For context, Wellington City Council has proposed charging motorcyclists $2.50 per hour to use motorcycle parking spaces in the central city. Those parks are currently free of charge and always have been.
This isn’t the first time the Council has tried to charge motorcyclists for a previously free service; their 2020 Parking Policy also made this proposal. Wellington’s many motorcycle commuters said “nope” pretty clearly and loudly in 2020, but the Council is back at it in 2024.
The Council didn’t offer any justification for its latest dumbass proposal, so I sent them an Official Information Act request so they would be forced to issue a response.
They responded, all right. As a public service, I have translated the Council-speak into actual English. The Council’s actual remarks from the OIA response are in bold. My original questions are in italics. My translation of their responses are in plain text.
Thank you for your email of 15 February 2024 to Wellington City Council.
Translation: Sir, how DARE you question us? We are going to respond because we are legally required to do so, but we are ABSOLUTELY going to take the maximum amount of time allowed under legislation before we respond to your dumbass question. What was it you wanted from us anyway, peasant?
I request all Council information on the annual cost of maintaining motorcycle parks for the period January 2014 to January 2024.
Cost of maintaining motorcycle parking from 1 January 2014 to 1 January 2024
- Line Marking: $64,239.05
- Signs Maintenance: $74,645.17
Translation: Oh good, an easy question for a change. This was a total cost of $138,884 over a period of 10 years.
If there are 500 motorcycles parked in Wellington on any given day, and if only each of these peon motorcycle riders would pay us a measly $2.50 per hour for the privilege of using those spaces, for 9 hours each day, that means the full 10-year cost of maintaining these spaces for these ungrateful bikers would be fully paid for in…
12.3 days.
The $41 million in revenue gathered for the remaining 3640 days of the 10-year period would naturally go toward funding even more bicycle paths.
I further request all Council information on how that cost is currently funded.
Budgets are used for maintenance as and when it is required. If signs and poles are damaged, they are repaired or replaced, and motorcycle park line marking, as all line markings, are marked annually (either bi-annually or tri-annually) and this is dependent on the level of the foot traffic and volumes of vehicle traffic.
Translation: We don’t know where the money currently comes from. It just appears when the Opex Faerie flies in and spreads gold dust over the streets. It’s just too bad this gold dust isn’t water soluble and can’t be used to fix our third-world water infrastructure.
I further request all Council information on how it determined that its currently proposed $2.50 per hour, per motorcycle parking fee was a fair and reasonable rate, and how much (if any) of this revenue will actually be used to maintain motorcycle parking.
Revenue from parking fees is not hypothecated, therefore we are unable to say what proportion of the revenue from motorcycle parking would be used to maintain that parking.
Translation: LMAO, we didn’t research this at all. We just want you filthy bikers to pay money for something you’re used to getting for free. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.
Also, I finally got to use “hypothecated” in a sentence. My team bet me $20 I couldn’t sneak this one in before Easter. I won!
The $2.50/h fee proposed for on-street central city motorcycle parking is the suggested maximum fee.
Translation: We are definitely going to charge $2.50 an hour if we are allowed to get away with it.
And we will be. Get used to it, scrubs.
Individual motorcycle parking bays would have individual pricing, with the intention of managing demand in the relevant parking bay to achieve average occupancy below 85%.
Translation: We recognise the fact that existing motorcycle parking is woefully inadequate to service demand, so we are going to try artificially constraining demand instead of actually addressing the issue. We’re also going to mark out individual bays for each bike so we can constrain parking availability even further.
We got these ideas by shoving our heads so far up our own arses that we could use ourselves as our own hats. We then tried to high-five each other to celebrate our brilliance, but it was too hard, what with not being able to see or hear anything. One of us tripped over a safety railing… it was a whole thing. Our social media team filmed it and put it on the WCC TikTok. It was our most popular video of the year so far.
Determination of reasonable fees is an iterative process, not a single-point decision, and public consultation on the Long-Term Plan is part of that determination.
Translation: We pulled this number out of our arses once we got our heads out of the way. We will now go through the minimum legally required level of effort to solicit public feedback on our cunning plan, and we will put on the best show we can in pretending to care about your feedback right before doing what we were going to do anyway.
I further request any information (if any) showing that Council took into consideration the multitude of submissions against proposed motorcycle parking fees when the Council made this proposal as part of its consultation on its Parking Policy in 2020.
Council is cognisant of the submissions made in regard to the Parking Policy 2020, and to previous long-term plans, but is working to the Parking Policy as adopted and long-term plans are prepared from first principles, according to the needs and requirements of the relevant plan period.
Translation: Of COURSE we didn’t take public sentiment into account! What do you think this is, a democracy?!
