Solutions to high density parking around East Dulwich Station.

[david_carnell]

Monorail?

 

[Huguenot]

Penguin68 old man, you don't want to believe anything that doesn't give you what you want.

Like a couch potato with a triple heart bypass and lung cancer, you think the people telling you to stop eating chips and smoking are either doing it because they hate you or because they've been paid off by cabbage farmers.

What you're hoping to do is feel better by persuading everybody else to share your delusion.

[peckhamboy]

All comments on that solution to be addressed to Huguenot, Ivory Tower, Singapore. In the meantime, perhaps the rest of the world can be left to come up with some practical solutions that might have a hope in hell of actually being implemented and actually working.

[BrandNewGuy]

I agree with much of that (except for The Simpsons-style monorail bit...), but there are things we can do now. I'm doubtful of the provision of extra parking (beyond the obvious action of bringing obsolete doctor's or disabled bays etc back into use). I suspect - without any evidence to back it up - that making parking easier increases the likelihood that more people will come and park and thus does not solve your problem in the long run. In the same way, it took planners decades to work out that building roads, by and large, adds to road use rather than eases congestion. Build it and they will come... But I suspect we can ease a certain amount of local parking without attracting further cars into the area.

If we accept where we are at the moment in East Dulwich with regards to the number of residents' and local workers'/businesses' cars, and the number of available spaces, there are things we can do now.

1. The painting of bays in heavily parked roads. They needn't have any legal force, but they do encourage "tidy" parking.

2. The Council (and/or local residents with parking problems) should approach the bigger local schools and businesses and lean on them to produce a "green" action plan or whatever you want to call it. Part of that would be to ask how many of their staff drive to work and ask how many might be able to carpool or go by public transport (if necessary with some incentive).

3. Provision of car club places - I'm not sure to what extent, but I certainly intend not buying another car after our current (13-year-old) one conks out. We'll make do with taxis for local trips, car club for medium ones and car hire for long journeys, never mind using public transport whenever "convenient". If car owners take depreciation into account as well as tax, insurance, fuel, MOT and maintenance, they might be surprised at the real cost of owning and driving a car...

[BrandNewGuy]

Oh, and it's very disappointing that the Council didn't lead/initiate/encourage/follow this sort of discussion instead of focusing on the C*Z...

[Penguin68]

Penguin68 old man, you don't want to believe anything that doesn't give you what you want.

No, I don't want to be called a cretin and off my tits because I have the temerity to disagree with your points of view. You disagree with mine, but I am prepared to debate, not name call. Evidently it is you who respond like a spoiled child when people disagree with you.

[Huguenot]

Penguin68, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you're insisting that the moon is made of blue cheese.

I'm sorry if after all these years you still insist that view is treated with respect instead of derision.

[peterstorm1985]

yikes, just came back to look at how this thread was doing and see that the CPZ must have opened wounds that will now take years to heal.

Play nice children please.

[Jeremy]

Huguenot, I'm sure you're intelligent enough to realise that insulting people is not an effective way to get your point across. So why do you do it?

Anyway, extreme rules to limit car ownership may work in Singapore - a smaller, wealthier city with modern and efficient public transport. London, with it's Victorian infrastructure, crumbling transport network, and sprawling suburbs is a rather different kettle of fish. You have to give people an alternative before banning cars.

Luckily no government with such policies would ever be elected (another problem I guess you don't have in Singapore!)

[BrandNewGuy]

peterstorm - Hear, hear. At the conclusion of the C*Z episode, I was adamant that pro- or anti-C*Z residents should genuinely try to come up with short-, medium- and long-term ideas for East Dulwich's transport/parking needs. Let's throw all ideas into the pot, however crazy they might seem... Don't expect government (national or local) to solve our problems for us.

[grumpyoldman]

Ok lets ask the Major to increase the London Congestion zone to include east Dulwich. Any one from east Dulwich pays ?10 per day for their vehicle but gets a reduction of 90% therefore a maximum of ?1 per day for all days except public holidays and weekends therefore that would be an additional ?249 per car that each of us would pay who own one car and more if your have more than one vehicle. It would also mean that people outside the area would have to pay and additional ?9 minimum per day if they travel from outside the zone.

What do people think?

In regards to the comments about electric cars, we would have to have the roads dug up to lay power cables as they would not be able to come from the house as either thieves would nick the cables or people would unplug them, trip over them and claim compensation. If you had an electric car and someone else was parked in one of the charging points overnight and therefore you could not use your vehicle next day how annoyed would you be and again the arguments of where people park would be raised again.

There is one alternative which may work ask the rail companies to shut down the station, therefore no one can commute from the area and therefore the commuter traffic would not exist. everyone could therefore cycle or use their electric cars to the nearest station and move the problem else where.

[peckhamboy]

Yes please, extend the congestion zone. It may cost more than a cpz but then I could drive to work in the city without paying the congestion charge. Of course, we'd probably then buy a second car so my wife could drive to the shops in lordship lane during the day.

[James Barber]

Southwark Council has an agreed Green Travel Plan with Goose Green School July 2011.

During the bout of planning applications for this school I asked that a Green Travel plan be a condition but Goose Green School was already preparing one and didn't need any nudging whatever. Another sign of a well run school going places.

East Dulwich station is a Zone 2 station. Making it zone 3 would deter rail commuters from parknig in the area but costs East Dulwichresidents a collective fortune. So not a real option.

Electric cars occupy just as much space as petrol/diesel cars. The electricity used to power them comes from coal, nuclear, etc and the emebedded energy used to make them is higher than regular cars. A false green option.

Car Clubs. Research shows that over time each car club car replaces around 25 private vehicles. But of course any released spaces do seem to get abosrbed by others parking. Sadly Southwark Council is about to increase the charges it makes car clubs from ?450pa for each space to ?650 pa. This at best will supress the further rollout of car clubs.

We could all cycle and walk more...but not much incentive to do this to free spaces up for visitor parking. Alaos a bit tough people on streets wanting controlled parking to have been told to be nobble to avoid displacement parking on other strets and then try and persuade them to give up their cars for more visitors/commuters to park. So I don't feel able to do that.

Car parking at Dulwich Hospital. To make a remote car park secure would take good security. That costs money. So you'd have to charge for the parking.

Why would anyone pay to park somewhere they don't want to park over free parking near where they want to be?

OR you offer it for free but which council budget do you cut to pay for it?

Capital costs of multi storey car park ?30,000 a space above ground or ?50,000 below ground.

Road pricing. That would reduce car ownership but more car use. Currently most people view the costs of using a car at the marginal rate of fuel rather than the total cost of ownership. Increasing the marginal cost of each mile would reduce car use and to lesser degree car ownership. Moving VED this way would make sense also replacing CCZ.

[trizza]

It's all very well coming up with new ways of taxing car owners and seeking to dissuade them from using their cars. However, there needs to be a viable alternative and there isn't - cycling is (or is perceived to be) too dangerous for many and public transport is just not good enough (query if it ever could be in a city such as London) and is too expensive. My partner and I went to Liverpool last week - ?130 on the train (booking 1 month in advance) and we have to hike accross town to Euston to get the train - forget it. We saved money going by car and it was far more convenient.

In my view the car (at least in one form or another) is here to stay - people should accept that and move on. I do, however, have an issue with properties having more than two cars, or businesses using residential streets to park numerous vehicles. I am sure there are ways of addressing this other than CPZs though.

[Loz]

James Barber Wrote:

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> Car Clubs. Research shows that over time each car club car replaces around 25 private vehicles. But

> of course any released spaces do seem to get abosrbed by others parking. Sadly Southwark

> Council is about to increase the charges it makes car clubs from ?450pa for each space to ?650 pa.

> This at best will supress the further rollout of car clubs.

Shameless profiteering (so a bit like the CPZ, then). Either the council want to encourage and support car clubs, or they want to make a quick quid out of them. This is not joined-up thinking.

[peckhamboy]

Agree. Is the council's policy to manage/reduce car use or just to make money? If the former, we need viable alternatives. If the latter, we need a new council.

[James Barber]

I agree Loz.

I raised this at full council but no change of hear from the administration yet.

[gsirett]

James Barber Wrote:

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> Southwark Council has an agreed Green Travel Plan

> with Goose Green School July 2011.

> During the bout of planning applications for this

> school I asked that a Green Travel plan be a

> condition but Goose Green School was already

> preparing one and didn't need any nudging.

James

The school may be a good place to look first (although careful not to make them some form of scapegoat) My wifes a teacher at another local school and I know a good percentage of the teachers have to drive. This is because there is an expectation that heavy boxes of books,etc will go back/forth with them every night. My wife REALLY would rather walk to school, she simply can?t

So, it could well be that there is a ?practicality discourse? between the schools green transport plan and what it?s staff are actually doing (I?ll presume that there is for the rest of this post)

I?ve seen transport/environmental plans for many businesses over the years. Often, they are simply there to tick the box and are never measured in their effectiveness.

So, what could be done?

My presumption is then that the schools plan is actually failing? I guess somewhere it says that x% of staff journeys are made by public transport. Is that being mearued? Is it being audited?. Is it that they?ve put the plan together, got it stamped & filed it away? Could be. OK, so a school probably hasn?t got the time to do that audit/check (too busy teaching our kids) ......so why don?t we (the community) offer to do that audit for them? I for one, would happily give up some time to work with a school to see if they were performing against their plan.

So, lets presume that they?re not.......what to do? We (the community) ask the school to hit certain KPI?s (both in terms of sustainable transport and reduced parking congestion) . They must be reasonable. The school will then have to work with its staff to achieve this. Things like rucksacks designed to carry books, changing policy around taking work home,etc could all be used. To a certain extent, that?s for the school and their staff to work out, but at least we?ve got them thinking about it: maybe even committing to it

All of this could be done voluntarily, but when it comes to planning, whats to stop soutwark compelling organisations to regularly audit and publicise their transport plans?

We then take this model to, say, the hospital (my guess, the biggest contributor to ?commuter? parking). Again, I guess the PCT has got some sort of green/transport plan buried in an desk drawer. Lets ask them if we can audit it. Lets ask their staff if they drive. Lets tell them if their plan is failing or not appropriate. Lets get them to incentives their staff to stick to that plan. It won?t work with all their staff but I BET nobody at that hospital has been given any instruction or guidance EVER that they should not drive to work

After the hospital (and this is where it could get controversial) we could take this out to the business community of ED. (the key point: it?s voluntary, it is not a CPZ) . James: you could create some sort of scheme that businesses sign up to...instead of ?carbon neutral? it could be ?car space neutral?. It?s voluntary and businesses can proudly put the ?car space neutral ? sticker in their window. People could then choose if they wanted to do business with somebody who isn?t in the scheme. (even foxtons would soon get onboard if it brought some extra footfall)

William rose, for example would not be able to achieve it (they have delivery vans,etc I guess). But thats fine, we all know that and think its quite reasonable so still shop there.

Something like this would take some work and would need to be led/administered....I?d suggest our councillors could lead and if we could all put a little of the same energy we put into battling over that b**dy CPZ then it really could work

It would HAVE to be voluntary.

[intexasatthe moment]

James - any views on the suggestion re marking out parking spaces ?

I must say as someone who regularly cycles down Melbourne that such a proposal ,if adopted , would appear to free up a few more car parking spaces .

[Alex K]

Scrolling through this has been interesting.

When renovating our house on the St Francis estate, where a parking pad seems to be part of the house-and-lot for most dwellings, we took care to install an OUTSIDE powerpoint on the front house-wall, near the parking pad, and to install an on-off switch INSIDE, to de-activate the powerpoint.

We were looking forward to our next vehicle, an electric or hybrid car.

Some posters have recommended that parking provision be a requisite when planning permission is granted for a new household. What about making access to a powerpoint a requisite as well?

[James Barber]

Hi Alex K,

Whether a car is electric or hybrid or petrol or diesel it occupies the same road space. So not sure your undoubted longer term personal planning helps reduce parking pressures.

Environmentally also tricky. 60% of the energy used by a vehicle is in the making. Electric and hybrids take more resources to construct so have more emebedded CO2 in them. If people have to drive then using car club cars makes better eco sense than eletric or hybrid as fewer cars around to achieve the same mobility.

Hi Intexasatthe moment,

This must have been tried somewher - have you spotted any research on this? I don't get the feeling we're seeing lots of strange gaps between parked cars that aggregated together means parking opportunities are being lost.

But if someone has researched this.

Hi Giles,

Sounds a neat idea but I don't as a councillor have the time to administer it.

I don't get the feeling local businesses would support it. They were clear in their deputation to the Dulwich Community Council that they don't support controlled parking - offering them a voluntary form with no sanctions.

But do feel free to suggest it to them.

What's stopping Southwark audting and publicing businesses and organisations transport plans? You only get an opportunity to make this a planning condition when a building is redevelped. I don't see much of East Dulwich being redeveloped over the next 20-50 years. If it were Southwark wouldn't have the resources to do what you're proposing.

[bonaome]

I don't get the feeling we're seeing lots of strange gaps between parked cars that aggregated together means parking opportunities are being lost. But if someone has researched this.

'Researched' alas no. But on our street it's fairly common to be unable to park (from Thursday evening through to Monday morning) and almost as common to see several cars taking up 2 spaces. Might be worth informally looking into.

As has been said, if it works in Oz ...

[fazer71]

It?s been very interesting reading through this thread.

In the long term amazing technology, disease or a large asteroid collision with the earth may be the one final solution to parking in East Dulwich.

Meanwhile whilst we are living and thriving.

My guess is a C*Z as you put it, is the only realistic short and medium term solution and once everyone has looked thoroughly through this thread they will see that a C*Z is the only affordable workable option.

If it wasn?t then someone would have thought of an alternative.

Why and how.

It?s a way to log and monitor all the cars owned by the residents.

Even if other ideas were invented the framework of a C*Z would still be needed to manage the cars and that would cost.

The talk of over population and more homes.

Parking can?t be used as a reason to restrict new homes for people.

A C*Z would be an excellent way of restricting the parking rights of the new properties ie any new development would have no rights to a permit this happens in other areas. I almost bought a flat in Clapham and it had not right to a permit.

1hr C*Z.

Shoppers would have the option to pay for a ticket to cover the 1hr time slot.

The environment

A C*Z would allow for high pricing for gas guzzling cars ie a car emitting over 255g/km could be required to pay twice or three times or more than a car under 255g/km

Cars producing less than 100g/km co2 could be offered free permits.

Second Third or Fourth Cars

A limit of one two or three cars per household could be set.

These are all things a CPZ can do it?s just a matter of selecting the things that would work for the residents of East Dulwich.

Edit to add

Maybe we could call it a EPZ environmental parking zone...

[citizenED]

We could encourage the menfolk to let the women do the parking. Women are better at parking than men.

[Loz]

citizenED Wrote:

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> We could encourage the menfolk to let the women do

> the parking. Women are better at parking than men.

This was a survey done in a car park - so measured the ability to park in a bay based on a number of criteria, including spotting a space, positioning of the car to the space, parking centrally in the space, time to complete the parking manoeuvre, etc. As far as I've ever seen, most people - male and female - can park in bays equally well (or badly, for that matter).

They didn't do any measurement of parallel parking, which is a much more difficult spatial awareness task.