To think prices in car parks in city centres are too expensive now

[UsernameA1B2]

Parked in city centre today and was shocked at the prices.
£1 for 30 minites,
£2 for 1 hour,
£4 for 2 hours,
Isn't that a bit much? And surely it will damage the high street shops and restaurants that will be struggling already enough after pandemic and now the cost of living crisis.

I do have a disability and a blue badge, my car is a motability car.
Parking is still really expensive.

Moaning on mumsnet about how expensive it is to park a car is hopefully the first step in you using other modes of transport

This happened near us. It was free parking at the back of the high street…until they built a massive tescos further down. Suddenly parking is charged..unless you go to tescos where it’s free. Of course everyone ignores the local greengrocers and bread shop and goes to the more convenient tescos. Ironically it’s so huge that you actually walk a lot further .I loathe tescos! Can you tell?

Apple42, so was your car free then? And the fuel to run it? I'm not sure how it ends up cheaper than a bus ticket

I paid £3.35 to park for an hour yesterday, so yes, I would agree with you.

Plus £12.50 ULEZ if you don't have an electric car.

Bloody hell. I googled a city centre street in my city and it’s £17 for 3 hours I have a blue badge so it’s free. Wouldn't be able to visit at those prices!

I think it should be banned. People need to stop relying on cars and pretending the climate crisis isn’t happening.

Not that I would ever use it & we do have good public transport, but THIS is expensive parking!

The places that offer free parking for blue badge holders are getting fewer and fewer anyway.

Did you not read the thread?
How do people in places with crap public transport get out?

You can’t tell me that car parks in the city are taken up solely by people who live in remote areas. We all know that is not true.

Raise the costs of parking, driving in all forms. It is the only way forward.

I wasn't telling you that, but it's still true that some of us can't get out of our small towns without using our cars.

If you think that's expensive don't ever try and park in Brighton OP. I think that's about £25 for 4 hours.

i once went on the Brighton Reddit and they seemed obsessed with their rage over people daring to ‘drive into the centre of brighton’. It was so weird it made me laugh. I guess that’s why the parking costs are so high

Our town centre parking is so expensive we just don't go anymore.

There is a park and ride, but for the the four of us it would still cost a lot (£15 ish for two adults and two children), and then we'd be stuck waiting around at bus stops for 30-40mins each end, which drags out a quick trip into town into a several hour mission.

Our (NHS) office is in the town center and has no parking of it's own, I have to go back and forth to home visits multiple times, so bus isn't an option. I had to stay late to deal with an emergency last week and it cost me £13 for parking that day.

So while park and ride and encouraging people to use public transport more is great, it's just not always practical and has a knock on effect to people who have no choice but to park in town.

£4.20for an hour
£7.80 for 2
£12.10 for 3…

£1 an hour is reasonable imo.

Well it's about £3.40/an hour where I live London zone 3 so sounds reasonable to me. I now have free travel though (60) so try and take the bus more.

tbh it's too cheap imo

!!!!

Not when 2 months ago it cost around £2.50 for 2 hours plus. If the OP is in Lancashire - it used to be £1.50 for all parking after 19.00 - so that people would be encouraged to come in to use restaurants/theatre/cinemas etc and that's now gone up to £4.00

Lancaster is a smallish town and not really comparable to Leeds/London etc.

£1 an hour is reasonable imo

It isn't £1 per hour though - is it? It costs £4.00 for 2 hours. With no change given. So if you go for one hour and 20 mins parking, you have to pay £4

Last time we went to Weston Super Mare it was £6 to park along the seafront. We only wanted a walk for an hour, off season, and a big of chips!

Great in theory but they have just cut public transport options from our village
Not due to underuse as its already standing room only on some of the routes that have been cut but according to the paper its due to lack of staff (and profitability)

Whoever manages these carparks just wants to watch the highstreet die. They say it is to encourage people to use public transport but in reality I think most of these (mostly council owned ones) want to see all the shops shut to they can turn it all into expensive flats.

I think this is the kind of poorly considered ‘nudge’ economics thinking that reoccurs all to often.

Let’s make it harder for people to do X, does not mean they’re going to do Y. You really need to think about the barriers to people
doing Y and design your system to remove as many as possible.

There is a mnemonic in behavioural insights (what that ‘nudge’ stuff is really called) EAST: Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely. People are more likely to do things where it is easy for them to do them, where it’s appealing for them to do so, where it feels like a socially acceptable thing to do, and where it’s relevant to their current circumstances.

Just making the car park stupidly expensive might make it harder and less appealing to drive. But it does nothing to make public transport easier or appealing to use. It doesn’t really do anything to change public perceptions of driving (not least because the alternatives often are crap). It doesn’t take people’s current circumstances into account.

So what happens is: people still drive and complain that the car park is ridiculously priced, people decide to go elsewhere where the parking is free or cheap (or just get it online) or they decide not to bother at all. None of that is helpful if you want a city or town centre that functions in any meaningful sense.