Battle for parking at Cardiff to continue


28th September 2018

 Source: Newcastle Herald | By: Max McKinney | Posted: September 28, 2018

WALLSEND MP Sonia Hornery says the state government’s failure to act on parking issues at Cardiff train station “is dogging our commuters and turning them off using public transport”.
Ms Hornery made the comments in state parliament on Thursday during the continuation of a motion debate regarding the station’s long-running parking woes.  
The motion, which was defeated, urged the Transport Minister to “address and improve parking issues at Cardiff Railway Station as a matter of urgency”.
Ms Hornery moved the motion in April, after commuters were fined by Lake Macquarie council for parking on vacant land near the station. 
The fines were withdrawn by the council after a public outcry. 
“Over 300,000 commuters use the station each year and more people want to use it but they are frustrated getting to the station,” Ms Hornery said in parliament. 
Member for Drummoyne, John Sidoti, said the government was improving public transport “seat by seat, electorate by electorate, street by street”. 
“Cardiff station was upgraded under the TAP [Transport Access Program] program in 2013,” he said. 
Mr Sidoti said the government “had constructed new car parks where possible” across the state’s train network and it “updates stations on basis of need”. 
Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper said “people who commute from the area, can’t actually park in the area”. 
He said any future work “needs to be a holistic package” and pushed the long-touted Lake Macquarie Transport Interchange at Glendale.
He said building the interchange would “take so much of the demand off [Cardiff] and get Cardiff working more appropriately”.
Cardiff train station is located near the corners of three state electorates: Lake Macquarie, Charlestown and Wallsend. 
“We’re all in this together, I want to see people using public transport,” Mr Piper said.  
Ms Hornery later added a “new station at Glendale would massively reduce the pressure on Cardiff and a modern station could be built with adequate transport linkages and parking facilities”.
She said Cardiff train station was “the key point of connection with Sydney” for residents of Wallsend and Newcastle’s western suburbs.
“But for all those people who travel down to metropolitan areas from the western suburbs for work, appointments and leisure, the only place for parking, once the small car park is full, is in the surrounding residential streets,” she said. 
“Cardiff is the third busiest Station in the Hunter, outside of Broadmeadow and the Wickham Interchange and the people who use it to commute long distances to work deserve better parking facilities.


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