Parking on Letterkenny's Main Street

smugchik

I stopped shopping on the main street years ago due to the fact that it is usually impossible to park...

K-9

smugchik wrote: »

I stopped shopping on the main street years ago due to the fact that it is usually impossible to park...

You've the Courtyard and Dillons car park. Parking has been a problem on the main street for years. People want to park as close as possible to the particular shop and then leave.

Retail Parks solve that as you've a short walk and 4/5 shops in easy distance. Not great for planning or the main street though.

stephendevlin

Parking was always an issue on the main street. I would say Michael gallghers decided to call it a day due to the climate we are in but also maybe to retire. Not worth him running a business when can be enjoying his life.

cosanostra

Parking is a major problem in the main st i think when the courtyard built their second story and made it pay to park it finished off the shopping center and with it the retail of the main st but how many of the parking spaces along the main st are taken up by staff and owners of the struggling business!

muffler

Above posts moved from another thread where they were running off topic.

annascott

K-9 wrote: »

You've the Courtyard and Dillons car park. Parking has been a problem on the main street for years. People want to park as close as possible to the particular shop and then leave.

Retail Parks solve that as you've a short walk and 4/5 shops in easy distance. Not great for planning or the main street though.

There used to be prepaid scratch card type parking 'disc' that had to be displayed when parking. I thought they worked very well, I always had a book of them in my glove box and always used them when parking. I'm afraid that I rarely use the current parking tickets as there are not enough ticket machines on display. If I am fortunate enough to find a parking space outside the shop that I need to visit, why would I want to wander down the road looking for a parking machine which could be 200 metres away?

It is for this reason, that I use the TK Max retail park whenever possible...

cosanostra

Letterkenny realise on outside shoppers so the idea of pre-purchased parking tickets just wouldn't work

Firblog

Whatever the pro's an cons to ticket dispensers v's pre paid scratch cards, surely the main proble is the lack of spaces, and the main reason there are so few spaces are the council works that have taken place over the last few years.. They must have reduced the number of parking spaces by at least a thrid...

nmg_ire

Theres is plenty of parking off the main street, people are just too lazy to use it. As posted above people want to park outside a shop a run in. If you were down in say marks & spencers and then wanted something in argos or Dunnes you would walk a fair distance between these shops anyway.

salonfire

There isn't a town in Ireland that has so much free car park space within easy walking distance to the Main St.

• Behind An Grainian Theatre for Port Road
• The Old Swimming Pool for High Rd.
• Dillons for Upper Main St
• Courtyard for Lower Main St
• McGinleys, although a little bit further away

It is dying a slow death. How long has the Music Centre been vacate for now? Must be 5 yrs or more

annascott

I wouldn't dream of walking from Marks & Spencer to TK MAxx. Why would I carry everything with me? I just move the car...

nmg_ire wrote: »

Theres is plenty of parking off the main street, people are just too lazy to use it. As posted above people want to park outside a shop a run in. If you were down in say marks & spencers and then wanted something in argos or Dunnes you would walk a fair distance between these shops anyway.

Firblog

nmg_ire wrote: »

As posted above people want to park outside a shop a run in.

And what's wrong with that?

Why did the council remove so many spaces? Not alone did they remove a valueable source of revenue (parking fees) but they are partly responsible for the reduced business on the main street too. This also lessens revenues due to reduced rates. Council designers seemed to loose the run of themselves, spending large sums of money gentrifying streets at the expense of functionality and common business sense.

cosanostra

Its very easy to say that there is plenty of car parking and people are just lazy but people in general are lazy and its not up to people to accommodate the shops its the other way around!

People like the openness of the retail parks and the shopping center with the main st you get the feeling of being hemmed in and trapped!

You have a pretty poor selection of shops on the main st there is no food store as such and m&s dunnes and tesco are the busiest shops in the town so they are the attractions!

The future of the main st will be fast food outlets, pubs and nightclubs its what the main st works best as so its what will naturally survive!

Harps

So you'd rather an American style soulless car orientated town with no real centre or streetscape?

Every town in Europe is made up of streets with little parking available. You cant expect to be able to pull up outside every shop, theres plenty of parking a two minute walk from the main street as already mentioned above.

The biggest mistake the planners made was the design of the retail parks, theyre totally cut off from the Main Street when they should have tried to integrate the two into one big shopping area.

K-9

Harps wrote: »

So you'd rather an American style soulless car orientated town with no real centre or streetscape?

Every town in Europe is made up of streets with little parking available. You cant expect to be able to pull up outside every shop, theres plenty of parking a two minute walk from the main street as already mentioned above.

The biggest mistake the planners made was the design of the retail parks, theyre totally cut off from the Main Street when they should have tried to integrate the two into one big shopping area.

There was talk of integrating Pearse Road and the Main Street more but I'm afraid I think you are correct on the retail park thing, people seem to prefer them. I don't think it's a Letterkenny thing either, it's happening in Strabane too and all over Ireland. People want parking in front of shops, I'd say part of the reason the McGinley centre and a couple of other units never took of.

cosanostra

Harps wrote: »

So you'd rather an American style soulless car orientated town with no real centre or streetscape?

Every town in Europe is made up of streets with little parking available. You cant expect to be able to pull up outside every shop, theres plenty of parking a two minute walk from the main street as already mentioned above.

The biggest mistake the planners made was the design of the retail parks, theyre totally cut off from the Main Street when they should have tried to integrate the two into one big shopping area.

I wasnt saying i wanted that im saying thats what lk has to deal with now and the reality is thats how the main st will end up as you say very bad planning is to blame!

I noticed on a video of lk in the 70s on another thread that the market sq was all parking at one point that would make a big difference to parking!

One thing i would do to help the parking problems would be to get all the shops to enforce that their staff dont park on the st cause theres nothing worse than at 6 oclock watching staff walking out of a shop and getting into their car parked right outside the door