Closed streets = street seating and walkable communities. Who'd expect those advantages to get people to stop for dinner when walking by.
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
146 points (95.6% liked)
Australia
3613 readers
134 users here now
A place to discuss Australia and important Australian issues.
Before you post:
If you're posting anything related to:
- The Environment, post it to Aussie Environment
- Politics, post it to Australian Politics
- World News/Events, post it to World News
- A question to Australians (from outside) post it to Ask an Australian
If you're posting Australian News (not opinion or discussion pieces) post it to Australian News
Rules
This community is run under the rules of aussie.zone. In addition to those rules:
- When posting news articles use the source headline and place your commentary in a separate comment
Banner Photo
Congratulations to @Tau@aussie.zone who had the most upvoted submission to our banner photo competition
Recommended and Related Communities
Be sure to check out and subscribe to our related communities on aussie.zone:
- Australian News
- World News (from an Australian Perspective)
- Australian Politics
- Aussie Environment
- Ask an Australian
- AusFinance
- Pictures
- AusLegal
- Aussie Frugal Living
- Cars (Australia)
- Coffee
- Chat
- Aussie Zone Meta
- bapcsalesaustralia
- Food Australia
- Aussie Memes
Plus other communities for sport and major cities.
https://aussie.zone/communities
Moderation
Since Kbin doesn't show Lemmy Moderators, I'll list them here. Also note that Kbin does not distinguish moderator comments.
Additionally, we have our instance admins: @lodion@aussie.zone and @Nath@aussie.zone
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The mark up on drinks, especially alcohol is where a lot of profit is. If people don’t need to drive, they probably drink more too.
When restaurants complain about a lack of parking, they really mean a lack of access. Make them accessible and they’re happy.
A lot of previous footpaths and parking spots have been repurposed as dining areas here in Sydney. I don’t think the restaurants are complaining about that and it adds vibrancy to the area that makes them more attractive too.
When restaurants complain about a lack of parking, they really mean a lack of access
The real problem is that they grossly overestimate how much of their patronage comes via driving currently. So they actively fight against improved access in the form of things like bus lanes, light rail, and bike paths.
The data says that restaurant owners think over half their patrons currently drive, but that in reality it's less than one in five.
There was a similar article about store owners last year (or maybe early this year) that said they make the same mistake. That was specifically done in the context of the installation of some fairly mediocre bike paths in the Brisbane CBD (the "CityLink Cycleway"). Many had petitioned against the cycleway at first because of their misunderstanding.
Educating business owners, or disregarding their feedback entirely when they're stubbornly arguing against their own best interest, is the direction we need to be moving in.
The owners also think that people who drive spend more per person than those who walk or take public transit, but the reality is reversed.
If I'm reading the data right, they actually thought public transport users spent the most per person (they thought they were 15% of customers but made up 19% of revenue, or 1.27% of revenue per percent of customers, versus cars which had 1.13% rppc), but their gross underestimate of public transport patronage meant an underestimate of overall revenue despite this.
For fun, the rppc stats in reality were:
- Cars: 1.05
- Walking: 1.09
- Bikes: 0.57
- Public transport: 1.00
Which is interesting, because it does differ from what other studies have said, which is that cyclists and public transportation users tend to spend more than drivers, where in this study they spent less per person. I wonder how quality of infrastructure and service would impact that. Pedestrians still spent the most per person, though.
Ah, I found the CityLink Cycleway feedback source. It wasn't an article, it was mentioned in a Brisbane City Council meeting YouTube link with timestamp (roughly 1:32:00). Businesses on the relevant streets in the Brisbane CBD estimated 43% of their customers arrived by car, when it was actually only 19%.
Council meeting minutes (warning, Microsoft Office Online link) has slightly different figures of 44% and 19%, respectively.
Incidentally, then-Councillor Sriranganathan's speech immediately after Cr Murphy shares his figures gives a pretty good explanation of some of the reasons I described the CityLink Cycleway as "mediocre".
mk4 supra 👍
"In this case, Eagle Street scored highly. This was mainly due to it having the highest parking fee (A$30-$75 for three hours) of the three restaurant precincts. Even in Caxton Street, which has the cheapest parking ($11 for three hours), more than one in three customers travelled by public transport."
Also, water is wet.
Lovely unbiased article
That was really interesting - thanks for sharing!
view more: next ›