Pay Parking at stations - unjustifiable rip off

[Thomas J Stamp]

I heard Barry Kenny on radio IE, sorry, Newstalk 106 breakfast show today. He was speaking about pay parking.

Now this is something we have touched upon before and indeed we have a position on it:

http://www.railusers.ie/passenger_issues/parking.php

But Barry Kenny came up with a couple of reasons to justify this policy and I regret that I didnt have a chance to take him to task on it (will one day though, Barry).

1. The charge reduces the usage of the car park facilities by those who dont use the train.
2. It encourages those who can otherwise walk or cycle to abandon their cars.
3. There was a reference to overcrowding on trains
4. The charge is €2 per day €5 per week.
5. The revenue is needed to pay for the upgrades

This is why those reasons dont stack up:

1. If you want just the rail users to use your car park then you operate a system whereby a token is issued to you by the station staff on showing your ticket which you use on exit or a system whereby you can use your ticket. If you have a season ticket you are given a ticket that the entry/exit barriers can read to allow you to exit at all times. At the same time you have a look at what the local parking charges are and you charge double so that anyone who really does want to park in the IE car park during their shopping will go elsewhere.

2. If you live within a killometer of a station you will walk. Some stations are not very assessabile to the vast majority of the local population- eg, Hazelhatch, Maynooth, Salins. There can be little option for many many people but to drive. Leaving aside the nanny-state element of this, why bother expand a car park (the rationalle given for the charging) if at the same time you are trying to discourage people from driving? Ergo, the principle will achieve 100% success when the car park is empty. This is despite the fact that the princely sum of €2 is not going to discourage anyone from driving in the first place, although it is noteworthy to point out that it is just about the price of a packet of Tayto on an intercity train.

3. This I found odd, and indeed I may have mishead it but a lot fo texters did mention the fact that this will do nothing to ease such overcrowding. Let's hope that we're not seeing a dim little bulb appearing above Barry's head entitled "rush hour surcharge"

4. The price is too small to discourage anyone from parking. I'd throw €2 at a cat to get it off my grounds so paying €2 means nothing to anyone, not even €5 a week. It is too small to act as a disencentive, therefoe it is a revenue generating device. Think about this: Luas introduced a similar small charge to stop casual customers using the rush hour service? Do you know anyone that stopped using it? Have you? Do you even notice that it costs more? Nope. The only thing that has changed on Luas is the balance sheet. Same will happen here.

5. It is amazing that a company, wholly owned by a major property developer, who has licenced the building of apartments and commercial developement on its lands for millions of euro, hasnt ringfenced that money for works such as this.

Also, can we please have the exact bill for each station car park redevelopment? Perhaps then we can ring fence each car park revenue to that development cost so we know that in some future date the costs will be eliminated. And, erm, if that is the reason, how come not every car park being redeveloped is seeing pay parking being introduced.

Anyway, Claire Byrne thinks you're all getting great value for money at €2, as its cheaper than any other parking in the area. Considering IE use this to deter parking, that hardly makes sence. If something is free today and €2 tomorrow I'd hardly call that value for money but if you want to tell her that it'll cost you .30C. Last year it was free, but I'm sure that its great value for money nonetheless.