The City of Melbourne Transport Strategy 2030 says that parking and kerbside space is critical to the functionality of the city. However this space is limited and in high demand. It needs to be well managed and functioning optimally to support city productivity and meet the needs of all users.

To deliver well managed parking, we needed a plan and refreshed policy. This lead to the development of the Parking and Kerbside Management Plan.

In addition to undertaking research into best practice parking management and benchmarking with other cities, it was important to engage with the community to inform the development of the Plan – in particular to understand the problems with parking today and the experience of our various parking users.

Once developed, it was also important to get feedback from the community on the Plan itself.

We undertook pre-draft engagement with key stakeholders in late 2022. This included workshop with residents, business and the transport sector. We also undertook a phone survey of 1000 parking customers to understand their experience of parking in the city.

The draft Plan was approved by FMC for engagement on 21 March. The engagement period ran from 22 March to 19 April.

Feedback was predominantly captured online via Participate Melbourne. A survey was used to gather feedback on the draft Plan. A map tool was used to capture data relating to parking to inform future place based reveiws.

During the engagement period, workshops were held with key CBD stakeholders to develop a package of parking improvements.

Briefings on the draft Plan occurred with other key stakeholders including government, disability, business and transport sectors.

In total, 439 individuals or organisations provided direct input into and feedback on the draft Plan.

Overall there was a high level of support for the direction of the draft Plan. There was alignment between the feedback provided and the policy and intent of the plan. In response to the strategic directions presented, the strongest indication of support was for ‘kerbside space functionality being regularly reviewed’ with 83 per cent of people providing support or strong support for. A clear message on the importance of regular, proactive, data-led reviews and decision making with community about parking.

There was also predominantly strong or very strong support for a strategic and data-led approach to kerbside management (77 per cent) and equitable and inclusive access to kerbside space (77 per cent).

There was acknowledgement from community that managing the competing needs for access to limited space is a key challenge for City of Melbourne, with 60 per cent identifying that this should be addressed as a priority. It was also clear that finding available space (48 per cent) and understanding the parking signage and rules could be difficult (42 per cent).

Community also said they wanted kerbside space that was safe, pedestrian-friendly, available, functional, accessible and affordable.

An analysis of open text comments was undertaken. The two top themes which emerged relate to city space allocation. There were 73 comments received encouraging City of Melbourne be more ambitious on removal of car parking to reallocate space to other important city infrastructure. While 25 comments suggested City of Melbourne should remove bicycle infrastructure and return it to car parking. A further 27 comments were from people concerned that the Plan would encourage more driving to the city. Due to the diversity of views on how to use this important space, City of Melbourne is committed to working with businesses and the community to get the balance right.

Other themes that came through strongly include: loading and deliveries, off-street parking and on-street parking pricing.

All feedback received through the engagement period was reviewed and assessed.

Changes were made to the draft Plan in response to the feedback. The workshops also shaped the CBD parking improvements proposal put to FMC.

The community engagement report contains responses to each feedback theme and indicates where an adjustment was made to the draft Plan.

From July 2023, we’ll start rolling out parking improvements in the CBD. We expect this work will be complete in early 2024. From September 2023 onwards, we’ll be reviewing, engaging with residents and businesses and improving parking in other neighbourhoods.

Find out more about how we are delivering the Parking and Kerbside Management Plan, or look for updates via the Neighbourhood Portals.