malcolmw wrote:
If there is a demand for free parking for the train, shops or whatever then provide it in abundance. This all stimulates the economy and makes everything more efficient. Parking to go to work is not abuse. It's a legitimate requirement which people ought to expect to be made available if there is high demand.
The "social engineers" in Government/Councils want you to cycle or take public transport and don't seem to realise that their policies are killing commercial activity.
What is the thing that is always said about out-of-town shopping centres? "Its the free parking and convenience at malls which is killing off town centres." The answer is obvious (and it's not to charge for parking at shopping centres).
Totally agree that free parking on town centres should be widespread throughout the UK although what happens in major cities ? Would locals not end up using a free carpark as a garage ? How best to deal with this ? Time restrict to a 13 hr window or so ?
Re 'abuse' ... I was thinking about un-intended use of a car park, as a 'private garage', but also where built in the town to 'shop or use a service or facility' ... which whilst including PT they really ought to have better parking of their own. And this was my point about abuse through lack of other parking ! Some areas are ok, but parking for PT can be very expensive and adds to the expense of tickets !
We have been encouraged to use PT but the time factor to use such is rarely considered or helped - like with good parking.
Perhaps driving further out of town to some larger car parks would help relieve some parking strain on the nearer car parks but again wastes peoples time and adds traffic to the roads.
Train parking ought to be included more for all stations (nearby as possible). Some car parks allow for long stay for this purpose. It surely just needs to be properly catered for. I agree more would use PT if parking allowances were better & free !
Of course if employers also helped staff by providing flexi hours so people can share, the one car in families, or to ease car share between employees and even with neighbouring business. So times of work help car share (once trust is built).
One place I recently looked at buying where there was no parking even for my car, the agent suggested that I ask the neighbouring property, that I buy a tiny piece of land and offer them £5000 so that I could park just one car ! He thought that was also a perfectly fair price ! I was astounded and asked OK but where do my visitors park? No answer! I didn't buy the property.
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). Then there's the common problem with pedestrians . It is a pedestrian /mixed area so why can't pedestrians extend the same courtesy to cars that drivers give to them . The time of exclusion has already been raised withnthe County counciller in charhe of highways on safety grounds . Surprise ,surprise , there's been a few near misses ,so that got thrown out . ( along with the head of local councillor's dummy), he ranted and raved and it's gone back for a decision . So there you have democracy ( TownHall style) in action .I suspect it's more to do with the income from the car parks, as onewith reserved council spaces is loosing the reserved spaces . He's also had a dig at the shared parking attendants not doing their job properly . Again is this a ploy to get local council parking attendants ( and the income) ?. Next ,I'm waiting to see if they attack the stream of blue badge hooders who park on the double yellows next to one car park .They could let blus badge holders park free ,instead of giving them an extra hour .
