Trouble up North - Car Parking.

[Bletchleyite]

I'm not sure if its motivation, but its more difficult to get a business case to spend £20k on a parking space to stack up, if revenue is zero as opposed to revenue of £2k a year.

The argument is that it creates fares revenue, but the problem with that is that the typically shorter journeys you get in the North compared with the South means that fares revenue is typically low. You can't expect to justify the car parking expenditure on the basis of a few extra season tickets costing maybe under £5 per day.

The South East is maybe different, because most of the travel is to London, and only mad people drive into London. That being the case, the travel would mostly occur by train regardless of the parking situation, therefore considering parking as a completely separate cost/profit centre is sensible.

 

[Thomas6187]

Rochdale's car park, which opened a couple of years ago, is starting to get full earlier. Recently the roads around the station have being painted with double yellow lines forcing people into the car park

 

[Cheshire Rover]

The argument is that it creates fares revenue, but the problem with that is that the typically shorter journeys you get in the North compared with the South means that fares revenue is typically low. You can't expect to justify the car parking expenditure on the basis of a few extra season tickets costing maybe under £5 per day.

The South East is maybe different, because most of the travel is to London, and only mad people drive into London. That being the case, the travel would mostly occur by train regardless of the parking situation, therefore considering parking as a completely separate cost/profit centre is sensible.

It is a good point. I think nothing of the £12 at Runcorn to park for the day when I travel to London because my company is paying . However the cost of travelling into Manchester by train is already more expensive that going in by car (company car so not tax, insurance etc) so if excessive parking fees were introduced then driving is a no brainer.

 

[Gathursty]

Garswood is a nightmare. Tiny station approach road with barely enough room to do a three point turn, leading to an uphill reverse to get back out again.

 

[ashworth]

They pay more than that at Leeds station, and have been happily almost filling the Wakefield Westgate multistorey at £10 a day for years now. We don't need another North/South thread.

I would imagine that most people who are paying high prices to park at Leeds station are probably making long distance journeys to London etc. I don't know about Wakefield Westgate whether many commuters regularly travel into Leeds paying £10 a day to park.

More locally to me many people commute from Chesterfield the short distance into Shefffield but again I'm not convinced many park at the station each day paying £11.50. Probably Chesterfield station car park is more used by people doing longer distance journeys. I've occasionally paid to use it when travelling longer distances but if I'm just going into Sheffield I use the X17 bus as I wouldn't pay £11.50 to park when I'm only going into Sheffield.

 

[philthetube]

Maybe car park operators should introduce small car spaces at reduced cost.

 

[Kite159]

Down south, My local station (Grateley) has had it's car park extended 3 times in the past 15 years, and still is pretty much full by half seven on a weekday.

The local council has put in a Controlled Parking Zone for the streets around the station as commuters were dumping their cars on the side of the main access road, however all that has happened is those commuters dump their cars on the side of the road just outside the CPZ as they know if they dare park on unmarked ground in the station car-park the parasites known as CP Plus Parking will soon give them a ticket.

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Andover has another deck added to its car park last year and I believe Basingstoke has had a large multi-storey car park built, not mentioning the additional car parking spaces at Winchester, Fleet & Brookwood.

 

[robbeech]

Up here, Dore is generally full by sunrise (others on the route like Chinley have already been mentioned but i have never seen the car park there).

Down south, Shepperton has a small handful of spaces which i've never been able to get into. Sunnymeads seems to have a fair few people boarding in a morning, i'm not sure where they park, perhaps they walk. Nearby Wraysbury does have a car park which is very reasonably priced at £2 per day (cheaper than lots of northern stations for those complaining about the price, Ashford Middlesex is another inexpensive example))

 

[mwmbwls]

Up here, Dore is generally full by sunrise (others on the route like Chinley have already been mentioned but i have never seen the car park there).

On the south side of Chinley station just before the footbridge if travelling from Sheffield. "Bijou" is the term I believe estate agents would apply to it.

 

[Kendalian]

Article today about Virgin's increases at Oxenholme.

http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co...ark_price_rises_at_Oxenholme_Railway_Station/

RAIL travellers have criticised Virgin Trains for ‘rip-off’ price rises at Oxenholme railway station car park.

The company has increased weekday charges from £9 to £12, a rise of 33 per cent - while the price of weekend day tickets is up by 66 per cent, from £3 to £5.

Julian Rayner, estates director at Windermere-based kitchenware company Lakeland, told the Gazette: “What company thinks it can justify 33 per cent price increases?”

There are serious problems at the moment with station users parking on the road in Oxenholme village. This won't ease the situation.

Interesting comment from from one of the area's most influential businessmen about exploiting a monopoly.

 

[Starmill]

Fair point - but the norm on Northern and Merseyrail is free car parks, and I see no reason why that needs to continue.

Because as the train is almost never cheaper than driving these days, if you have to pay as much to park at the station as you do in the city centre, it's unlikely you will choose the train. My solution to this would be to accept very low charges at most railway stations and bus park and rides (see the 80p at Hooton) and to implement local taxes on city centre parking so it is still more expensive, but politically it appears this idea isn't too popular...

 

[daodao]

Because as the train is almost never cheaper than driving these days, if you have to pay as much to park at the station as you do in the city centre, it's unlikely you will choose the train. My solution to this would be to accept very low charges at most railway stations and bus park and rides (see the 80p at Hooton) and to implement local taxes on city centre parking so it is still more expensive, but politically it appears this idea isn't too popular...

Provision of park and ride facilities reduces congestion in busy city/town centres. However, it can encourage car use in outer suburbs/rural areas by making it easy for car drivers to use public transport only for the difficult part of the journey and thus not using public transport for their whole journey. The result is poor public transport provision in such areas.

An example is the large free car park next to the East Didsbury Metrolink station, which I have used on several occasions. Public transport (bus/rail as well as tram) from M/c city centre to East Didsbury is very good, but bus services to points south are very infrequent - there are now only 4 buses per hour (1/hour in evenings) crossing the Mersey south of Parrs Wood.

 

[All Line Rover]

I'm not too critical of VTWC's high parking charges because VTWC are transparent in showing the usage of their car parks and, Mondays through Thursdays, the majority are at least 80% full. Some are regularly 100% full and, I believe, would continue to be so even if the car park charges were increased even further - e.g. to £16.

My main criticism of VTWC's parking charges is that it costs the same to park from 6am to 11pm, as it does to park from 7pm to 10pm. None of VTWC's car parks are anywhere near full on weekday evenings. VTWC should offer evening rates (e.g. the same as the daily weekend rate).

 

[Aldaniti]

I suspect Virgin have outsourced, or now have some agreement with NCP. My local VT station - at least - now has joint Virgin/NCP branding. At about the same time as this change, the most recent increases happened.

Twelve quid to park? No chance - I just drive all the way now. A bonus is that I avoid Virgin's rammed WCML Anglo-Scottish trains too.

And that's from someone who used to love travelling by train and spent nearly thirty years encouraging friends and colleagues to do the same.

 

[All Line Rover]

NCP's system allows car park spaces to be booked in advance, which is a considerable improvement in my opinion.

I can understand why VTWC is concerned to ensure that there are at least some car park spaces available for its peak time London passengers - who, already paying £351 STD / £490 1ST, are likely to pay whatever car park charges apply - at the expense of passengers making low-value and/or short distance trips. It's unfortunate that some people will be put off using the train, but unless VTWC's car parks are expanded I don't see a better option. From an environmental point of view (inter alia), I'd prefer to see a Preston to Manchester passenger who doesn't live within cycling distance of a station, put off using the train due to high parking charges, than a Preston to London passenger put off using the train because they know there is a risk of not securing a car park space.

None of the above excuses the absence of weekday evening rates.

 

[WatcherZero]

Its about to get a lot worse. Government will be publishing a housing strategy in the next couple of weeks that reccomends replacing rail station surface and multistorey car parks with subterranean ones so that the land can be used for blocks of flats.

 

[Ianigsy]

Mirfield is a problem area, with residents unhappy with the inconsiderate on-street parking by rail users once the small car park is full.

A colleague once saw her car (or at least the top half of it) on the front page of the Examiner after she'd parked in one of the streets near the station and the Calder burst its banks.

Menston is another one known for being full by around 7.30, with cars spilling over onto the surrounding residential streets. It's not unknown for the 33A bus, which normally serves the station and village, to be diverted onto the main A65 during the day due to inconsiderate parking.

 

[anti-pacer]

I have no problems with the width of the bays at Hebden. Have you missed this post made 3 days ago, Hebden Bridge is set to get 80 extra spaces and Mytholmroyd a completely new car park with 200 spaces, more than tripling the number of car parking spaces at the two stations.

There are also to be new car parks at Shipley, Steeton & Silsden, Mirfield, Normanton and Fitzwilliam.

Steeton is also popular with those from East Lancashire who commute to Leeds and Bradford. A few of them are friends of mine.

 

[philthetube]

Steeton is also popular with those from East Lancashire who commute to Leeds and Bradford. A few of them are friends of mine.

Also with people travelling to London, car to Steeton or Bus to skipton, avoid the 142, This problem solved by opening Colne Skipton

 

[Mr Mean]

No idea - but a quick google suggests that the 89 space car park is actually in addition to a 115 space car park already underway, although the Huddersfield Examiner's reporting is its usual muddled standard. The WYCTA plan involves the eviction of a Network Rail tenant, if that helps.

The building work at Mirfield is for a big new replacement Lidl store. As it's my local station I'm all too used to the parking issues. At one side of the station is a network rail depot and at the other is a taxi rank and truck / tanker park. Both would be ideal for hundreds of parking spaces, just depends on finding.

Mirfield is used as a parkway for the town along with smaller towns and villages out as far as Clayton West and Skelmanthorpe. There are hundreds of cars round the nearby streets every day causing problems for residents and businesses.

 

[childwallblues]

Liverpool South Parkway has 374 free spaces but is full before 0830.