Residents parking

[millimole]

Another driver (!) for multiple cars in one household is the phenomenon of youngsters living longer with their parents because they can't afford to move out.
Opposite neighbours have approximately (I've never come to a definite number) 5 cars - mum, dad, three twentyish kids, girl&boyfreinds staying the night all with cars.
They can, with juggling, get three cars on their drive - do they?


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[Elizabethsdad]

It still seems to me odd that motorists are assuming they are entitled to use public property to store their possessions.

Could I legally obtain an old but (just) roadworthy transit or similar van, tax and insure it, and park it in a street then never move it (except to the testing station for the annual MoT) and use it as a kind of garden shed?

If so then why cannot I simply place a shed in the same space and pay MVED as a rent for the space?

If I cannot keep my shed in the street, why can motorists keep their cars there?

You could save yourself the cost of MOT and VED and just park a large covered trailer for that matter. If you want to take the risk of it being broken into on a nightly basis.

[irc]

On the subject of residents' parking schemes, these don't generally reduce the level of on-street parking. On the contrary they legitimate it but ration it. If cyclists have a problem with on street parking, it doesn't make much difference who is parked.

Though parking bays are not located within 10m of junctions etc. So the worst aspects of free for all parking are controlled. Local parking schemes can be combined with other measures. For example in Glasgow as part of the parking/traffic plans some streets are blocked to prevent them being used as a through route. There are usually cycle bypasses so allowing bikes to use low traffic through routes closed to high volume through trafic. It works well.

[Vorpal]

Resident parking schemes *could* reduce street parking, and even encourage active travel and the use of public transport, but they don't. They are designed in most places to get commuters to use the profitable car parks, rather hen public property, but thatæs about it.

Resident parking? New builds design it in better but realize we've a very old housing stock. It's not going to be cheap to solve this issue. Most posts seem to be applying more to new builds or recent builds. I wonder if most of those posts are by forum members to the south?

New builds design it in better in some places. The same companies do the development everywhere; Taylor Wimpey, Barratt, etc.

They do what will gain them the most profit, which is living space. Sold by number of (small) bedrooms.

Parking standards are left up to local authorities. Some county / shire councils have guidelines, some leave it up to districts, burroughs, unitary authorities, etc. Some have no standards at all, some define a minimum of 1 car parking place per household for new builds, and some have quite detailed standards that are designed to encourage the use of active travel and public transport. So, if new builds in your area do it better, it is because the devlopers are required to do so.

[andrewk]

Residents parking schemes encourage car ownership and selfishness.

They are a bad idea.

An extreme view. At odds with public sentiment. You may dislike cars but the majority do not share your view...most people want a car of their own and somewhere convenient to park it. Residents' parking schemes are necessary in cities otherwise residential roads become clogged with commuters' vehicles with residents being unable to park. How is this selfish?

There's a simple answer - double yellow lines.

Those who want a convenient place to park a car should provide it at their own expense and off road.

1. They DO pay...many councils make a profit from exhorbitant residents' parking permits.

2. Other than wholesale demolition and replacement of much of the existing housing stock there is no way of providing off street parking for those without.

[pete75]

An extreme view. At odds with public sentiment. You may dislike cars but the majority do not share your view...most people want a car of their own and somewhere convenient to park it. Residents' parking schemes are necessary in cities otherwise residential roads become clogged with commuters' vehicles with residents being unable to park. How is this selfish?

There's a simple answer - double yellow lines.

Those who want a convenient place to park a car should provide it at their own expense and off road.

1. They DO pay...many councils make a profit from exhorbitant residents' parking permits.

2. Other than wholesale demolition and replacement of much of the existing housing stock there is no way of providing off street parking for those without.

1. Exorbitant? Average cost is £64 a year and even the most expensive are under £800. Perhaps the higher price should be the norm. Someone is effectively renting a piece of the public highway 24hrs a day 365 days a year - under 10 pence an hour is not an unreasonable charge.

2. You're looking at it from the wrong point of view - the idea is to reduce car ownership and use. Not a bad way to do it either. The areas with the least off street parking tend to be large towns and cities with reasonable public transport systems.

[Bmblbzzz]

I'm a bit puzzled over how the current situation developed.

At the start of the 20th century it seems it was clear that roads could not be used for storing vehicles while their owners were at home. Vehicles (mainly horse-drawn and cycles at the time) could be left standing in a highway "in the course of a journey" (e.g. while calling somewhere away from home) provided this did not unreasonably obstruct the free passage of the said highway. However it was established that "the king's highway is not to be used as a stableyard" i.e. once the owner was at home rather than in the course of a journey their vehicle must be stored off the public highway. In practice this seems to have rarely been a problem as those wealthy enough to own vehicles generally owned somewhere where they could be kept and in any case did not usually wish to leave such valuable property lying about in public, vulnerable to any accident or to any thief or vandal.

As far as I can tell Parliament has never actually negated this rule. It has simply become increasingly disregarded.
While I do not know the sequence of events (can anyone enlighten me?) I wonder if when cars became cheaper people who did not have anywhere to put them took to buying them and leaving them in the street, and the powers that be wished to appeal to the votes of that demographic group, motor traders who wished to improve sales exerted local influence, and those who were the worst affected were reluctant to complain about their neighbours.

There's your answer in a nutshell; virtually every household is much richer now than then and even poor households can afford a car. Not just cos we're richer but cos cars are cheaper, relative to income, than horses and carriages.

[Grandad]

As each of 5 of my grandchildren left education and looked for work they found that public transport was absolutely useless - inadequate and where it existed was very expensive.

Users of this forum would probably repeat my advice to them - "0n your Bike," but I'm afraid that is not an option that they would consider. In this they are no different to 99% of their contemporaries.

I can't think of any practical solution to the whole problem of excessive traffic and parking.

[Cyril Haearn]

As each of 5 of my grandchildren left education and looked for work they found that public transport was absolutely useless - inadequate and where it existed was very expensive.

Users of this forum would probably repeat my advice to them - "0n your Bike," but I'm afraid that is not an option that they would consider. In this they are no different to 99% of their contemporaries.

I can't think of any practical solution to the whole problem of excessive traffic and parking.

I can think of a good start. Consider for example how many people work in Nottingham and live in Derby and vice versa. Or Gloucester and Cheltenham, or... There should be an organised "bouleversement" or mass swap of jobs.

You know it makes sense.

[Bowedw]

Cyril Haearn's statement unfortunately while theoretically logical is not use to people having to travel to work to make their way in the world and Grandad refers to his grandchildren as being like 99% of the population. They are adults in their own right and any parent or grandparent will be proud to know that their younger generation are in work or seeking work and are prepared to look outside of their locality for work. So many lack any get up and go. Like so many in rural areas I had to travel to school and work and eventually had to move closer to work.
On a similar subject the transporting of goods that can be obtained locally just to save a few pounds is scandalous. As a proud Welshman I find the fact that the Hafod Eryri centre was roofed with Spanish slates, to satisfy some Eu tendering rules I believe, makes me feel sick.
This is repeated throughout the country with good from North passing the same goods from the South on opposite lanes of the motorway. This is what is called "value for money".
The fact that apart from motorways we are still dependant on roads that originally where dirt track lanes and the investment on a national level to cater for the car when it is stationary is deplorable. Not always possible but could be done and then keep the roadway clear without restrictions. Traffic calming is another issue but I do not believe my presence on a bike calms the drivers.
I usually try and avoid thinking about the volume of traffic, I do not cycle on roads I enjoyed not that many years and do not see any long term future for safe cycling on them and if I'm honest like the ctc now I feel like a charity case rather than a proud cyclist as I once was.

[blackbike]

If on road parking is to be allowed on a street it should be available to everyone who can find a space, not reserved for people who just happen to live in houses on that street.

I see no good reason why councils should make parking easier for some people and harder for others. They should only control parking for reasons like stopping obstruction of traffic, not to give preferential access to public road space to a minority of people.

[thirdcrank]

The reality is that parking provision is the responsibility of local councils and local councillors are more interested in not upsetting residents, than in pleasing other road users who may be from anywhere. IME there are few things which shake the principles of the most principled councillors more than issues like this. Turnouts in local elections are embarrassingly low: a street or two of disgruntled residents can lose a ward.

[Flinders]

Residents parking schemes encourage car ownership and selfishness.

They are a bad idea.

I would have thought the opposite - if a household is limited to having only one residents parking space they will be more likely to only have the one car rather than 2 or 3 cars as seems to be the case so often these days. Of course any system will be abused, I lived in a flat once with allocated private parking spaces and was very annoyed with the little scrote who left his BMW parked in my space all night - wasn't even a resident. To this day I regret not just slashing all his tyres.

Not having a space does nothing to deter people having vehicles.

We have a drive. Three adults live here. We widened the drive slightly so we could easily park both the household's cars (both needed for work) on it. Our neighbours (three adults) have two cars, a van and a pickup between them. They park the two cars in the drive, the van outside their house, the pickup outside our house. Getting into and out of our drive is difficult because the two vehicles on the road are so large it's hard to see what is coming, and I'm sure lots of people think the pickup is ours.
Where my parents live, people not from the street inn fact, they are from the other side of large main road park their 'extra' cars - in one case two cars- on my parents' street (and right close to a bad bend and two junctions). It would look like people on their street park on the road despite having drives, but they don't. Oh, except the one bloke who has two cars and two commercial vehicles, and parks at least one if not two outside other people's houses.

So not having a space outside your house isn't a deterrent to having cars - and also, don't blame the people whose houses the cars/vans etc are parked outside- the cars may not be theirs. You don't own the right to park in the road in front of your house on most streets.

[Flinders]

Residents parking schemes encourage car ownership and selfishness.

They are a bad idea.

An extreme view. At odds with public sentiment. You may dislike cars but the majority do not share your view...most people want a car of their own and somewhere convenient to park it. Residents' parking schemes are necessary in cities otherwise residential roads become clogged with commuters' vehicles with residents being unable to park. How is this selfish?

Quite. Round here, rail users parked their cars in the side streets, sometimes double parking, rather than pay to park at the station or elsewhere. When resident's permits were introduced, it limited the parking to sensible levels and kept the traffic moving.

[thirdcrank]

It seems to me it's obvious that it's a big deal for householders what happens on the road outside their houses. As road users, cyclists are not helped by on-street parking, no matter who owns the vehicles. It's probably only human nature that the people who are most territorial about the road outside their own "castle" are the same people who will get up to all sort of selfish antics in the search for somewhere to park when they are not at home, frothing about what's happening in the street outside.

As I've suggested above, little is going to change but the trend will be to more motor vehicles on the road with less room for them to be parked.