Media Statement: Making parking work for everyone

Published on 17 December 2025

Making parking work for everyone

The City of Burnside has launched the Good Neighbour Parking initiative to encourage residents and visitors to be considerate when parking on Burnside’s streets.

City of Burnside CEO, Julia Grant, said that issues and concerns about parking are one of the main complaints that Council receives from residents and visitors.

‘Leading into the busy holiday period, Council has launched our positive Good Neighbour Parking initiative to encourage a sense of neighbourliness and consideration when parking in our streets,’ Ms Grant said.

‘We aim to make parking work for everyone,’ Ms Grant said. ‘These days, cars are bigger, there are more on the road and over half of households now have two or more vehicles, which makes parking on our local streets a lot trickier’.

The campaign features bright and colourful postcards that will be delivered to all properties in the inner city suburbs of Rose Park, Dulwich and Eastwood, and the streets surrounding Burnside Village; locations that all experience high-demand for on-street parking. Vehicles parked in these areas will also receive a postcard placed on their windscreen to remind them of some of the Australian Road Rules and local restrictions in a light-hearted way.

‘On-street parking is a shared public space for everyone’, Ms Grant said, ‘our residents, visitors and businesses all depend on it, and Council’s role is to manage this space fairly and safely’.

‘With more cars on the road and bigger vehicles than ever before, parking has become a challenge that requires everyone’s cooperation and shared responsibility,’ Ms Grant said.

‘While this initiative is only a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to traffic and parking management, it can go a long way to diffusing rising tensions on our roads,’ Ms Grant said.

The Good Neighbour Parking initiative is part of Council’s flagship Love where you Live campaign that will infuse a sense of positive optimism in the city. It is an overarching campaign to engage the community in upcoming key work such as the Local Housing Strategy, Good Neighbour Parking campaign, City Masterplan Code amendments as well as attracting residents to enrol to vote and/or become a candidate at the next Local Government elections.

ENDS

Background

Many of the streets in Burnside were planned in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when horse-drawn vehicles and very early motor cars were the norm, long before the modern traffic volumes and large vehicles that now exceed the original design intent of our local streets.

Households today often own more than one vehicle. While the national average is about 1.8 cars per household, over half of households have two or more vehicles.

Australia’s vehicle numbers and sizes have grown significantly in recent years, putting pressure on public road space. SUVs and light commercial vehicles now account for around 80 per cent of new car sales, while passenger cars have fallen to about 14 per cent. Popular models like the Toyota Rav4 have increased by nearly 90cm in length and 16cm in width since the 1990s, while dual-cab utes such as the Ford Ranger now exceed 5.3m in length.

RAA’s 2024 road rules quiz revealed that many drivers misunderstand basic parking rules. Only 37 per cent of respondents/drivers knew that they must leave a 3m gap when parking opposite another car, and just 22 per cent knew the correct minimum 1m gap for parallel parking without marked bays. These mistakes can block access and create issues for road users, emergency services and waste collection.

More information about on-street parking in the City of Burnside can be found here.