Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

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Nicholas
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Nicholas »

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Phil
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Phil »

UTCPaul wrote:
Pilgrim Dan wrote:Plymouth - Ivybridge Park & Rail
It might help if they had trains that stopped there between 8 and 9 am.
Initially I believe they did and there was even a minibus shuttle to the centre of Ivybridge (the new station was opened on a brand new out of town site, not on the site of the original Ivybridge station which was convenient for the village centre) plus surrounding villages.

Patronage was never as good as hoped mainly because it was a rather silly location. If you want to have a park and ride setup for Plymouth (which was how it got built in the first place sticking it down at Plympton would have been far more logical. I suppose the original idea was based on Tiverton Parkway - a station in a small village that attracts people from far and wide and is a resounding success.

Mind you Plymouth itself does have the big disadvantage that its station is some distance from the city centre so any rail based park and ride is going to suffer
Rob590
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Rob590 »

Returning to the original question - here's a good example of one that seems to have completely failed in Darlington.
Councillor David Lyonette, cabinet member for transport at the authority, admitted that the scheme “didn’t particularly work” and blamed the shape of the town for motorists failing to use the service.
It strikes me that they might have predicted this; the shape of the town should not have been a surprise to them!
UTCPaul
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by UTCPaul »

Phil wrote:
UTCPaul wrote:
Pilgrim Dan wrote:Plymouth - Ivybridge Park & Rail
It might help if they had trains that stopped there between 8 and 9 am.
Initially I believe they did and there was even a minibus shuttle to the centre of Ivybridge (the new station was opened on a brand new out of town site, not on the site of the original Ivybridge station which was convenient for the village centre) plus surrounding villages.

Patronage was never as good as hoped mainly because it was a rather silly location. If you want to have a park and ride setup for Plymouth (which was how it got built in the first place sticking it down at Plympton would have been far more logical. I suppose the original idea was based on Tiverton Parkway - a station in a small village that attracts people from far and wide and is a resounding success.

Mind you Plymouth itself does have the big disadvantage that its station is some distance from the city centre so any rail based park and ride is going to suffer
I suspect if it was put in now with the same facilities, and 2 more trains stopping, it would be more of a success.

Plymouth station isn't that far from the centre, only 5 min walk to the major shopping areas, and would be a better walk if they'd spent the 6 figure sum improving footpaths and providing shelter along the route rather than on widening the road for a cycle path that really wasn't needed.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Jeni »

Stagecoach are building a park and ride site at the 192 terminus in Hazel Grove, supposedly the first commercial one in the country.

I fail to see how it's going to be any use though, to my knowledge there is no plan to introduce express buses and the 192 is the slowest route known to man into Stockport and Manchester, I just can't see it being widely used!

That said, construction is so slow that I think that it's being built by whoever is constructing the M6 smart motorway ;-)
AndrewH
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by AndrewH »

Stagecoach have taken over the Hull Park & Ride on a commercial basis I believe?

The ones in Durham always seem not as good as they should be. You'd expect them to be as busy as York, Chester etc, but they only use Optare Solos.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Jeni »

AndrewH wrote:Stagecoach have taken over the Hull Park & Ride on a commercial basis I believe?
They probably took over the route commercially. In this case they are building the car park and waiting room out of their own pocket.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Bryn666 »

The P&R being built on the A580 under the M60 should be an interesting one to watch as the immediate weakness is lack of access from the motorways. Unfortunate.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by t1(M) »

A failed P&R - Kingston Christmas-shopping-season K50 between Chessington World of Adventures overflow car park and Kingston Town Centre was launched in 1990 and ran every winter until January 2014. The council decided not to fund it in 2014/5 because of falling ridership.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by brummie_rob »

vlad wrote:This is the official park and ride in Stoke-on-Trent. Turn through 180 degrees and you'll see the bus station (the metal/glass building which reminds me of a dead armadillo) where you'll be dropped off. It's then further to walk to the shops than it is to walk back to the car park.

For some reason the park and ride isn't used too well. Until last year they didn't even let you access it from the A5008.
Is there even a bus running on this still? Don't think I've ever seen one! It is a pointless car park, much quicker to park next to the shops in the Potteries car park.
Benny
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Benny »

Second mortgage to park in the Potteries these days, I park in 'Go Outdoors' whenever I go.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by brummie_rob »

roverman wrote:Second mortgage to park in the Potteries these days, I park in 'Go Outdoors' whenever I go.
Yes, I used to park there for work all the time before the £5 minimum spend was introduced. You would find a queue of workers inside buying the cheapest thing possible. In the winter it was Deicer and scrapers and in Summer flapjack sales were through the roof.

Mind you even now, at £2.50 all day parking it is a bargain. I feel soon it'll rise when the new complex opens.
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Patrick Harper
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Patrick Harper »

There was one in Hemel, in Gadebridge Park, but it was halted in 2008 simply for being under-used. The parking in Marlowes is good enough, and the traffic light enough, that I don't think enough people had enough reason to bother.

I think I've had enough of the word 'enough' today. :P
Piatkow
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Piatkow »

I had forgotten about Hemel. I can't think what the catchement would be for Gadebridge, I would have to drive past the town centre car parks to get to it. Not that I have shopped in the centre of Hemel for years, I only seem to go there for B&Q and they have their own car park.
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Gareth Thomas »

Canterbury's Park and Rides are nearly always busy, and all three routes are well used. There were plans for a fourth site for traffic coming from the west (ie, London) but nothing ever happened.

The main roads into the city are still horrendous but would be even worse without the Park and Ride. They have recently started operating on Sundays and later in the evenings, so as to allow theatregoers and the like to use them.

Normally I park outside my friend's house when in Canterbury, but if I go there with my grandparents we use the Park and Ride and it is much easier. :)

The only problem is the Wincheap site is blocking any off-slip at the A28 junction coastbound. Plans were in place to move the site to Thanington but once again nothing happened.
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andrewwoods
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by andrewwoods »

So the Poole P&R, which is only ever open four Saturdays a year, is now closed because the Travellers have moved in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-34946636
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Fahad »

Jeni wrote:Stagecoach are building a park and ride site at the 192 terminus in Hazel Grove, supposedly the first commercial one in the country.

I fail to see how it's going to be any use though, to my knowledge there is no plan to introduce express buses and the 192 is the slowest route known to man into Stockport and Manchester, I just can't see it being widely used!
Stagecoach have now introduced express buses from the Park & Ride to the City Centre, non-stop between Stockport Mersey Square and Piccadilly. I wonder how many people actually use them - given traffic on the A6 (the bus is timetabled 45 minutes to make the journey, compared to well over an hour on the stopping services) it's still quicker to park for free at the P&R, walk to the station (10 minutes), and get a train to Manchester (20 minutes)
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Jeni »

Fahad wrote:it's still quicker to park for free at the P&R, walk to the station (10 minutes), and get a train to Manchester (20 minutes)
The difference is that you're pretty much guaranteed a seat on the bus, as well as the bus being cheaper.

One of the quirks of the 192 is that between Hazel Grove and Stockport it's quicker and drops you closer to the town centre than the train. It's just over the whole route that it's slower (The optimum way to get into Manchester on PT is 192 to Stockport, dive into Stockport station and hop onto a train into Manc from there, preferably a Virgin)

For some reason the train crawls along between Hazel Grove and Stockport
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Reading »

A329Mdren wrote:
Reading has two Park & Ride sites, one at the Madejski Stadium to the south of Reading and the other at Loddon Bridge to the west of the urban area. Both sites are easily accessible from the M4 and other major routes.

Frequent Park & Ride services connect you quickly and cheaply to central Reading. Park & Ride costs less than parking in central Reading for anything other than very short stays, and Park & Ride services use bus lanes making it a quicker journey than travelling by car.

Park & Ride services operate from the following sites:

Madejski Stadium (RG2 0PL) - Ideal if you are travelling from M4 junction 11, south or west of Reading.

Loddon Bridge (RG41 5HG) - Ideal if you are travelling from M4 junction 10 or east of Reading.

Developing further Park & Ride sites is central to Reading Borough Council's future Transport Policy.
Reading now has 3 and one of the originals has relocated. The Loddon Bridge one flooded regularly (planning permission only allowed by Environment agency if not higher than existing flood plain so local houses not affected) it is now located in an expanded car park at Winnersh Triangle station 100m away, also there is now one at Mereoak which is just south of J11 utilising the field turned into a contractors pound for the J11 improvements and finally making sense of the dedicated bus lanes through that junction.

As Reading buses is still part owned by the council we actually have a pretty decent integrated bus service and also the Loddon Bridge one allows park and train
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Re: Under-utilised, badly sited or even failed Park & Rides

Post by Helvellyn »

Jeni wrote:
For some reason the train crawls along between Hazel Grove and Stockport
A few closely-spaced stops and the junction with the main line. Still moves faster than the A6 though.

I go past the Hazel Grove P&R every day, it usually looks pretty empty.
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