The Council regularly receives complaints about vehicles parking on footpaths. It was also raised by several submitters to the Parking Policy review, including Living Streets Aotearoa, Mt Victoria Residents Association and Creswick Valley Residents Association.

Under the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004, a driver or person in charge of a vehicle must not stop, stand or park the vehicle on a footpath. Parking on footpaths is an offence.

At a Council meeting on 22 September 2005 the Strategy and Policy Committee agreed to guidelines to specifically target no footpath parking in the central area and suburban centres (as defined by the District Plan) and agreed that outside of these two areas, a ‘reasonable footpath space’ must be available for pedestrian thoroughfare. The enforcement practice was to allow one metre. The Committee also agreed to no footpath parking by trucks or other large vehicles.

It has been more than 15 years since this guideline was agreed. Parking demand and car ownership rates have increased, leading to more vehicles parked on the street. There are new types of users of footpaths, such as e-scooters and other types of micro-mobility, that is adding to footpath congestion in some places. This in turn is causing more accessibility challenges and risks for footpath users. However, when vehicles park on one or both sides of some of Wellington's narrow, winding streets emergency and service vehicles are unable to get through.

In order to reduce public confusion about the legality of parking on footpaths and improve safety and accessibility for pedestrians and other footpath users the Council agreed to revoke the agreement to part 2(b) of the September 2005 guideline.

This means Parking Officers can apply judgement and some level of discretion on all cases of footpath parking outside the central city and suburban centres, prioritising the safe movement of people on footpaths over the parking of vehicles on the street.

On narrow streets where emergency vehicles and access by service and delivery vehicles is compromised the Council could consider:

• installing broken yellow lines to stop people parking on one or both sides of the road
• installing signs reminding drivers it is an offence to park on the footpath
• making some parts of a street one-way or prioritise one-way traffic movement
• removing footpaths that do not provide access to properties or other services where there is adequate and suitable footpaths on the opposite side of the road
• adding new parking management, such as time restrictions or designated parking, in nearby locations to ensure residents and their visitors can access properties.

These measures may result in residents not being able to park in the road immediately outside their homes and will increase costs to Council to install and maintain the new traffic management devices. Therefore, the Council are seeking your ideas of how the impacts of the change in enforcement practice could be best managed on streets where parking vehicles on the footpath was commonplace.