35 Reallocate road space from private to public use

Road space is not only occupied by moving vehicles. Nationally, the average car spends 96% of its time parked up and 27% of cars are parked on public roads (probably higher in York). As a result, many people seem to think that they have a right to park in the street outside their house, indeed some consider it to be an exclusive right. But think about this for a minute: the right of a person to store their private property on public land?

The reality is that on-street parking is a privilege, albeit one that we take for granted. But in a densely packed city like York, where space is at a premium, we should not be so complacent about this public asset. There are places along the sides of busy roads where we really need to remove parking spaces to make way for desperately needed cycle lanes. For those who have enjoyed this privilege for many years, it may be a tough call so it needs to be done with sensitivity and imagination, but mitigations can be made (in some cases change might only come about with a change of property tenure, for example). But change it must as there’s no reason why most people can’t walk to their cars in a side street or a central hub. We have a powerful tool to regulate parking in York: it’s called a Residents Parking Zone (Respark).

The convenience of small pockets of residents shouldn’t be allowed to override the safety of thousands of cyclists or to undermine a city-wide active transport strategy that stands to benefit us all.

Can you have a cycle lane without double yellow lines? Apparently so in York. Note that all these houses have off-street parking!