sharing the data that underpins decision-making.

Data was provided, and opinions were sought on the following topics:

• The allocation of space at the kerb between parking and other kerbside uses.
• Short-stay parking, defined as bays with a stay limit ≤ 3P that support several Arrivals across the day.
• Long-stay parking, defined as bays with a stay limit ≥4P that support one or two Arrivals per day.
• Off-street parking, commercial parking facilities open to the public.
• Home-base vehicles including shared kerbside vehicles for zero-car households (car share), private home-base vehicles stored off-street and private home-base vehicles stored at the kerb under the permit system.
• Enforcement of the rules of the parking system.

In Carlton, the cycle of regular reviews began with a round of engagement between November 2023 and February 2024. The engagement process included three workshops (attended by 25 to 30 residents), online surveys and interviews with over 50 business owners, managers and employees.

We heard from residents and businesses across Carlton.

• 46 attended three workshop sessions.
• 30 submitted responses for Carlton in the Participate Melbourne survey.
• 72 businesses were approached with a specific survey, 56 responses were collected.

Key findings:

• There is a high reliance on off-street parking and alternative transport modes in Carlton.
• On-street parking did not appear to be a high-priority concern for residents and businesses surveyed, although most perceived that it’s always full.
• Community said that where we have on-street parking, it should be prioritised for people living in or visiting the area rather than CBD commuters.
• Pick up/drop off for Uber, food delivery and removalists at high-density buildings is an emerging concern.
• People surveyed tended to consider that some parking could be repurposed for other uses that would benefit the neighbourhood (trees, open space, wider footpaths).

Findings:

• Businesses want short-term parking with turnover for customers and long-term parking for staff. They want parking to be free-of-charge.
• Residents with permits want more availability of parking near their property. They are comfortable with charging visitors a fee to manage demand but hesitant about introducing meters in residential streets due to the visual impact.
• Both residents and businesses want more enforcement.
• Vehicles are turning over on average 1.8 times per space per day. (CBD approx. 20 times/day, North Melb approx. 5 times/day.)
• Parking occupancy is very high when controls finish (e.g. occupancy reaches 96% by 6pm on Saturday in permit area 9C and 9B.)
• There are 5,000 off-street parking spaces in Carlton (4,000 on-street). In some cases off-street fees are cheaper than on-street.
• Approximately 2,000 residential parking permits have been issued in Carlton (representing half of all on-street parking spaces). Workers are high users of the parking spaces and ‘shuffle’ through the day.
• High number of infringements for vehicles blocking laneway access.

Recommendations have been made to council that include:

• Consistent controls across the neighbourhood.
• Extended hours for on-street parking restrictions.

We are designing changes for Carlton parking which will be implemented in May to August 2024.

For more information on changes in your street, read about our parking improvement works.

We won’t set and forget the new conditions once works are complete; we'll give the community time to adjust and then review the functionality and performance of those changes.

You can have your say any time on parking in your neighbourhood by completing the survey. The next review of your neighbourhood will use this data to inform future changes.

We will be back in Carlton from mid 2025 to see how initial changes have worked and hear from community again.