To think pavement parking should be banned

[HoustonBess]

There's a government inquiry into pavement parking, you can submit comments here

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/transport-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/pavement-parking-17-19/

I absolutely hate pavement parking - it's someone thinking their car not being scratched is more important than me and DD's lives. I live in an area of terraced streets and especially on bin days, you basically can't go out with a pram because it's so bad.

Anyone else want to comment for the inquiry? Maybe mumsnet could submit something on behalf of lots of people?

Do any of the drivers who need to park on the footpaths because their special circumstances mean they couldn't possibly park anywhere else have any suggestions as to what could be done'

I don't need to park on the pavement as I'm lucky enough to have a house with off-road parking, but I'll answer your question anyway.

There needs to be more access to free, safe parking for residents. Be that via a permit system or maybe free carparks that you can use if you live within a certain radius (ie. you register your car via your address, so only people who have registered and who live within, say, a mile or so can use it). There's also the option for businesses to allow you to rent a space for a certain amount per month.

Unfortunately, most towns were not built to support the number of cars that exist in modern society. But until public transport is affordable and accessible to everyone, people aren't going to just get rid of their cars overnight. Just because larger cities and towns have decent transport links, doesn't mean the same is true for everywhere else.

Lots of places have poor transport links. When you have to be at work before the first train would get you there, or when the bus fare for a single journey costs you more than your fuel bill would be for a week of commuting, then you drive. Because everything else is out of your price range, that's even if it's compatible with your hours in the first place.

Why should parking be 'free'?

I refuse to believe there is nowhere in your town which has homes available with a driveway.

You should come here. Council has sold off 3 car parks and flats built on them - all with no parking by design. New build library in town with loads of flats above - no parking by design, to encourage people out of cars apparently.

And no lots of people can't afford a house with a driveway funnily enough.

@Flax, the spread of the large four-wheel drive 'tank' style car means that it is increasingly the case that drivers (literally) look down on pedestrians, this feeds into the feeling of superiority, the roads are there for them
'I paid a lot of money for this vehicle, I pay a lot of money for petrol and car tax, I have the right, you pedestrians don't pay anything, you don't have the right'

So, people with restricted mobility can just get to fuck then? You choose to live there, despite it being unsuitable

Why are you having a go at me? I DON'T PARK ON THE PAVEMENT.

And you act as though people can afford to just move at the drop of a hat. Not everyone has enough money to be able to afford houses with plenty of parking outside!

I refuse to believe there is nowhere in your town which has homes available with a driveway

And I never said that either. What I did say, was that not everyone can afford to buy houses like that. I have a house with off-road parking. But not everyone is that fortunate. Less than half the houses on my street have an off-road parking spot. It's the same across the whole town.

Of course some people have off-road parking but that still doesn't solve the problem, which is that thousands of other people don't!

Some comments on here are ridiculous. Funnily enough if love a house with a drive but, you know what, I can't actually afford one.

Some people on MN live on a different planet.

@Hearhere
Yes agree

Why should parking be 'free'?

Maybe not free, then, but at the same time it does need to be affordable to residents who are going to need to use it 24/7, year-round. Maybe people could buy a parking space in these car parks for a nominal fee? Or if they have a permit, they could park there too.

adaline, you're fighting a losing battle here. You're far too reasonable!

I get running a car can be expensive. But as someone who has to train/taxi a lot due to visual impairment I don't think the cost is the issue, it's entitlement/making an easy life.

Guaranteed most of these pavement Parker's are also those who de-ice their cars and leave slippery mess going on the pavement.

I get running a car can be expensive

In rural places, running a car (or indeed, two cars) is a hell of a lot cheaper than funding public transport day in, day out.

Do people with wheelchairs or buggies not own cars then? If they do, do they never need to park them anywhere?

As the parent of a wheelchair user, we wouldn't buy or rent a property that didn't have a space. That's what we have to do.

If we are out and about we would never park on a pavement. Doing so makes it very difficult for us to get DD out of the car into the chair. If we can't park there, we don't go. Same is true if there are no blue badge spaces in car parks. That's our life and we don't have the luxury of abandoning the car in a way that makes life difficult for others just so we can go places.

But sure, as long as others don't have to face the same sort of inconvenience as we do because they have selfish options, that's ok.

And no lots of people can't afford a house with a driveway funnily enough.

And even if they could, surely people can see that there aren't enough houses with driveways to go around?!

£1-3 a day parking fee would be a good idea.

Or a straight £30-50 a month fee.

It could be quite a lucrative business actually.

People manage to get to work, schools, shops etc without a car though

People manage to get to work, schools, shops etc without a car though

Yes. IF the public transport infrastructure is there. Surely it doesn’t take that much imagination to appreciate not everywhere has a decent public transport system.

There’s a train station here which I use as often as I can. However at times I go see a client who is based where there’s no train. To be there at 9am I would have to leave here at 6.30am to go via public transport.

To go via car it’s 30 mins.

People manage to get to work, schools, shops etc without a car though

Doesn't that depend entirely on where they live and work?

My job is 24 miles away on rural NSL roads with no pavements or lights. Cycling those roads (especially in winter) would be an absolute death wish. There is no public transport connecting where I live, to where I work either. My town has a train station - but to get to work via train, I'd need to leave the day before and spend the night in a train station somewhere halfway between the two locations! Even if it was possible, a single journey (so not even both ways) would cost me £24.

Or I could just drive, which takes 45 minutes and costs me about £5 a day.

I mean to add, even if I could get the train, I'd still need to either catch the bus (at a cost of an additional £10) or walk another seven miles to get to work.

Not everyone lives somewhere with decent, affordable public transport!

Simply put a blanket ban into effect with a timed notice of its enforcement. During that time people can apply for restrictions to be lifted, either provided bays if footway is wide enough which go onto the footway which still provide adequate room for pedestrians or in cases where there are narrow streets and no viable options within a certain radius then allow parking on one side of the roads footway.

Yes the second option would reduce available parking but it would give pedestrians use of at least 1 FOOTway on each street so they don't need to enter the road.

People complaining about lack of public transport it is usually because too many people have cars so there is no demand for it. If parking is reduced then it will end up with less people having cars and demand for a service which can be reintroduced.

People who are OK with 'pavement' parking try use the correct term for where you want to park, it is a FOOTway, there's a small clue in the name. And although a ban wouldn't affect me now where I used to live I had a 5 - 10 min walk to park in a road or I could park right outside my home if I blocked the footway so I chose to park where it required me to walk because I know the safety issues it causes aznd I'm not a dick

I challenge anyone who says "but I leave plenty of room" to get in a wheelchair and propel themselves down a rutted pavement, past rows and rows of cars who have "left enough space". Between cars and lamp posts, bollards, substations, post boxes, bus stops, litter bins.

DD can't do this without risking cars. Instead of walking with her, as she has the benefit of independence to propel herself, I have to walk behind her, pushing her, we can't talk or interact in any way.

Imagine going for a walk with your 9 year old and being forced to walk behind them for most of it. You have no idea how soul destroying it is for our DD. And when you haven't left enough space, we have to navigate onto the road. Very dangerous.

Unless the space you have left is the width of a standard pavement, you haven't left enough space.

In many places you simply cannot get down the street unless people park half on the pavement - it's not ideal but terraced houses and lots of cars means that there needs to be parking. I personally think a maximum 2 cars per property unless you can park all your vehicles off the road is fair - I know of households with 3 or 4 and no drive.

People manage to get to work, schools, shops etc without a car though

Of course they do. If you live, work and go to schools and shops with affordable, accessible transport that links one to another and you don't have disabilities that prevent you.

On the other hand if you work in one direction, school is in another and the number of buses and changes turns an hour car journey with multiple drop offs a 2 hour bus journey costing £20 a day and means either the kids get dropped off at school before it opens or you get to work an hour late then it doesn't work does it?

My son is a teacher in Kent. When he did his PGCE he had to travel from his uni well over an hour and a half by car to his placement school. No idea how he could have done it by public transport. But a train ticket about the same distance costs £60/day. He was living on a student loan. How was he going to afford £240/week rail fare?

You need to think about it. People working in shops and restaurants are on nmw. If they can run a car at a fraction of the cost of public transport and be able to use it when they need it rather than at the times the buses choose to run then what choice do they have?

If as a society we decide to increase nmw and subsidise public transport to make it cheap, frequent and reliable and then force banks, post offices, shops and drs to open where people need them well then we can consider forcing people out of cars.

subsidise public transport to make it cheap, frequent and reliable

That is exactly what using public transport does. It's a simple case of supply and demand. The more people who use public transport the cheaper and more reliable it will become. It costs the same to run a bus whether there are one passengers or thirty. Atm the few who do use the buses are paying for the empty seats.

Lack of public transport is not the cause of more people driving it is a symptom if it.

@Frequency in the UK it does not.

They increase the train fares to stop people using the trains. Finally when they realised this didn't work and people protested about the fare increases, they extended the platforms and put on a couple of extra carriages.