Almost all respondents owned a car, with most households having two cars. Most park their cars on their property overnight, but 21% parking partly or solely on the street. Almost all respondents with a car hold a Bayside parking permit, with most households holding two permits. 12% held a disabled parking permit, with the most common feedback on the disabled parking permit system being that it worked fairly or well (25%).

Car was the most common form of transport around Bayside, with almost all respondents (94%) travelling by car at least some of the time, followed by walking (74%), cycling (27%), and train (15%). The most common factors that would encourage additional travel by methods other than private car were improvements to public transport (38%), improvements to bike paths (13%), and more parking at stations (10%).

Car travel decreased substantially (62% net decreased), and walking increased significantly (58% net increased) during COVID-19. Respondents were split in terms of whether transport patterns would return to pre-pandemic patterns (31% yes, 27% no, 28% unsure, and 14% said their patterns did not change during COVID-19).

Parking availability was most important to respondents in shopping precincts (73%), followed by the beach and foreshore (49%), on the street outside their property (42%), and commuter parking near stations (36%).

The average ease of parking was highest for parking at parks and reserves (6.96 out of 10), followed by beach and foreshore (5.92), residential streets (5.51), on the street outside their property (4.83), at shopping precincts (4.75), outside schools (4.32), and most difficult for commuter parking near train stations (3.25).

The most common action of respondents when they can’t find parking in the areas important to them was to park further away and walk the distance (41%), or to drive around till they find parking (14%). Respondents were relatively split in terms of whether they would consider alternative transport modes if parking was unavailable with 21% highly likely and 27% highly unlikely to seek alternatives.

The five most common actions that respondents say Council could do to improve their satisfaction with parking availability in the most important areas were to provide more parking spaces, car parks, and on-street parking (19%), more permits for residents / more resident only parking (17%), more time-limited parking (10%), more multi-storey or underground car parking (9%), and more parking patrols and enforcement (9%).

Respondents were asked to rate their support for seven ideas about parking in Bayside. The average agreement (from 0 strongly oppose to 10 strongly agree) with these seven ideas is summarised as follows:

o Moderate Support – for allocating some public parking spaces in shopping precincts to people with particular needs (6.44).

o Mild Support – for increasing the number of disabled permit parking spaces in shopping precincts (5.94) and for creating pedestrian only areas in major shopping precincts (5.92).

o Neutral to Mildly Oppose – for supporting car share services (4.88), converting parking spaces to electric vehicle charging stations (4.86), and allocating public parking spaces to create protected bike lanes (4.77).

o Moderately Opposed – for converting car parking spaces into public open space (3.28).

The most common feedback provided by respondents that they wanted Council to consider in the Parking Strategy were around new developments including adequate off-street parking (9.5%), more off-street parking (9.2%), more on-street parking around activity centres (7.2%), reduce the amount of parking or the number of cars (6.6%), consideration for persons with disability / special needs (5.0%), issues or suggestions around parking permits (5.0%), parking enforcement (4.4%), and change/review parking rules and restrictions (4.1%).