Lack of parking and safety in and around regent multiplex

LACK OF PARKING AND SAFETY IN
AND AROUND REGENT MULTIPLEX
Rob Holder
Solve an Urban Issue Assignment
The Issue
My urban issue in Ballarat that needs addressing is
ease of parking near the Regent Mulitplex.
It doesn’t have a specialized car park, and people
have to park on the streets near and not so near
from the movies. There are not enough parks for the
large amount of people that are going to the movies
at one given time and most of the time end up
having to walk from blocks and blocks away. The
people who have to do this deserve a place where
they can park whenever they go to watch a film,
where there is always a spare space, no matter how
popular the movie is. There is also the problem of safety in getting there, with people who are
late running across busy Lydiard St to get to the Cinema. These people could be coming from
either the other side of the street or from the street behind, Camp St, which includes jaywalking over two streets. There is also the problem of walking out of the Multiplex late at
night, when nightclubs are in full swing and drunk people could be walking from one to the
other, which are all within a 1.5km radius of the cinemas. The current parking capacity is
shown here –
Statistics
In Melbourne, there are seven cinemas in facilities that have car parks. These are all shopping
centres except for the Village Cinemas at Crown Plaza and Imax, which is at the Melbourne
Museum. These may only be 15% of all the cinemas in Melbourne, but out of the 21 in Country
VIC, there are none that have dedicated parking, let alone any in a shopping centre.
Country Victoria
Cinemas
Without Carparks
Melbourne Cinemas
Without Carparks
With Carparks
In Ballarat, with our cinema, there are 700-1300 people going through to the movies every
Saturday after 6pm. To figure out how much of the parking this is taking up, I thought that
people would either be going as a couple or as a family, 2 or 4 people. So an average of 3
people per car. Since there are 489 parking spaces, within an easy walking distance, there is
capacity for roughly 1467 people in these car parks. This may accommodate people going to
the movies, but there are many other venues in and around Lydiard Street North, such as
Jacksons & Co, Sebaatians, Java Lounge, The George Hotel, JD’s Sport Bar. With all these
places, not including the many nightclubs around the area, there could be 5000 people trying
to park in the area around Regent Cinema! This is a great reason to build a local car park.
Parking for
people using
venues in
Lydiard St
6000
4000
2000
0
Car Parks people capacity
People using venues in
Lydiard St
Parking for Regent Cinema
Goers
1500
1450
1400
1350
1300
1250
1200
1
Car Parks
people capacity
1467
People going to
movies (max)
1300
Solution to the Problem
The optimal solution to the
Lydiard St parking problem is to
take down the disused Civic Hall
and build a multistory car park
there to accommodate the
thousands of people that use the
facilities in this area. It will
roughly double the amount of
car parks, as it contains 580 car
parking spaces, in the area and is
within easy walking distance of
the movies and bars. If the
majority of the car parking for
the area is at 300 Mair Street,
and more street lights are
installed along the walking
route, getting to and from your
car would be so much safer. If
you double the amount of street lights all over the parking area, safety would practically
double as well. There is a small 30 space car park directly behind the movies, and making a
back door through to the cinema would improve safety and raise awareness of the fact that
there is a free car park right behind where people are going most.
The Project’s Implications
The car park and street lighting solution to the safety and capacity for parking on Lydiard St
shouldn’t have too many implications, because we’re not developing land especially for the car
park or the street lights. The car park is being built on a site which has had a building on it for a
long time, and the street lights are being built on streets where there is hopefully electricity
there. It is the closest place where there is free land to build the car park on, and it resolves a
public debate. The adding of street lights may affect traffic for a short time during
construction, and might run into problems with electricity, but this shouldn’t happen. People
may have limited access to parking near the Library during the construction of the car park,
but there is still plenty of alternative parking in and around that area. Environmental
implications will be minor, since work is being done on already urban land. The only
greenhouse gas emissions are coming from the little extra electricity that it being used by both
the car park and street lights.
The Project’s Cost
My solution will incur these costs, taken from contracts that were not done in Ballarat:
Demolition Cost for 1-2 level Offices (Civic Hall): $82 per sq meter
2728.15m2: Civic hall surface area = $22,370
Build Cost for 6 storey 580 space car park: $14,227,238.80
Maintenance cost per space (yearly): $275
Cost per streetlight (excluding running cost): $5,500 est.
Demolition of Civic Hall
$22,370
0.2%
Build Cost for Car Park
$14,227,238.80
98.4%
Maintenance cost per year
$159,500
1.1%
Streetlights x 9
$49,000
0.3%
Cinema Back Door (estimate) $1000
Sub-total
.0007%
$14,459,108.8
Cost over 10 years (1 year of $15,894,608.8
construction)
Funding will be provided mostly by the City of Ballarat Council, as they will be very happy of
the safety increases, and partly by the many businesses around the area that will benefit from
the changes.