The smallest parking spaces around Orange have been revealed, with some so tiny they're breaching national standards.
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On Monday, April 6, Central Western Daily journalist Riley Krause took a walk around the CBD and measured the width of 45 random car spaces from 15 car parks to determine which were the tightest squeeze and which gave drivers plenty of room.
What he discovered not only showed there was a wide size gap throughout the different car parks, but also a noticeable difference between spaces within the same parking lots.
With three parking spaces measured at each parking lot, the biggest margin of difference came at the Peisley Street car park next to Aldi. Their smallest measured space came in at 272cm and the largest at 294cm.
Combined with another space 286cm wide and Peisley Street car park holds the title for widest spots around the CBD.
For context, Standards Australia, an independent, non-government, not-for-profit standards organisation, currently lists the national dimension requirements for on and off-street parking spaces as 240cm wide and 540cm long.
In other words, if you manage to nab a spot in Peisley Street then there's a good chance you'll have plenty of room to navigate.
The use of the Australian standard is only voluntary for planning authorities and local councils. It typically does not apply retrospectively, meaning facilities that are installed and in use will not need to change automatically on the publication of new standards.
Standards Australia uses generic design vehicles to determine the sizing and manoeuvrability requirements of a carpark and vehicles like the Chevrolet Silverado 1500, Ford F-150, and RAM 1500 which measure around 600cm long do not fit.
In saying that, the CWD study showed that four parking lots around the Orange CBD have multiple spaces not meeting the Australian standard based purely by width.
These are North Peisley car park, the Coles/Kmart undercover area accessed by Byng Street, the Railway car park and the McNamara Street/Kite Street lot which had the smallest average width of any measured with 233cm and included one space that measured just 223cm.
Responding to these results, a spokesman for Orange Council reiterated that the Australian Standard provides guidance when new spaces were created.
"It is not as simple as one size fits all and there are variations in the standard depending on the type of park such as parallel, angled, within a parking lot or on street," the spokesman said.
"Under standards there can also be variations in widths in different timed areas. Some spaces in Orange predate the current standard."
All parking spaces measured were within parking lots and were perpendicular.
Below are the full results, listing the parking lots with the highest average width of space to the lowest:
- Peisley Street car park - 272cm, 294cm and 286cm - Average 284cm
- Central Square over ground Anson St car park - 253cm, 253cm and 258cm - Average 255cm
- Anson/Sale Street car park - 247cm, 257cm and 255cm - Average 253cm
- Little Summer Street car park - 254cm, 247cm and 251cm - Average 251cm
- Peisley/Byng Street car park - 252cm, 252cm and 247cm - Average 250cm
- Orange City Centre car park - 250cm, 250cm and 250cm - Average 250cm
- Summer Centre car park - 250cm, 250cm and 250cm - Average 250cm
- Ophir car park - 249cm, 249cm and 249cm - Average 249cm
- Sale Street car park - 250cm, 250cm and 245cm - Average 248cm
- Aldi car park - 241cm, 251cm and 250cm - Average 247cm
- Civic car park - 243cm, 245cm and 254cm - Average 247cm
- North Peisley car park - 238cm, 239cm and 239cm - Average 246cm
- Coles/Kmart under cover Byng Street car park - 232cm, 231cm and 273cm - Average 245cm
- Railway car park - 239cm, 234cm and 250cm - Average 241cm
- McNamara Street/Kite Street car park - 223cm, 241cm and 236cm - Average 233cm