An end to free parking?

Why? Why should cars be given public space for free? In what other area do we let people simply dump their belongings in a public space and expect everyone to simply make way for it? If you can't afford a parking space don't buy a car. It's not really that crazy.

You are asking other people do put up with delays just for another persons convenience. In the estate around me, each road has two lanes but effectively it is reduced to one lane due to all the parked cars. Annoys me that I constantly have to stop and wait for other traffic because me lane has been blocked by someone who has parked their car in the road.

Transfer the cost of that to the real owner, the car owner, and the real cost of owning a vehicle becomes clearer.

Everyone pays taxes and everyone has rights to use the roads. The roads/streets were built to the standard they currently are because of advances in automobile technology and the need to have streets to accommodate them. The vast sums of money contributed by motorists in a myriad of forms contribute to these roads and streets being in the condition they are. Motorists literally subsidise all other street users. So no. It’s not free storage of your car.

Does that include Cyclists who pay plenty of income and VAT taxes yet have (almost) no cycle infrastructure?

At current property prices, especially in Dublin, the cost of providing thousands of sq. meters of land to park private vehicles I would love to see the figures you used to come to the conclusion as to how the use of free land is covered by motor taxes?

Where does that end. Pay to use benches?

Benches are provided as an amenity. Roads are built to allow traffic to proceed, they are not meant as defacto car parks. So we spend loads of money building roads only for people to use them as their private parking facility.

The reason why people are against such an idea as they know that it would massively increase the cost of car ownership. Either directly by way of money or time in terms of having to park somewhere less convenient. But therein lies the truth. Everybody ends up paying for others convenience.

If you don't have the space to look after the car yourself then the state shouldn't be expected to provide it for you.

Benches are talking spaces from paths and parks. Its free parking for people. Same with Bicycle parking everywhere.

If the only place to park is your driveway not much having a car.

You can apply the same dumb logic to standing on a path.

It would be true that in some estates residents pay for the maintenance of the common areas but definitely do not own said lands..

It would depend on the legal structure of the estate. If it is a multi unit development / managed estate, the owners' management company would own the common areas, with each property owner being a member of the owners' management company.

Classic case government trying to make it seem like it's doing something about congestion etc. when the real solution is to improve public transport to a level where people will naturally favour it.

My commute is around 15km each way and driving is cheaper and shorter by a substantial amount. For a modern city with apparently planned infrastructure that is ridiculous. The lack of metro and bus routes that circle around the city in layers rather than the in/out system towards the centre are the key issues IMO

I never said they owned it I said they paid for it and for the development of it so they could use it. The LA then take it over and maintain it, but there is virtually little maintenance. A lot of maintenance is carried out by local active committees ( grass cutting, planting etc)

The LA charge a development levy paid by the house owners through the developer just like the roads and other services.

You've completely missed the point here. It most definitely is not the argument made. I'd argue that the slight increase to congestion has been due to the changes in road layouts leading to less vehicle capacity in order to accommodate cycle and bus lanes.

Having said that, Dublin has a tiny city centre with not exactly fantastic road infrastructure/layouts and yet even a short commute is still cheaper and shorter by car.

Public transport needs to improve substantially in order for firstly people to move to it willingly and secondly, to handle this increased capacity. You can't ban traffic and expect the current system that doesn't provide enough capacity in key areas to take the extra load on.

"Having said that, Dublin has a tiny city centre with not exactly fantastic road infrastructure/layouts and yet even a short commute is still cheaper and shorter by car."

You sure about that? Pretty certain on a busy weekday morning I could make it from Rathgar to Grand Canal dock much quicker than a motorcar, plus it costs me nothing...