[PR] Gormanston Station - new car park

Victor

http://www.iarnrodeireann.ie/news_centre/general_news.asp?action=view&news_id=295

Gormanston Station - new car park by Corporate Communications

Iarnród Éireann advises customers that from Monday 24th September, a new expanded car park facilitiy is available at Gormanston Station.

The car park has been increased in size from 40 spaces to 250 spaces, to cater for current demand and forcast growth.

Customers are advised that a charge of €2 per day or €5 per week is applicable for parking at Gormanston Station. Parking tickets can be purchased from pay and display machines located in the car park.

dmeehan

i read an article (well the headlines) in the indo about this car park and being charged for parking. what is the fuss about being charged a fiver a week for parking? seems pretty good value to me.

MarkoP11

Well they was no charge no last week

€5 a week 48 weeks a year is €240 more of top of the €1150 annual ticket

It goes against all sense in the provision of public transport, people should be encouraged not restricted and penalised.

No there isn't a security presence for the money and as everyone knows the CCTV is fairly pointless

Strangely Irish Rail are highly selective in which car parks to charge, so the extended car park in Thurles is free, the new one in Templemore will be free but those in the commuter belt are charged for, see a pattern it is nothing more than a scam to rip off a captive market

Irish Rail management have been unable to provide a sensible explanation to why this is happening, there are millions floating around to pay for these car parks most of it has never been drawn down

D'Peoples Voice

MarkoP11 wrote:

€5 a week 48 weeks a year is €240 more of top of the €1150 annual ticket

My problem with this is that if Irish Rail included the price of a parking space in the price of an annual ticket, THEN I would get tax relief on my parking if I buy an annual ticket through salary deduction.
Because they don't, I'm not getting the FULL benefit of tax relief for using public transport.
I know it's not much - but to be fair, it's the principle.

Tom Dunne

What really gets me, apart from having to pay the €5, is the fact that the machines accept coins only - no cards, mobile phone payment, notes, nothing. There are identical machines around the city center that allow these payment methods, so it is technically possible.

I've had the occasional Monday morning in Leixlip station cursing myself for not having €5 in coins and cursing IE for making payment so difficult.

spacetweek

Marko it's a tough one though, because in some areas the car park might be close to the town centre so people might park there and head off to do some shopping. How can you stop them and make sure the place is only used by commuters?

penexpers

I would use this as an excuse to look into carpooling and splitting the cost of the car parking.

MarkoP11

Gormanston Station is quite a distance from anywhere really, you have to drive to get there

If it was just a case of preventing non rail users from using the car park there are much much easier ways. This whole argument has been played out with Irish Rail and the response was you want extra spaces you are going to pay otherwise you get nothing. The capital costs are covered by the state so it amounts to double taxation.

There was no charge on the car park in human memory till this morning, so why now and why are stations selectively chosen for charges? Thurles escaped

Newbridge and Tullamore are on the hit list as well

Bluetonic

MarkoP11 wrote:

Gormanston Station is quite a distance from anywhere really, you have to drive to get there

And the majority of people actually just drive to Balbriggan to avail of the more favorable fairs.

I wonder if this new car park will be used to capacity.