Street Parking

One thing I have achieved in the nearly nine months I have been living in Brisbane (YAY!) is at work I have introduced "No Standing" signs for the street in front of our building. People parking on the side of the that road turned a barely two-lane street into a one-lane street - and if two people parked opposite each other, you were lucky to get anything bigger than a Getz through.  It was a huge safety issue, not to mention cars parked on the side of the road just looks messy.

It's one of the things that pisses me off about my new home in New Farm.  When I lived in beautiful Kangaroo Point, there was always plenty of parking out the back, meaning no one was forced onto the street.  Here, there are two parking spaces and they have been seconded by two of the other tennants, meaning I'm forced out onto the street.  Usually the spot in front of the house is where I park, but sometimes you get some dickheads who park there, making my life difficult.  Plus someone has sideswiped my car, making me even angrier.

I'm sure plenty of people who visit the Coles on Merthyr Road can testify to how hard street-parking makes getting out of the Coles - you can barely see what's coming, especially dangerous if you're turning right.  On the way to work through Newmarket on Enoggera Road people park on the side of the road taking up the whole left lane, meaning people end up having to quickly merge into the right lane so they don't crash.

I think it should be illegal to sell or rent a property without providing off-street parking, and that street-parkng itself should be illegal.  If that means you have four rooms but only two car parks, you're only selling/renting two rooms.  Street-parking is dangerous and looks horrible, and the sooner we can get our cars off the side of the road the better.