Pavement parking ban

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Sorry if there are other threads on this, I did search but couldn’t find any.
I keep seeing on the news that there is talk of a pavement parking ban. I totally get that it is an issue for people in wheelchairs and with prams etc. every time I see it on tv and people are discussing it, there is never any mention of what would happen on streets which aren’t wide enough for cars to be parked on both sides, but not on the pavement. Where would they all go? I’m not against the ban in principle but I’d be interested to know what the answer is for where cars would go? I know the ban is in in London, how does it work there? All the streets near me are full of cars partially on the pavement and definitely not wide enough for all the cars to go on the road.

It wouldn’t work where I live either - it’s impossible to park and allow traffic through unless you put your wheels on the pavement.

I suspect it would be a ban and then each council can decide to waive it on certain roads or areas? You’d hope anyway but common sense doesn’t always prevail 🤣

Edinburgh has had a pavement parking ban for a while now. They're adding more double yellow lines to some streets that aren't wide enough for parking on both sides but ultimately you just have to find somewhere else to park.

In London, people just drive less.

Isn’t there some horrific stat about how most car journeys are less than 2 miles or something? Discounting people who must drive for various reasons, lots of people should just walk or bike.

Houses with off street parking will increase in value.

Really for any terraced street (on indeed any street which has cars parked all along it on both sides) it would mean that half of those.m cars have to find somewhere else to park. The next street won’t be available, as half of those need to move, and so on and so on. Where I live, you’d have to park literally miles away from your home. Looking at my street right now, cars are partially on pavements on both sides but there is definitely room for wheelchairs to pass.

Driving less is definitely a good thing for so many reasons but that itself doesn’t solve the problem, people would actually have to get rid of their cars in significant numbers. I don’t see that happening where I love as public transport isn’t great

I agree with you but they really need to improve facilities for cyclists, especially secure bike storage in towns etc.

Those hoops are insufficient as bikes are frequently stolen from them, it needs to be secure cages or a supervised facility.

I live 2 miles from my nearest town but there's no way I leave my bike unattended there. I do walk if I have time and don't have a lot to carry but otherwise I drive.

Well my local authority has imposed this pavement parking ban.

They had an initial exercise of sending round wardens and issuing a warning without a fine and since then people have largely complied with it. There are still some people who flout it.

We pedestrians are at the bottom of the heap when it comes to anyone caring about our safety and needs so I for one am heartily glad that this pavement parking ban is attempting to reclaim the pavement for us.

Now I wish they would address the increasing problem of cyclists on the pavement. I'm not talking about the seriously invested cyclists who actually generally use the road. I'm talking about the less proficient cyclists obviously too scared to go on the road but who think it's quite acceptable to cycle on narrow pavements, even in the town centre, and expect pedestrians just to get out of their way. Sometimes singly, or in pairs, or even whole families.
Pavement for pedestrians is my mantra.

I thought parking on the pavement was already illegal and people just relied on not getting caught.

I live in an area were most the villages are old miners cottages on hillside with narrow streets which frequently don't have pavements anyway, and a lot of terraces have pedestrian access only. Parking is a nightmare.

Over the years the council have made some effort to build communal car parks where they can. I think some central planning would be required.

However, we have lots of open space (national park) beyond these small towns and villages, so tarmacing a few previously green/ brown spaces is not so frowned upon.

I'm in London where pavement parking has been illegal for years

UNLESS it is indicated that you can. There are lots of terraced streets and here there are often signs showing that you can pavement park on at least one side of the street - often both if there is sufficient space for fire engines etc. So yes, not much help for buggies, wheelchairs etc, but at least it is controlled in most places.

But London has cheap, quick and accessible public transport so it’s really easy not to drive - that doesn’t apply for the majority of the country.

And his are they going to enforce it? When I used to live at my old flat they never did anything about the dodgy parking there. People just parked anywhere they could. Nevermind that they parked on the pavement that was outside the nursery

Now where I live, there's a lot of free car parks. But instead of parking in them people just park half on half off the pavement

You just park somewhere else if you can’t park on your road, or see if you can get a driveway installed and use that instead. Parking on pavements isn’t the answer to there being a lack of proper parking.

Pavements are not built for the weight of cars they break up the pavements, I thought it was always illegal to park on the pavement. It also makes it dangerous for people with prams and buggies and blind or partially sighted people. It's really antisocial.

Even in Manchester where I am the public transport is not really good enough to go without a car. It is good if you want to go in and out of the City centre but rubbish if you want to go anywhere else. I'm west of the city if I want to go 6-8 miles further north east or south west ( I do both on a weekly basis) it would take well over an hour, if not more by public transport vs 20 minutes by car.

Common sense says vehicles do not belong on pavements. It’s not pedestrians issue where you park your car. I fully support the ban

In theory, it's been illegal in London for some years, except where signs permit it.

It's the problem that old towns full of terraces were not built for cars, and certainly not for the volume of them that we have now.

I expect that if it becomes law, it will be "except where signs permit it", so what many towns will do is paint bays half on the pavement, so it's only allowed where it is "official". When the ruling came into place in London, some people protested by taking the ruling at its word, and parking their cars in the road, so that emergency vehicles couldn't get through. Councils were then pleading with residents to go back to two wheels on the pavement.

Absolutely agree. A cyclist had a go at me because I dared to step on the pavement from the road as apparently he had rung his bell and didn’t feel my safety on getting off the road was a priority. Then they have the cheek to complain about not feeling safe on roads. Well pedestrians should be safe on pavements.

I don't know the answer to where the cars will go, but the answer definitely isn't parking on the pavement blocking the path for wheelchairs and other pedestrians with prams etc. If there's no where to park safely outside your house that doesn't block pedestrians you go and find somewhere else. The ban is needed because so many cars are blocking the paths.

Bad public transport is a self ful filling issue.
People with cars or access to cars don't use it because it's poor and those running the public transport use the poor usage figures to indicate cutting back the services even further. They are only interested in the profitable routes.

Those of us who are reliant on public transport have been fighting battles for years over routes which are vital for a small number of people but which the bus companies are desperate to get rid of.

The country needs a radical change in attitude and policy regarding public transport.

Not that I'm bitter but another legacy of Margaret Thatcher. She hated trains and de regulated bus provision and we are still reaping the negative effects.

Sorry but that is unacceptable. Wheelchair users and pushchairs should ALWAYS have priority on pavements over parking. Bloody outrageous that on a parenting site people think it acceptable that they should have to go on a road because apparently parking takes priority over safety.

Take it up with the councils setting the rules 🤷‍♀️

I'm a cyclist, so not mad keen on parked cars in the road either. But they definitely don't belong on the pavement, which exists for the benefit of pedestrians. Pavement parking ban can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

I know, it will mean some people having to walk further, and some forced out of a car entirely. Space is expensive in the UK. Public spaces are a compromise, and the entire bit of the road between kerbs is already dedicated to cars. The pavement is for pedestrians.

The issue round here, I believe, is that bus drivers are unable to pass the (now legally) parked on the road cars, and are refusing to drive some routes. So rather than help public transport it has made things worse.

I can well believe the statistic about most car journeys being less than 2 miles. That'll be the supermarket trips that are difficult to replace with bus service - where the user wants to get as close to their door with their shopping.