Pavement parking - another consultation.... (and implementation)

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Pavement parking - another consultation.... (and implementation)

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Started 7 years ago by Stickman
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Stickman
Member

https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/road-policy/improving-parking-in-scotland/

Due to the complex nature of parking and level of concerns that were raised by stakeholders in relation to Ms White's Bill, the Scottish Government set out a general intention to use the powers devolved by the Scotland Act 2016 to legislate on parking. The findings of the stakeholder consultation will inform the development of the parking provisions in the Government's Bill and supporting guidance to be introduced in this Parliamentary session.

Translation: people still want to park on the pavement so we're going to let them.

Posted 7 years ago #
Klaxon
Member

Very poorly worded consultation, it's transparently fishing for apologetic responses towards parking.

Posted 7 years ago #
Klaxon
Member

90% of the boxes require a response along the lines of 'There should be no exemptions as exemptions will be sought in areas needing the legislation the most'

Posted 7 years ago #
Morningsider
Member

Well that's a first - a Scottish Government consultation quoting a Tory MSP in support of their arguments (page 22):

"we must recognise the unintended consequences of a "blanket
ban"……. "careful not to impose counterproductive or unfair
burdens as a side effect."

I think we all know what this means for any Bill.

Posted 7 years ago #
sallyhinch
Member

Lots of room for people to bemoan the impact on businesses too and it takes about a week to complete. And you have to know what an ULEV is, and a TRO, and other such jargon which I suspect is just incompetence rather than a conspiracy to prevent the people who are actually affected by pavement parking from completing it.

Posted 7 years ago #
steveo
Member

What a load of ....

How the .... do I know if X will have a negative or positive effect on the fortunes of Y.

Posted 7 years ago #
Rob
Member

I'd love to hear that Tory MSPs view on another pavement related blanket ban.

Posted 7 years ago #
gibbo
Member

This is yet another issue where a little bit of common sense would provide a simple and workable solution.

Pick a width that's enough for a wheelchair to get past - e.g. 1.5m - and say that any car parked on a pavement and not leaving at least that distance is parked illegally.

Or am I missing something?

Posted 7 years ago #
neddie
Member

Or am I missing something?

Parking on the pavements, even partly, damages them and the kerbstones, as the pavements are not designed to take the weight. Particularly as modern vehicles are now very heavy. Family cars now 1.5tonnes (were 1.0), 4x4s now 3tonnes, vans 3.5tonnes, etc.

That damage then trips up the elderly and has to be repaired at the expense of the tax-payer

Posted 7 years ago #
crowriver
Member

"Or am I missing something?"

There will need to be specially designed belt pouches made for parking attendants/policemen to hold tape measures/laser distance gauges, etc. in order to measure the 1.5m.

Think of the expense! Tories will be worried the Air Passenger Duty discount might be at risk...

Posted 7 years ago #
Greenroofer
Member

My proposal: your car on the pavement, you get a ticket. Simples.

No ifs, no buts no excuses about there being no evidence you drove it there.

No room to park your car on the road because it's too narrow? Go and find somewhere where the road is wider.

Posted 7 years ago #
wishicouldgofaster
Member

Agree totally Greenroofer. I can really annoyed at people in my mum's street who block the pavements because they are too lazy to walk 50 yards.

Nowadays it is becoming too common for people to park on the pavements regardless of how wide the road is. It's almost as if some people view it as a favour to other vehicles and that people won't mind as everyone drives all the time!

Posted 7 years ago #
gibbo
Member

Parking on the pavements, even partly, damages them and the kerbstones

True, but there'll be the counter argument that, in many streets, if cars are parked at opposite kerbs, the street will be blocked. Or that there will no longer be room to pass.

(Scone Gardens is an example of this.)

The solution to this would be to reduce parking places - but that's not going to happen.

So, practically, the way to eliminate the argument of the pro-driving lobby is to change the question from

"Should cars be allowed to park on pavements?"

to

"Should cars be allowed to block people in wheelchairs
from getting along pavements?"

The latter is, IMO, the real question here.

That's because, if it's ok to block wheelchairs, then it's ok to block anyone. And, if it's not ok to block wheelchairs, then it's not ok to block any pavement.

Posted 7 years ago #
gembo
Member

Carmageddon

The oil/petrochemical industry/ car manufacturers have created an impregnable fortress of public opinion whereby you can take your car anywhere, park it anywhere and everyone can have a car.

Fine to be a single occupant in a five person four by four in tiny streets in a medieval city.

Politicians either spineless or agree with the above (Donald trump across to various Scottish national and local elected representatives).

Climate change, pollution, obesity, road rage, fatalities all fine.

Posted 7 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

Fine to be a single occupant in a five person four by four in tiny streets in a medieval city.

Interesting thing somewhere the other day (precision not my thing) about the rise of MMA fighting as a spectator sport. Linked it to the lack of conventional means to express masculinity - like hard muscular labour - in our society.

Do wonder if driving a high, wide, heavy, fast car is another such allowable expression of masculinity.

Posted 7 years ago #
gembo
Member

@iwrats sounds right. Though also lot of women driving single occupant big motors into Edinburgh too.

Posted 7 years ago #
Morningsider
Member

IWRATS/gembo - I agree with you both. Will be interesting to see the effect of self driving cars on both parking (no need to park outside your door when the car can pootle away after dropping you off) and on the macho car culture. Owning a self-driving car is daft compared to "leasing" access to one when you need it. Given this, the need for outrageous designs and stupid names (warrior!) to attract buyers might die out - or not, I'm not really a car sort of person.

Posted 7 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

I was in Aberdeen at the weekend to ply my mum with outlandish cocktails. It is the Land of the Four by Four. One, the size of an apartment I once lived in, was called a Barbarian. Otherwise reasonable adults were cycling on the pavements as there actually wasn't room on the roads. Office workers there appear to believe that they are wilderness wildcatters liable to be called out onto the tundra at a moment's notice.

Posted 7 years ago #
gembo
Member

@morningsider, there is the rub, you, me IWRATS and others on here, we are not really car people now are we?

I'm nmore of a cocktail person. Though mine all tend to be quite straight forward whisky and drambuie aka A Rusty Nail, whisky and crabbies green ginger aka A Whisky Mac and Gin and Crabbies Green Ginger aka A Junioer Green

Dickens had some great names for drinkees (as the fab after William H Macy calls 'em)

A modest libation, a thirst quencher and a gum tickler to name but three. If you ever feel disinclined to imbibe remember it is all totally organic and one can indulge merely to be sociable.

Posted 7 years ago #
HankChief
Member

Nowadays it is becoming too common for people to park on the pavements regardless of how wide the road is.

It always makes me chuckle when I see the 4x4 at the dead-end top section of Ormidale parked half on the pavement and half not.

The road is easily 12m wide and has next to no traffic - 1 neighbour and a couple of garages, but still they do it every day.

I have half a mind to ask them why they do ...

Posted 7 years ago #
wishicouldgofaster
Member

I often walk along Cairnmuir Road near Corstorphine Hill which isn't the widest but it is a two lane road. When a car is parked it means a car on the road has to encroach into the other lane to get past regardless of whether it is on the pavement or not.

You've probably guessed that the majority of people parking there park on the pavement (as they are so considerate!) despite it not making a jot of a difference to other drivers who still have to encroach into the other lane. It does of course make a hell of a difference to pedestrians and I one time had a good moan at a driver as an old guy with walking difficulties found it extremely hard getting past.

Posted 7 years ago #
Frenchy
Member

I saw a fire engine struggling to get down Ravenscroft Street the other day; one of the passengers had to get out and wave them forward inch by inch. Fairly narrow street, but parking is legal on both sides of the road. but if people hadn't been parking on the pavement, I don't think that fire engine was getting past.

So the solution is to put double yellow lines on one side of the road, then ban pavement parking, I guess.

I imagine there are a dozen other nuances to this that are understandably holding up legislation.

Posted 7 years ago #
Klaxon
Member

I mean the real solution is to ban all parking in urban areas except where specifically permitted within a painted bay

The status quo just encourages hundreds of ugly street clutter items, yellow lines, parking restriction signs, CPZ signs, bollards, etc, and just gives off the impression that everyone must bow to king car

Imagine if the parking wardens could work to a single rule - ticket any vehicle not in a marked parking or loading bay be it ticketed or free. All of this crap could be removed to enormous beautification benefit of every city centre.

The legal structure is already in place, it's called a Restricted Parking Zone. Google has very few resources on this most elusive of zones but we already have one tiny little one in Edinburgh, on Castlehill, but there's no reason they can't be MUCH bigger.

Posted 7 years ago #
fimm
Member

Done. Quite long but not too bad.

Posted 7 years ago #
dougal
Member

if people hadn't been parking on the pavement, I don't think that fire engine was getting past.

Are you claiming the parked cars made the road wider??

Posted 7 years ago #
Frenchy
Member

Are you claiming the parked cars made the road wider??

Sorry - if they'd parked, but not on the pavement, there wouldn't have been room for the fire engine.

Posted 7 years ago #
jonty
Member

If, through careful analysis of an area, we have somehow come to the conclusion that cars "must" park on the pavement currently, then the pavement must be narrowed. If this doesn't allow sufficient space for pedestrians, wheelchairs and pushchairs or attracts significant objections from the community, then there simply is not sufficient space for parking there and folk must park elsewhere - or just not at all.

Presumably the same people objecting to this would be similarly understanding if they came back from six months travelling to find me parked in their driveway, explaining that I simply had to and they can't stop me because there's no space anywhere else.

And quite frankly, if you park in a way which blocks fire engines, they should be (are?) allowed to move your car with immunity for any damage they cause (and perhaps a duty to cause some if they didn't.) I don't think the "what if" question is really relevant. If the George Street spaces weren't there and people parked perpendicular to the road, they'd block fire engines. But they wouldn't, and that isn't an argument for not getting rid of them.

Posted 7 years ago #
Frenchy
Member

I agree - I can just understand that it would take a while to get all of this right, legislatively.

Posted 7 years ago #
redmist
Member

I was wondering how it would work if you had an electric car and no private driveway - surely you couldn't trail a cable out to the street when you wanted to recharge it.

Posted 7 years ago #
threefromleith
Member

Filled it in but was losing the will to live by the end. I was getting to the stage of typing "Look, just ruddy ban pavement parking and enforce it 24x7, 365 days a year. Pavements are for pedestrians, roads are for vehicles. It's not difficult!" in almost every box ;-)

I did laugh at the suggestion of parking priority / exemptions for electric vehicles. Because somehow they're not the same size and won't take up as much parking space or congest the streets as much as non-electrics, eh? Yes, I get they won't pollute but the streets will still be as congested and cluttered regardless of the motive power of motorised vehicles.

Posted 7 years ago #

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