Hairmyers Station Car park is owned and operated by East Kilbride Council, and is slightly unusual in that there is a daily charge of £1, Monday to Saturday - 8am - 6pm (All other times are free), despite this the car park is usually full by the end of the peak and many rail users park in the Hospital Car Park, this results in visitors to the hospital having difficulty finding spaces. There are buses that terminate at Hairmyers but there are next to none from the growing residential areas of Jackton and Eaglesham.
You got me curious and looking up Eaglesham on a map. And at bus times.
I can see that in the morning there are buses from Eaglesham to Hairmyres station only every hour, a few extra in the peak.
But assuming people are going into Glasgow, there are also buses from Eaglesham either right into to town, or with a change onto the train at Clarkston. Looks like effectively every half hour or so.
That's not a great frequency - but we are comparing it to driving to Hairmyres, to pick up a half hourly service there. Looks like driving to Hairmyres, parking and getting on the train is not really going to be any quicker than taking a bus from Eaglesham.
I know that Eaglesham was just one example. But, I wonder how many of the people that currently drive and park at Hairmyres really don't have any alternative option that would involve leaving the car at home?
Moving the station to somewhere where it can have a large and convenient car park does seem to be something that will only encourage more people to drive. Whereas perhaps the investment could be put into increasing bus frequency (along with raising car parking charges). As far as the hospital car park is concerned, aren't there ways of discouraging commuters using it? Would a maximum stay length of, say, 6 hours make it unusable for commuters but also work for hospital visitors?