tatanab wrote:15 minute parking was proposed locally for a narrow and busy road which has marked parking bays for about 100 yards. It was shouted down because it seems that 15 minutes is not long enough for Mrs Blue Rinse to get a hair cut and she cannot possibly be expected to walk 100 yards from the free car park. The dozen or so businesses along there (including a car dealership 1/2 mile away) all said they would be go out of business if this went ahead.
We've had the opposite. A small town centre side road where there are a lot of small shops (including our LBS) had short-term free parking. It worked fine, and the shops were happy about it. People could park when collecting heavy items or to do a short shop at the veg shop, for example. Our new council has decided to charge but not limit the time. In other words, if you have the money, you can block a bay for as long as you like. The small shops can see this will be bad for them, and are opposing it.
What happened here when free parking ceased; a small charge at first to encourage a turnover of spaces, then an increase to encourage a more rapid turnover, and now the time it takes to buy a ticket from the machine costs about 20p! The district council now rakes in considerable sums, but the ironic part is that the supermarket car parks are free for about an hour, so the small shops etc. suffer most.
However we can walk "all that way", or I might cycle so it's free
"It takes a genius to spot the obvious" - my old physics master.
I don't peddle bikes.
This is a short combined cyclepath & pavement in south Bristol 'cycling city'. As you can see, lazy drivers use it as a free car park because they don't want to pay (once free 2 hours is up) for the huge car park around the corner. Always amazes me that some folk can afford about £5000 - £15,000 for a new car, but can't afford about £2/hour parking
mark1964 wrote:This is a short combined cyclepath & pavement in south Bristol 'cycling city'. As you can see, lazy drivers use it as a free car park because they don't want to pay (once free 2 hours is up) for the huge car park around the corner. Always amazes me that some folk can afford about £5000 - £15,000 for a new car, but can't afford about £2/hour parking
Assuming that the cycle route has been properly set up as a cycle track, then it's a specific offence to park on it, rather than the prosecution relying on the loophole-riddled con and use offence of unnecessary obstruction. This is one of the rare examples of pedestrians gaining some - theoretical - benefit from their space being invaded by farcilities. I say theoretical because in the absence of enforcement, it's all academic.
mark1964 wrote:This is a short combined cyclepath & pavement in south Bristol 'cycling city'. As you can see, lazy drivers use it as a free car park because they don't want to pay (once free 2 hours is up) for the huge car park around the corner. Always amazes me that some folk can afford about £5000 - £15,000 for a new car, but can't afford about £2/hour parking
Assuming that the cycle route has been properly set up as a cycle track, then it's a specific offence to park on it, rather than the prosecution relying on the loophole-riddled con and use offence of unnecessary obstruction. This is one of the rare examples of pedestrians gaining some - theoretical - benefit from their space being invaded by farcilities. I say theoretical because in the absence of enforcement, it's all academic.
enf-what?
Don't recognise that word
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way.No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse. There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
