A period of feedback on the Dunedin City Council’s trial ended yesterday and the council expects to have a summary by the end of next week.
If the trial proved successful, the council will consider closing the area permanently from the middle of the year.
Feedback to the Otago Daily Times during the trial was largely positive but at least one tour operator is against the move. Bookatour operator Bex Hill said although it was nice to take a photo in front of the station without and buses and cars, it was not practical for tourism operators dropping off and picking up clients.
"Some of our clients won’t or can’t even walk 10m into the [Dunedin] botanic gardens, so walking however far it is from in front of the [Toitu] museum isn’t practical at all."
During the trial, the council opened up 10 car-parking spaces to be used for bus parking in Anzac Ave, but any permanent closure would maintain the number of on-street car parks.
But Ms Hill said the parking provided for buses was not enough and too far away.
"When you’ve got coach after coach of tourists with you and you’re trying to drop them off on 10 car parking spaces there’s no way we can get our clients off there and back on."
Ms Hill said she had not gone to the council with her feedback but she also was not approached by the council before or after the trial.
A council spokeswoman said information about the trial was sent to a wide range of stakeholders and the council did its best to reach bus companies and tour operators likely to be affected by the trial.
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If I remember correctly, Ms. Hill was a fierce critic of Port Otago's plans to limit tour operators access to cruise ship passengers after problems with poor behaviour from competing companies.
Keep it closed permanently,sounds like her customers should be taking a tour of a retirement home instead.
They already have one. The cruise ship they arrived on.
Age or physical disability may seem amusing to you, however to many neither are laughing matters. Access has to be for all.
Hopefully this lady will be outvoted by the feedback from thousands of tourists whose photographs of our beautiful railway station haven't been blighted by vehicles parked in front of it.
DCC have set anti car policies and take every opportunity to impede upon vehicle use. They only ever remove car parking.
News for DCC, most tourists, be they from cruise ships or otherwise, are travelling by vehicle, not push bike. They are also on tight time tables. Spending longer walking from remote bus / car parks to Dunedins "attractions" means many will just skip those "attractions".
The more they skip, the worse Dunedins reputation becomes and DCC will have successfully torpedoed their so call tourism growth targets.
DCC need to wake up to the negative impacts of their short sighted policies. There is too much money being wasted on bike ways while basic infrastructure is being ignored. Just see the flooding caused by inadequate drainage that occurred this week.