2. Australian Road Rule 208
(7) If the road does not have a continuous dividing line or a
dividing strip, the driver must position the vehicle so there is at
least 3 metres of the road alongside the vehicle that is clear for
other vehicles to pass, unless otherwise indicated by information
on or with a parking control sign.
(8) The driver must position the vehicle so the vehicle does not
unreasonably obstruct the path of other vehicles or pedestrians.
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3. What is a Narrow Road?
– 7m wide Road or less.
– 30% of Burnside Local Roads are Narrow.
– One of Burnsides most common traffic complaints
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All the red lines are Burnside streets which are narrow (7m wide or less)
John St Eastwood. No room for verge widening and lots of old cottage homes with limited off street parking.
We actually don’t police this narrow roads as there would no where for residents to park their cars.
3m rule exists so that larger vehicles like Fire Trucks and Garbage Trucks can safely drive the street with damaging parked cars.
Narrow roads can create anger and frustration between neighbours.
In the past if we had lots of complaints about cars parking opposite each other and not leaving enough room then we would consult to ban one side of the road.
However by Banning one side you create a drag strip for hoons
More recently we have began to Stagger parking which creates a natural traffic calming affect by forcing cars to drive around parked vehicles hence speeding speeds.
However during Consultation you find that all residents want the banned parking on the opposite side of the road to their house so that they can still park in front of their house.
Roads that are within the suburbs compared to the ones fronting an arterial road are considered different.
This is because the local roads are generally just residents and their visitors
Where as the ones that from a major road sometimes have staff.
The more efficient approach that Burnside has began to take is to send a letter to all residents. The letter lets residents know that they live on a narrow road and the Road Rules associated with parking opposite and leaving a 3m gap.
When it is a local road within a suburb with no additional traffic generator besides residential homes, This letter generally has a positive effort on parking.
This also saves Council on Signage and line marking as well as monitoring those restrictions.
When the narrow road is closer to a major road and has additional traffic generators (like businesses) the letter approach doesn’t necessary reach all the people who are parking on the street. Therefore we decided to come up with a traffic sign to inform drivers
Got sent a photo of a Narrow street sign from Campbelltown Council by a residents a few years. We copied it and placed it on some local street on a rotating basis. Worked well will they were up and they when it got moved to the next street the rules got forgotten about again.
We Modified the sign for Burnside. The Fines bit is more a bluff.
Has had a great effect on approx. 90% of the streets we place this sign,
Have had a the odd street in which the letter and signs didn’t work which meant we have to ban parking on one side of the street (staggered) however its definitely improve the way we go about dealing with narrow streets and given us more options and generally keeps residents happy as they can all still park in front of their house (as long as there is a car opposite there first).