So you think trucks are taking over Sydney street parking? You’re not alone

Sydney’s biggest motorsport track and land around Pyrmont’s Fish Market site could be turned into overnight truck parking zones in a bid to solve a sharp rise in suburban car park battles unfolding in residential streets.

Bold solutions are being considered in response to a citywide shortage of dedicated heavy vehicle parking sites, resulting in more truckies using suburban areas to keep their big rigs at night.

In Blacktown Council LGA alone, the number of resident complaints about trucks illegally parked in residential on-street parking spaces has soared to 2170 in the past financial year – a 43 per cent rise on the previous year.

Blacktown councillor Peter Camilleri said complaints have included gripes about trucks reversing in and out of streets at the crack of dawn, drivers running refrigeration motors “all night”, and leaving behind rubbish, including oil drums, on the sides of roads.

“We’ve also had complaints of trucks illegally parked across multiple on-street car parking spaces, leaving residents with nowhere to park their own cars, and it’s causing a fiasco,” Camilleri said.

Blacktown Council, in response to the complaints, is in talks with the Sydney Motorsport Park and Sydney Dragway about a proposal to allow up to 600 trucks to park within unused areas of the raceways at night.

A spokeswoman for the Sydney Motorsport Park confirmed raceway operators are considering the proposal, noting any deal would be subject to the availability of the site and “only in areas that do not affect the circuit and its operations”.

Road Freight NSW has also approached the NSW government and City of Sydney Council on a plan to create more truck parking sites within inner Sydney – potentially around the Sydney Fish Market’s site at Pyrmont, which is due for closure later this year as part of the site’s redevelopment.

Road Freight NSW chief executive Simon O’Hara said the shortage of heavy vehicle parking bays has become one of the greatest challenges facing the industry, and the effects were being felt across the supply chain.

He said key factors fuelling demand include industry regulations requiring drivers to abide by strict driving hours and rest periods, along with a rise in owner-operator heavy vehicles that lack access to on-site parking afforded to heavy vehicles operated by larger freight and logistics companies.

“Because of the decades of underinvestment to address the parking shortage, drivers are spending huge amounts of time trying to find somewhere to park, and that’s having an impact on operating costs and efficiencies,” O’Hara said.

Truck driver Jeffrey Johnston, owner of Johnstons Transport based in Marrickville, said the shortage of truck bays in inner Sydney had been a perennial problem.

“There’s also been an increase in trucks required for the construction sector and big infrastructure projects, and they’re having to navigate narrow streets with very few sites where they can safely park after delivering loads,” he said.

While NSW road laws prohibit trucks weighing more than 4.5 tonnes or measuring longer than 7.5 metres from parking in built-up areas for longer than one hour, Fairfield Mayor Frank Carbone said many drivers were “willing to cop” the $114 fine rather than pay for private parking.

He said that fining illegally parked trucks was “challenging” for councils to enforce as rangers were required to “go out at night, mark the tyres of trucks, then come back to fine them”.

The calls for a solution follow a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the heavy vehicle sector last year that found a “significant gap between the number of rest areas currently available” in NSW to ensure heavy vehicle drivers can have spaces to safely park, check loads and effectively manage fatigue.

The NSW government, in its response to the inquiry, said it was working with the federal government to develop a dedicated heavy vehicle rest area at Eastern Creek, adding that it was “committed to working with the road freight industry to improve the capacity and design of heavy vehicle rest areas across the state”.

In other parts of Sydney, the Bronte Resident Precinct community group has called on Waverley Council to join forces with other local government bodies to lobby the NSW government for increased penalties for trucks illegally parked in built-up areas.

Meanwhile, Cumberland Council will release a report in November outlining potential locations for trucks to park at night to solve a shortage of spaces in that local government area.

The NSW parliamentary inquiry also called for new regulations requiring industrial developments to provide a dedicated percentage of land for overnight truck parking, but the NSW government in its response said those regulations “would be challenging and costly to implement”.

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