Parking out of pocket Ian Royall and Glenn Mitchell Herald Sun April 08, 2008
COMMUTERS are paying as much as $28 a day to park in the city centre - even on discounted early-bird rates.
But commuters can also find a relative bargain with a cheapest daily park available for $10.
A Herald Sun survey of 70 car park sites in the CBD found the average cost for weekday parking between 8.30am and 5.30pm was about $14.
Short-term stays were expensive to the point of prohibitive: a one-hour stop ranged from $4 at RMIT on Victoria St to $18.50 at 570 Bourke St.
The cheapest daily rate, $10, could be found at the Grand Hyatt in Russell St, the Melbourne Convention Centre at the western end of Flinders St and at 522 Flinders St.
Most of central Melbourne's car parks are run by two private operators -- Secure Parking and Wilson Parking.
The city council also runs two sites, at City Square and Council House.
As motorists continue to be hit by high parking charges, some commuters are using free spaces at major shopping centres and taking public transport to work.
Free parking is available at many shopping centres including Chadstone and Highpoint in Maribyrnong.
Chadstone centre manager Stephen Dewaele said motorists could use the centre's 9000-strong car park and then commute to work.
"Obviously the bulk of car spaces are used by shoppers but the spaces can be used by commuters," he said.
Bayside Shopping Centre in Frankston charged between 75c and $8 for parking because it was a transport hub.
Centre manager Matthew Norden said commuters regularly used the car park, which was close to rail and buses.
"It is a major transport interchange hub with rail and buses so it's treated much like the CBD, so that's why the charges are in place," he said.
The high cost of city centre parking is in line with the expense of short-term stays at Melbourne airport, which will be monitored by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
An airport spokesman yesterday agreed the cost of parking at Tullamarine was more expensive than Heathrow in London or JFK in New York.
But he claimed Melbourne had the cheapest airport parking prices of all capital city airports in Australia.
"When you look at seven-day parking or two-week parking, we are cheaper than every other airport in Australia's capital cities," he said.
Melbourne has the second-highest parking charges in the country, with a short stay costing motorists $10, compared with $4 in Adelaide.
It was more expensive than Heathrow, the world's busiest airport, with parking costing $8.50, and $6.55 at JFK.
Melbourne airport contracts out its parking division to Secure Parking, but sets the prices for all spaces there.
The public outcry over the charges was echoed by some hire car operators, who are forced to pay up to $100 a day in short-term parking.
A driver for one company told the Herald Sun that he had to pay exorbitant short-term parking prices or face getting hit with a $66 on-the-spot fine.