We need a multi-storey, say frustrated Town parkers
Friday 3rd February 2012, 2:29PM GMT.
Chris Queripel has a parking space behind his Victoria Road home, but needs to park in the road at times if he can to help his disabled wife into the house. (Pictures by Adrian Miller, 1220164)
A MULTI-STOREY car park would answer St Peter Port’s parking woes, Town residents plagued with the problem said yesterday.
They gave their views following a police blitz this week targeting drivers who were abusing the disc zone system, which has so far resulted in 125 tickets for offenders.
The force has received daily complaints from Town residents about people parking in permit-holder spaces or leaving cars overnight in short-term bays.
In a letter sent to current permit holders, the Environment Department told residents it would start charging for parking permits later this year.
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The more car parks you get in town the more traffic will come into the parish
Let other parishes have a big car park and a park and ride into town.
The only place for a big car park like this is in Charotterrie .
there is land there that needs to be updated .
no more car parks on ANY GREEN areas in St Peter Port . we need all the green areas for conservation as this is slowly being taken away from us.
Soon traffic will be at a stand still as we flood the parish with more cars .. perhaps the time has come to have paid parking in all car park.this might stop the dumping of cars all over the island
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The States will do nothing to help St. Peter Port residents where parking is concerned, in fact they are doing the opposite by gradually taking away parking spaces and allowing more properties to be divided up into flats with no thought as to where the new residents are going to park. Parking tickets are a very nice revenue earner, a tax in any other language, for the states coffers. They wouldnt want to damage this revenue source by making it easier for St. Peter Port residents to park.
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Who will pay for a multi-storey car park and where is it to be sited? Its a non starter States have to bite the bullet and get people out of their cars. Here`s an old chestnut Pay and Display parking remove all on sreet parking in Bordage St Julians Avenue, and around Trinity Square.Introduce a Bus lane from the Bridge to town speeding up journey times along the sea front. Introduce paid parking throughout the island not just in town no where else I know of has anything alike Guernsey in terms of free parking.
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If anyone else comes on here suggesting a bus lane from the Bridge to Town without explaining exactly WHERE this bus lane will fit I’m going to drive to the Jerbourg cliffs and throw myself off
For all you office workers who only ever experience the roads during the morning and evening rush hours please,on this Saturday morning,venture into Town and get to know how freely the traffic moves AFTER you have all parked up on week days
Half term also miraculously clears the congestion
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That is exactly why Guernsey is so attractive – it is unlike other places
We neither need nor want paid parking
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The last thing St. Peter Port needs is more car parking. This is because quite simply the roads cannot cope with the amount of traffic that currently uses them. The congestion on the town’s roads is not caused by the lack of car parking but the current road systems inability to cope with the number of vehicles heading to the car parks. In other words the town has too many car parking spaces.
The answer as kat says is bring in a park and ride scheme, then reduce the amount of parking in the town with a residents permit scheme.
Bringing in such a scheme would certainly meet with two major obstacles. The first is prising the Guernsey driver out of their beloved car, the second the ability of the States to actually organise it.
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I agree. St Peter Port was never designed to have thousands of shop worker, office workers and shoppers all arriving one-person-to-a-vehicle.
It is not more car parking that is needed but less cars.
Car share schemes and public transport are needed. The trouble is, I bet over half the deputies have never caught a bus in their lives.
Which leads neatly on to why we need a better cross-section of deputies, rather than predominantly well-fed aging men!
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Roquaine
Why would the deputies get on a bus when they have free allocated parking in St Peter Port available to them also the free parking for all the overpaid & gold plated pension civil servants who work at Frossard House, if all these places were made available to the people who actually own them, ie us the taxpayers,this would go a long way to helping the parking problem in town.
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Didn’t the States vote to have paid parking some time ago? What happened to that resolution, was it the Traffic Committee that never implemented it?
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If the current traffic and parking situation isn’t enough to deter people, then clearly the benefits of driving outweigh the problems in doing so.
Why this stubbornness in trying to force people to STOP driving to town? The North Beach is ugly already, so why not double deck it? The view of it from the Fregate is pretty depressing. Maybe the roof could be made more pleasant to look at. Charging for that car park alone would help cover the cost.
Didn’t someone suggest recently making the Crown pedestrian only? Yes please! We need more places to walk and sit like they have in all Mediterrean towns.
I’m not pro-driving myself: I used to walk to work from the Rohais and would pass cars by the chippy who wouldn’t pass ME until the Grange. And when I last drove to work I would park outside town and walk in. But you only have to see how spaces go on the piers before the North Beach to see how even that small amount of walking puts off the lazy/time poor.
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The Catch 22 of car-park provision is that the more parking you provide the more cars you invite onto the roads. Cars are already cited as a main detraction to the island….. why would we want to persist with policies that we can see are not enhancing Guernsey’s character or environment.
Time to get cleverer and think of other ways to facilitate movement around the island. Car clubs and a public transport system that is a viable option for many more people. Improved facilities for cyclists and encouragement to walk.. And why don’t we encourage a culture of hitching a lift?
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I’m sure that if people at work spoke to each other more they would find that they lived near each other – or each company could set up a scheme of car sharing. That would certainly make at least 200 spaces avaliable!!!
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You are absolutely right, Local Resident. And it clearly is not going to happen by leaving it to the individuals (otherwise it would have happened by now as it is such a no-brainer). Therefore companies should take the lead. These schemes are quite common in UK companies.
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I propose underground parking.
This keeps town attractive and provides more spaces. I do not know where this would be possible on a practical level though.
You could even take adavantage of the Valette area, the Germans were able to build tunnels there for example. We could build the parking spaces into the Valle de Terres and surrounding area.
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“This keeps town attractive….” there would be nothing attractive about inviting more cars onto our roads and into St Peter Port whether you hide the parked cars or not.
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To be fair I don’t think it would cause a huge increase in drivers. People tend to have a driving mentality in Guernsey so those who want to drive in, already do.
Having somewhere else to park just means there is a lot less stress for some people in the morning. They don’t have to go to work for 7.30 am to guarantee a space. Or if it rains and they don’t want to cycle they have an alternative. Shoppers would have somewhere to park. I think you have to take the happiness of the general public into consideration.
In terms of attractiveness I meant by having the car park underground this does not interrupt the quaintness of our town. People do not like building works that are out of character with their surroundings when they wish to preserve aesthetic or in a lot of cases their own view.
I would love to change the driving mentality which I believe you would want to address too. There should be an effective long term consistent strategy to deal with this – which is what changing behavior requires. However this idea would solve a lot of short term problems we have now.
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Providing for a problem is not how to change the behaviour that is causing it. If additional car parking is provided it will be filled….. that would be the point of it. And that would mean more car journeys…. not less.
Guernsey was always bonkers to go down the route of unrestricted car use because it is always much more difficult to change entrenched behaviour than if we had always been used to travelling in different ways, appropriate to the particular journey being made.
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With 80,000 vehicles and a population of 60,000 ( including children , VERY old OAPs and non-drivers)driving appears to be very popular in the island
Force cars out of St Peter Port and watch its slow death really speed up
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True, but of those 80,000 vehicles the maximum amount that can be driven is the number of people on the island with a driving licence. I have no idea what this figure is (and I doubt DVL do either!)
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It is not cars that do the shopping…. it’s people. Presuming that driving is the only way that people can/could access town, I think is lazy thinking. I agree it must be easy to get into town…. as hassle free as possible, but let’s be more creative with our ideas than sticking with the present situation which is more about pandering to our love of cars than to protecting what Dani refers to as ‘the quaintness’ of St Peter Port. Of course driving is popular…… it’s great fun. But to me that is not as important as our responsibility to protect what we have. And if we were as used to getting public transport, or cycling, or walking as we are to driving, I maintain that we would be just as happy…… infact there is an extremely good chance that we would be happier.
Towns’ survival is dependent on far more than car-parking. Prices, level of service, the atmosphere and character of the town (which is not helped by empty shops caused by high rents) etc etc.
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Rosie
I believe you only look at the issue from a very strong environmental view. Noble but not very pragmatic.
Not everyone would be happy walking,cycling or using the bus. Not everyone has the time for one thing, nor would it be a suitable mode of transport for them. Think of mothers that have to drop kids off to school and pick them up. Think of people with lots of shopping bags. Think of people who’s time is a premium. Think of people who just want to drive, they have paid their taxes and if they want a car park their voices should have some weight. Their view counts also and should be built into a solution. It would be nice if this made residents lives easier too.
The picturesque quality of St Peter Port does need to be maintained. Much thought goes into this, for one thing it makes Guernsey more attractive to tourists. You cannot discount it has added value that benefits all and one of the factors that adds to the towns succsess.
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Dani.
I agree with your last paragraph…… and the number of cars parked along the seafront and continually travelling along the eastern seaboard totally goes against what you say.
I certainly am not saying that cars should never be used. There are always going to be some journeys for which only the car will do but cars have become the default mode of transport for EVERY journey simply because there is no incentive not to use them. There are too many of us living here for us all to do that. If we were all more thoughtful about how and when to use our cars and when to use the alternatives, there would be plenty of parking for all of us.
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Well said Rosie, you only have to go top St Helier to see what carbuncles multi storey car parks would be on the face of St Peter Port. Nor do they solve the town’s traffic problems. They just add to them. We need FEWER parking spaces in the heart of St Peter Port, not more.
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If you have a parking problem in Guernsey Suggest you look what Bermuda has done similar in size and population.Go to Bermuda Motor Vehicle Options for Residents.That would fix your traffic problems
Good Luck
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Don
Another way to fix the twice a day Town traffic problems is to stop building offices in Town
The clever people at Environment thought they had solved the perceived problem in the 1980′s/90′s when they insisted on new office buildings having underground parking
Unfortunately they forgot that in order to get to and from their underground parking slots the workers had to use the road networks around and in St Peter Port before 9am and after 5pm
Once those office workers are sitting at their desks,and once the shop staff are in position at their tills,and once the States members have parked up in their reserved spaces on Assembly days,TRAFFIC MOVES QUITE FREELY FOR THE REST OF THE DAY
Bulwer Avenue to Town at 8.15am? 25-30 mins?
Bulwer Avenue to Town at 10.15am? 6-7 mins
Bulwer Avenue to Cobo at any time of the day?
15 mins (unless your stuck behind a horse rider,a man in a flat cap or Martino)
I rest my case
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Town is in a death spiral we are told. High rents, overpriced goods etc etc. When all the empty shops are replaced by coffee shops, who is going to go there?
The car is a fact of life. Encouragement not to use one has to encompass acceptable alternatives. Environment are currently conducting another consultation process and although many of the questions appear loaded, it is an opportunity for everyone to have their say. Go to;
http://www.gov.gg/www.gov.gg/planreview
Here’s a start.
1. Construct a new marina in Havelet Bay to attract super yachts
2. Incorporate space for engineering facilities for such yachts
3. Incorporate a multi-storey car park instead of filling the place with thousands of tonnes of rock from a quarry owned by a Deputy
4. Add a deck to North Beach car park
5. Add taxi rank facilities at North Beach to cater for travellers arriving by sea
6. Relocate the bus terminus to North Beach
7. Add a deck at the Odean car park
8. Pedestrianise from the Weighbridge to Town Church, including the Crown Pier (and possibly Albert Pier).
9. Create a Development Guide for the area to ensure any subsequent development conforms to strict design guidelines
10. Treat the whole as an integrated development project with a single board (probably best not States controlled but with a direct line in to C&E)
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9 and 10, anything to protect that the town’s sea front does not end up spolit and resemble the concrete blandness that has become Jersey’s town sea front.
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Before 1985/ ’86 there was no North Beach and no Salerie parking. Before 1982 there was no Odeon parking, sadly the States of the time thought parking more important than mere cinema – VHS was the future(!).
If you combine all of those car parks, that’s an awful lot of parking that appears to now be used up in just 30 years.
Rosie is right in that the more parking you create, the more cars you invite into town and the more unattractive it becomes.
If a multi-storey was built then within a few years it would be full and we’d have to start all over again.
Environment need to sort out their seemingly abandoned traffic strategy and a good place to start would be a reliable bus service using smaller more frequent vehicles.
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Just who would be expected to pay for a multi-storey car park?
The users (i.e. paid parking)?
Or taxpayers generally (i.e. those who don’t use it pay just as much as those who do)?
I can’t see either option being popular. My prediction is therefore no change. Continued congestion and a race to arrive earlier and earlier to try to get a place.
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Lease the spare land at the Custard Castle to National Car Parks at £1 a year for 100 years
NCP builds a suitably sized multi-storey at their own expense and charges whatever they feel they can get away with per hour
Remove all long term parking within a mile radius so that choice is limited and Robert is your mother’s brother
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