An end to free parking?

All new offices to have no parking what so ever in the city centre. Ultimately the problem is people are living to far from work so cant cycle. Force them to. There is so many jobs based in city centre compared with accomation that it forces people to travel into the city. Judt e ery office and new build within 5km of the city centre have no parking.

I know alot of people who could easily cycle to their office job but chose to drive. Mainly because they are fat and lazy.

Exactly. We use our cars for more than just commuting to and from work. My HH needs to make 2 or 3 trips to the supermarket every week with full trollies each time. Back in the day, one could wheel the trolly home, but for obvious reasons, this has been stomped out by the supermarkets. Delivery is an option for some, but not every supermarket offers home delivery. Taxi is too expensive.

It is cheaper for me to use my EV than PT. Even if it were not, I prefer not to have to deal with the riff raff on PT. Between people who don't know what a shower is and scummers smoking a spliff upstairs, I would end up in prison on assault charges. Best I stay in the car.

I think the point is that if you sort out the local parking issue ie. provide a park and ride instead of fining the car owners then you will have less congestion in the city.

I've seen where they park up on the Carlow Road. They are in no ones way at all. I've seen similar at other junctions around the country too. It's quite a bit busier at Drogheda though.

When someone drives that much the overall cost-per-mile (fuel burn plus amortised fixed costs) is well below the cost-per-mile of public transport.

I'll leave it to others to argue the "where appropriate" bit as I have not regularly driven to work since 2012.

You will never incentivise something that isn’t fit for purpose.

My point was only that commuting those massive distances is not a marginal cost because you already have a car. Saving time is another completely different issue. That's a time vs money argument. Tbh if you've committed to a long commute you've already prioritize that over time at home. We've all been there and that has its own cost. Somes it has to be done.

The issue is city center congestion. There will be very few companies and sites with free parking city center. Lots of big construction sites near me, none have free parking. The streets are filled with builders cars using on street parking. When I worked in construction we worked some difficult sites in the city center. I know what's involved.

Was on a forum years ago with long distance drivers all using EVs. Made a huge difference to fuel and general servicing.

End of free parking only applies to city center. I dunno why people who aren't driving into the center are complaining about something that will never effect them.

You make a valid argument on TCO and commutes being non-marginal. However, I put it to you that most car owners would buy the same car regardless of their commute. They buy for commuting, as well as social, domestic and pleasure.

In my case, I moved from a Nissan Leaf 24kWh to a Tesla Model 3 because the Leaf wouldn't get me to and from the work site in the coldest months unless I drove dangerously slow. That's an outlier case though. Before changing jobs, my work commute was marginal, covering about 10-20% of my annual mileage. If I moved to a closer site, I wouldn't change car again, so it is a cost I would be paying anyway, as is the case with most commuting in cars.

If I am fair in my calculation, I would have to include fuel and maintenance over the course of a year. In my case, electricity, wiper blades and tyres.

70km round trip = 350kmp/w = 16,000km over 46 commuting weeks.

According to other owners, the tyres seem to last at least 30,000km and wiper blades 2 years. With OEM tyres costing €800 per set, that's €400 per year. Wiper blades will last 2 years, but lets say they are changed annually to make up for wiper fluid costs...so €25.

Consumables is €425.

Electricity (which I expect to come down) is costing about 20c per kWh night rate. I use about 10kWh on average per return commute, so 50kWh per week and 2,300kWh per year. Round up to 2,500 to be conservative. 2,500 X 0.20c = €500.

That's €925 for the purpose of commuting by EV.

I don't know what it would cost commuting by bus. A quick glance shows a monthly pass is €140, so €1,680 per year. Then I would have to consider I would be spending an extra 460+ hours per year commuting. That's 3 months work @ 40 hours per week.

How much is 3 months worth to you, financially and personally? (hypothetical question)

Public Transport is just not the smart option...not for me and not for many. Attacking drivers who are provided with parking by their employer, or client is just nasty and is the main reason I won't vote green.

People generally underestimate the total cost of car ownership by a fair whack, here is an interesting video explaining the huge cost to the individual and society. It is German based, he calculates each car owner is subsidised by €5k per year, that figure must be higher here because of our more dispersed population.

So no one should listen to anyone else. That makes a lot of sense....not.

Mainland Europe. :)

You could just get it delivered.