Pay Parking from 2008

Riamfada

Reported in todays Observer that UCD is introducing pay parking across the board from 2008. This is an utter disgrace on behalf of Dun Laogihaire/Rathdown and the college with an estimated 5% of parking to be free up. Five Percent! Students CANNOT afford to park on campus and I for one will be clogging up the roads around Clonskeagh . Id rather compete for a parking space than have to pay 50 cent an hour, as im here usually 9am-9pm.

Disgrace!

Royale with Cheese

Thank god I'm getting out of this place in a month's time.

Sangre

Grimes wrote:

Reported in todays Observer that UCD is introducing pay parking across the board from 2008. This is an utter disgrace on behalf of Dun Laogihaire/Rathdown and the college with an estimated 5% of parking to be free up. Five Percent! Students CANNOT afford to park on campus and I for one will be clogging up the roads around Clonskeagh . Id rather compete for a parking space than have to pay 50 cent an hour, as im here usually 9am-9pm.

Disgrace!

Who would have thought having a car would be expensive?

Red Alert

This is complete and utter fleecing of everybody. I couldn't do the sort of days i do sometimes unless i can bring the car in and leave it here for the day. UCD need to back down on this.

They should enforce a staff/student's only rule with automatic barriers but keep the carparks free (as they used to in fact years ago - you can still see some of the old equipment lying around a few carparks).

Riamfada

Sangre wrote:

Who would have thought having a car would be expensive?

Yeah a car is expensive. So expensive infact that I cant afford to socialise in the bar cause one persons booze money is my petrol money to get home.


The college is generating a money making scheme and forcing people who worked hard to get a car to take the 3 hour (in my case) public transport option. I simply refuse to accept this discrimination when a barrier system for students and staff would be just as effective.

cold_filter

I agree with that, i graduated last year but tbh sometimes if im going into town ill park in UCD and get the bus in, this is usually in the afternoon though.

From my student days i do remember quite a few people going from their cars straight to the bus stop and they werent students or lecturers

Blut

I approve this 100%, hopefully itll encourage more people to leave the car at home and get rid of some of the congestion in UCD. Plus keep "park and ride" people out. Fingers crossed theyll use the additional revenue to build another carpark or two too (but eh thats probably fairly unlikely). Plus blahblah good for the enviroment and all that.

Riamfada

cold_filter wrote:

From my student days i do remember quite a few people going from their cars straight to the bus stop and they werent students or lecturers

According to the college this number is "relatively small". Is it 5% small?


1) Does anyone think UCD gives a toss about the greater enviromental benifits ?
2) Does the college think that people are going to give up a small drive to take public transport?
3) What about students who live outside Dublin but cant afford the generous accomodation prices and are forced to take their cars?

End of story I pay 4500 a year to come to UCD. Im not paying extra for the privilage of parking a car here. If this dosnt get over ruled you can be damn sure that students will be clogging up housing estates in the surrounding areas




Will Hugh have to pay?

Riamfada

Blut wrote:

hopefully itll encourage more people to leave the car at home and get rid of some of the congestion in UCD

I wont be told by people who DRIVE to work to leave my car at home to "ease congestion" / line the college coffers.


Calcualating it at.50c per hour and the amounf of time i spend here during the college term thats

1224 Euro

now by the ammount they predict to park daily thats

3,427,200 per year

Simply screwing the students and staff over to make a wad of cash

bazman

Simple answer - cycle or use public transport

passive

Simple answer - cycle or use public transport

*stab*

unless you're being facetious... in which case, here's a bandage.

Jonny Arson

Great to see another money making scam by Hugo's UCDD Corporation inc. :rolleyes:

No one can dispute that there needs to be barriers on the car parking on campus and no one can dispute against an annual flat fee of maybe something like €100 for staff and students... but 50c a f**king hour will truly rape people like Grimes who have to hang around the campus for up to 12 hours per day for months on end

It's all about making money this.

The next person to argue ''they're doing it for the environment'' needs a slap.

UCD has failed to make the campus a green friendly campus i.e f**k all recycling facilities

UCD has failed to provide secure bike parking facilities on campus - loads of bikes stolen all the time

UCD has failed to stop the free open car parks there to be used and abused by people parking and then catching the bus to the airport for two weeks

UCD has failed to implement an effective public transport service with Dublin Bus in and out of campus
i.e. the infamous no.17 bus, the no.18 bus that doesn't work to it's timetable, no.3 that didn't stop at it's own terminus stop last week, the half empty no.10 bus that failed to stop at the Stillorgan carriage way stop last week when there was about 30 people signalling for it stop etc. etc. etc. Public transport accessability is sh!t in UCD.... it is painful using it and also the campus cannot be directly accessed by public transport from so many areas around Dublin resulting is people like Grimes having no other choice to drive to UCD unless they want to spend 3 one hour sessions on rotten buses that move at 2mph

DirkVoodoo

Blut wrote:

I approve this 100%, hopefully itll encourage more people to leave the car at home and get rid of some of the congestion in UCD. Plus keep "park and ride" people out..

Put it this way, if you work a cushy job in town and have your company car, paying say 10 or 20 euro a day isn't going to cause you too many sleepless nights. Same if you are popping into town to do some shopping. On the other hand, few students would be able to afford this. So any scheme of the sort would more than likely force students, bar the wealthier ones, off campus and keep the majority of "park and ride" culprits.

Secondly, not everyone lives near an accessible bus route or likes cycling. I myself live about a 25 min brisk walk from the 46A, not something i like doing on the return leg. I drove throughout my 4 years in college as I was fortunate enough to have a car given to me (yup, spoilt!) and so it was drive or bus, easy choice there! This year I now cycle to college most days, but being a fair-weather cyclist, I take the car if its really bad. Should I be punished for this? Should the college not be punishing people who have no business in UCD in the first place rather than marginalising students who do drive for reasons beyond the stupid simplification of "bus or cycle"? This is once again failure to tackle the greater issue and simply pocket some extra change for whoever may benefit. I have seen much of the suited business people parking nice flashy cars here then strolling to the bus, but it is not easy to generalise when we are dealing with a broad spectrum of men and women who are simply "not in UCD".

If people from outside wanted to use the library and left students without space/books during study time, do we simply charge everyone money to use the library hoping this will curb the excess? No, we have a very simple yet effective system that discriminates against non-UCDians: Identity cards. Sure it may cost more to implelement such a system. I for one would be willing to pay a small levy each year to fund such a scheme, which would suit far better than an hourly charging system.

BKtje

I'm not a driver but i gotta agree with people that it will force students out of the car parks and the park and riders will stay purely cos it would still be cheaper/easier than finding parking in dublin.

the infamous no.17 bus -snip- there was about 30 people signalling for it stop etc. etc. etc

I'm sorry but that's hardly UCD's fault, get onto Dublin Bus. Sure UCD could attempt to get better service etc but imo this is something students should complain about themselves. The more complaints the better.

themole

DirkVoodoo wrote:

If people from outside wanted to use the library and left students without space/books during study time, do we simply charge everyone money to use the library hoping this will curb the excess? No, we have a very simple yet effective system that discriminates against non-UCDians: Identity cards.

Afaik, non ucdians can get access to he library by buying a pass. At least thats what a friend of mine was told by the guy there.

I don't agree with charging everyone to park. They should firstly implement ucd staff and student only carparks, while still having one or two carparks for non ucd people to pay to park. There are often people who need to visit.

If that doesn't work to free up places then they should think of chraging for a yearly pass to some of the carparks, as mentioned before.

Jonny Arson

B-K-DzR wrote:

I'm sorry but that's hardly UCD's fault, get onto Dublin Bus. Sure UCD could attempt to get better service etc but imo this is something students should complain about themselves. The more complaints the better.

UCD do have a responsibility to ensure that there is an efficient Bus service facilitating the college. Of course it is Dublin Bus' problem if their drivers are acting like tools be it not stopping or just not showing up etc. but at the end of the day UCD cannot justify charging staff and students to park by the hour when the public transport service into the college is inefficient and not an option for a great number of staff and students. Going by the quick timescale of when this new parking system is to be introduced it is quite clear UCD are not going to make any attempts in conjunction with Dublin Bus to ensure a greater quantity and quality of bus services for Belfield.

DirkVoodoo

themole wrote:

Afaik, non ucdians can get access to he library by buying a pass. At least thats what a friend of mine was told by the guy there.

Yes, I'm aware of this, it was simply a poor analogy on my part meant to highlight a "what-if" scenario with regards to the library being run the way the car park is run.

besty

I didn't read the article but is there no way that this will just be a sticker system which will cost a flat rate at the start of the year or something? I think this used to be in operation too for around €300 or something! I feel that would be a fairer way of doing an open season pay every day scheme. Ideally, there should be systems in check to stop park and riding from non-students. The sticker system could also help this.

Notorious

bazman wrote:

Simple answer - cycle or use public transport

And what if you live too far away to cycle, and you must get two buses to get home (the first of which is an 84, which is not very regular at all)???

Introducing pay parking, which in turn will only free up an estimated 5% of spaces is ridiculous! Surely only freeing up that amount of space will still leave drivers battling it out for a parking spot?

Seems like another money making scheme, but at least it'll keep the UCD clampers on their toes!

cast_iron

Notorious wrote:

And what if you live too far away to cycle, and you must get two buses to get home (the first of which is an 84, which is not very regular at all)???

Whilst I'm not exactly for these charges, for the situation above, tough luck.
The fact that some people happen to live far away from college shouldn't mean no parking charges/car restrictions should be allowed.

cast_iron

cast_iron wrote:

Whilst I'm not exactly for these charges, for the situation above, tough luck.
The fact that some people happen to live far away from college shouldn't mean no parking charges/car restrictions should be allowed.

Indeed, thats what on campus residence is for

pigeonbutler

This is obviously bad news for a lot of people but I have to say I understand where the college are coming from. Firstly they had to do something to try relieve the car parking situation, and were being told that building more spaces on green fields was a no-no. Therefore the only option was to try find some way of reducing the demand.

Here's a few options they could have taken to resolve the situation and why they didn't:

1. Restrict parking to students and staff only and have it free. Firstly from research into the supposed multitude of park-and-riders they discovered that there would still be major shortages if they did this. And what about temporary lecturers? guests? parents of people being conferred? the list goes on.

Oh and of course Hugh doesn't pay. The statutes of the University FORCE him to live on the campus. It comes with the rules of the job.

2. Offer students and staff an annual pass for a set fee. They didn't do this as people would try to get their moneys worth once they'd bought a pass. They would have no incentive to hop on the 10 even if it was just coming up to their door as they left the house, or to cycle once weather got nice.
Also it wouldn't reduce demand. Pretty much everyone would buy the pass and the hassle would continue. How pissed off would you be if you'd bought a parking pass and still had to spend an hour looking for a space?

3. Build more spaces - Refused Permission by the county council

This is going to hurt people but we have to understand who it's aimed at. It's aimed at the people who live in Donnybrook, Baggot St, Stillorgan, Dun Laoghaire and such places that are on the 10 or 46a routes but who still insist on driving their 07-D Mini Coopers (complete with L plates) into college every day. It's also aimed at the people living in Kilmacud, Clonskeagh, Windy Arbour, Mount Merrion and those other places that are less than 30 mins walk that insist they HAVE to drive to college every day, or people who live in same estate and are in same class but don't car pool. Making them pay much more than the bus fare each day is the only way to make them think.

But yes it will hurt people who live away from feasible public transport options, and they have my sympathies but pigovian taxes (which this could be considered to be) always have winners and losers. To those who say a 5% reduction isn't worth paying for, well would you prefer outrageously high charges and a 50% reduction in demand? The university are trying to tread a line between a charge that won't overly penalise the people that really have to drive with a charge that's high enough to make lots of people reconsider the neccesity of driving.

An afterthought. This is only defensible if there's a provision for free parking for campus residents. It really would be outrageous to have to pay to park on res. I live on res but only have a car with me on very rare occassions but even so could not countenance people being charged to park outside where they live.

Dave!

Great, just when I get a driving licence!!! C*cks!!!

I shall be parking somewhere free on my return.......

Riamfada

The point remains that your businessman on his way to Donnybrook wont be hampered by a small fee and will continue to park there however students who are short of cash are forced to continue to drive but park off campus

Font22

its unfair to charge for parking when its a college campus and the car park is supposed to be there for the use of people attending college or working there. i'll be leaving UCD in two weeks but i hope for the sake of my sister that its sorted out properly.is it really that difficult to stick up a couple of barriers. if i didnt have other plans with my life i'd be happy to police the carparks and kick out snotty commuters who park their cars in UCD and then saunter off to the bus stop.

Stepherunie

themole wrote:

Afaik, non ucdians can get access to he library by buying a pass. At least thats what a friend of mine was told by the guy there.

Ok I know this is off topic but just to point out that whilst you can buy a pass to use the library in UCD as a non student, you're actually prohibited from using it in the month prior to exams and exam time. I.e. students get priority.

As the Library is very heavily used by UCD students prior to and during the main examination period, we regret that access to the Library is unavailable to UCD alumni between March and May.

Taken from http://www.ucd.ie/library/about/admission_to_the_library/index.html#nonucd

Sabbats have been saying in there manifestos since I started in UCD that they'll make parking in UCD for staff and students only - not one iota has actually been done about this.

And where did the SU campaign on parking disappear too???

DirkVoodoo

PigeonButler, a student/staff system WOULD ease congestion, as the case being made here is that a percentage of cars in UCD are simply availing of the free parking next to key public transport links.

Also, the point made abut guest lecturers, conferrings etc. For a start, they generally close off enough car parking space in O Reilly for conferring. Gues lecturers could also avail of a kind of guest pass perhaps. In such cases, I don;t see the relevance. Such incidents will occur maybe once or twice a year (to the person involved, not in overall frequency). So parking across the bridge or using pay and display is not as much as an incnvenience to people who are on campus 5-days a week for over 8 hrs a day.

I dont see how there should be any other winners and losers in this case, except students/staff winning and freeloaders losing.

Red Alert

If they had automatic barriers you could have a setup where a lecturer can give a guest a barcode via the SIS or Connect to be scanned at the entrance barrier.

If they went back to having automatic barriers and passes it would wipe out the park and ride crowd.

cast_iron

I think the barrier idea would be the best solution.
Student/staff cards could be used for access. Temporary passes could be issued at the main gate for those with valid reasons.

Sangre

Well, if they're going to fleece somebody at least its the poshos with the cars.

A barrier system wouldn't work. It would cause tailbacks onto main roads and the dual carriageway during peak hours.

Riamfada

Sangre wrote:

Well, if they're going to fleece somebody at least its the poshos with the cars.

A barrier system wouldn't work. It would cause tailbacks onto main roads and the dual carriageway during peak hours.

Ah Sangre, get a job like the rest of us and perhaps that green shade of envy might fade.


Barries at the enterances to the carparks wouldnt cause any tailbacks , unless everyone came to college at exactly the same moment