Car park entry a change of direction

A major change to one of Hamilton’s busiest car parks gets its first green light this weekend as part of the CityHeart project.

From Saturday, 3 December, vehicles using the Garden Place car park will now only enter and exit the facility on Anglesea Street, where new traffic signals have been installed and tested, and new traffic islands are in place. There will no longer be entry from Alexandra Street.

The new traffic controls and road markings will allow vehicles travelling either direction on Anglesea St to turn into the Garden Place car park entry. The Garden Place car park experiences an average of 500 vehicle movements per day.

The CityHeart project is driven by a need to connect and enhance the central city's future development. Work on Garden Place and the surrounding area is an important aspect of the project.

CityHeart Project Manager Jason Harrison said the opening of the Garden Place car park’s Anglesea Street entrance coincided with the closure of the Alexandra Street entrance and the start of work on a shared space connecting Alexandra Street with Worley Place in 2012.

“The concept behind the shared space is the creation of a pedestrianised space that allows movement of vehicles between Worley Place and Alexandra Street in a low-speed environment,” Mr Harrison said.

The shared space aspect of the CityHeart project requires the demolition of the Peace Wall at the western end of Garden Place. The Peace Wall’s handmade tiles have already been removed and are in storage pending re-use, and the removal of the main wall structure is expected to take several weeks.

The old carpark entrance will then be in-filled before levelling and paving of the shared space begins. Work to complete the shared space is scheduled for completion in May-June 2012.