Spinning the four-wheel parking spiral

It seemed a good idea to walk up to the National Art School for the Graduation Show. The convict-quarried sandstone walls of the old gaol shelter are an idyllic environment for training artists: Imperial outpost of rough Justice as PoMo showcase for Art.  And free drinks are served on opening night.

I was to meet a friend, Ms Mischa, at the corner of Forbes and Burton but had reckoned without her arriving in one of those smaller four-wheel drive vehicles so suitable for ripping round the inner-city.  No problem. I jumped in and suggested finding somewhere to dump the motor. Naïve. It’s a long time since I went looking for a legal spot on a busy Thursday night.

We were not the only petrol-burner out and about. As we trawled every street in Darlinghurst it dawned on me [at dusk, strangely] that our local labyrinth of one-way streets, random turning bans and road closures, evolved to stop sex-trade kerb crawlers, have resulted in improbable parades of desperate punters prowling for parking.

Perhaps those short-skirted girls I have seen negotiating their way into cars are but pilots to precious private places to park. And “40, 60, 80, ya cost-cuttin’ bitch” screeched down Bourke Street in the early hours, was not protest at a cheap half-hourly rate but about parking tariffs.

Anyhow, we stop-started our way around the neighbourhood, spiralling about 6 kms before finding someone vacating a superb location in Liverpool Street. It is unlikely any Christmas present will bring such joy.

Now I know why the residents of Woolloomooloo don’t move their cars on weekends. And why the citizens of Bourke Street are so annoyed about losing parking to the Separated Bi-Directional Cycleway.

It is all very well for Clover to believe there should be fewer cars in Her town [Her city? Her state seat? Her villages?] but merely eliminating parking spaces is not a very clever green option when it forces motorists round and round our blocks churning carbon footprints into great big fat butt-prints.

by Peter Whitehead