Parking In Ucd

Notorious

Shazbot wrote: »

However, there has been reports of cars getting damaged. Usually in the car parks beside the bars, possibly rowdy people damaging them.

I've heard a popular activity among the younger ucd students is dancing on car roofs.

WeeBushy

Notorious wrote: »

I've heard a popular activity among the younger ucd students is dancing on car roofs.

Well when you've been kicked out of the bar for dancing on tables where else are you supposed to dance?
I'm joking...

Plasmaguy, if you left your in the carpark over near the vet building it'd be away from d1ckhead students and would probably be fine. I've left a moped in UCD many times and it's never been touched.

Micksheenb

Last time a had a bike, i left it in UCD overnight in similar circumstances, to find both wheels with extra corners the next morning. 28inch peugeot racer, i hadn't the price of new wheels for it..

Feckin drunks.

Breezer

WeeBushy wrote: »

Well when you've been kicked out of the bar for dancing on tables where else are you supposed to dance?
I'm joking...

Plasmaguy, if you left your in the carpark over near the vet building it'd be away from d1ckhead students and would probably be fine. I've left a moped in UCD many times and it's never been touched.

Friend of mine left hers there for a weekend, came back to find all the windows smashed.

delta_bravo

Friend of mine left his Impreza over the weekend and returned to find Hugh Brady, the UCD bum and a few swans from the lake having a few cans in it.

plasmaguy

I will risk it so.

Hopefully it will be grand.

convert

As mentioned above, don't leave it in a carpark near any of the bars. I know a few people who've left cars in the carpark near the vet building and it was fine. Probably no riskier than parking on the street.

rantyface

I thought they were going to introduce a system where you need permission to park, and only people who live far away enough to justify driving in could get it. That made a lot of sense to me. Why was that plan dumped?
I like my friends but only the ones from within 5km of UCD drive in. It really should be discouraged- it's bad for the environment and UCD probably has the best public transport in the whole of Dublin.

Tayto2000

betafrog wrote: »

Unfortunately a lot of the people that park in UCD are commuters that park there and then get the bus into town so that they don't have to pay ridiculous prices for parking..

This is a persistent and common myth that conveniently blames all our parking problems on outsiders. The simple fact is that there are 30,000 staff and students and less than 3000 spaces. The problem has been aggravated by a huge increase in student drivers during the past 10 years which is worse again now since students and staff who would have been based at Earlsfort Terrace or Ballsbridge are now also on campus competing for the same number of spaces, not to mention the huge number of contractors and builders currently working on the various sites.

No more car parks can be built on campus as planning permission can't be got - UCD already distorts traffic flows and parking around it to a huge degree.

The parking discs are of limited value as the pay and display carparks are almost permanently full all the time during classes. I'm not holding my breath for a solution anytime soon, but I'd be very surprised if the eventual fix doesn't favour staff over students, as per what UCC eventually went for...

WeeBushy

rantyface wrote: »

I thought they were going to introduce a system where you need permission to park, and only people who live far away enough to justify driving in could get it. That made a lot of sense to me. Why was that plan dumped?
I like my friends but only the ones from within 5km of UCD drive in. It really should be discouraged- it's bad for the environment and UCD probably has the best public transport in the whole of Dublin.

If you live in the rathgar/terenure/rathfarnham direction there is no public transport to speak of. Oh, and I'd say Trinity has better public transport access than UCD what with it being in the centre of town... Often people do need to drive in for legitimate reasons. Preventing students or staff members from doing so becasue of where they live is ludicrous. Stopping people that dont attend the college parking here is what needs to be sorted out.

A permit available to all student/staff would be a good idea. Hell, I'd even be willing to pay a small fee for it if it meant keeping out non UCDers and the provision of good parking facilities.

Discouraging driving isn't really UCD's responsibilty though, its a national problem, not just isolated to UCD, so really is a state issue. Better incentives for using bikes and public transport should be introduced imo.

errlloyd

Btw the key to getting a space is "do not use tape". Honestly a roll is about €5, you smash it on a space in O Reilly car park and people will think its reserved for some function.

Also humerus to put it other places where it needlessly inconveniences people. Like bins, vending machines and the arts block in general.

convert

Tayto2000 wrote: »

This is a persistent and common myth that conveniently blames all our parking problems on outsiders.

Unfortunately it's not a common myth. Have you ever been in UCD early in the morning and watched the huge number of cars stream into the Vet/O'Reilly Hall carpark and then walk straight out to get the bus into town? It's unbelieveable.

A parking permit available only to UCD staff and students is really the only way forward. In some English universities, such as Warwick, there is only one free carpark, while all the others have a barrier system and the fee depends on the duration of the stay. Staff only are entitled to purchase a parking permit.

The campus there is very similar to UCD, layout, location away from the city centre, high level of private transport use by staff and students, with a similar if not better public transport system. The pay parking works pretty well and it isn't as difficult to find parking as in UCD, but it shows that people are willing to pay for parking, which could fund the upgrading of carparks around UCD, not to mention providing a source of much needed income for the university.

Staff should probably get precedence over students, but students who have to commute long distances and from areas with poor/no public transport should also be facilitated.

mloc

Permits are never going to happen. They would be taxed as a benefit-in-kind, and especially with the way the public sector is at the moment, theres no way they'd accept that.

stop

Permit with strictly enforced clamping is the only way to go.

But other things shouold be pushed, students living along the stillorgan qbc should not be driving a car to UCD.

Staff should be encouraged to sign up to Bike to work. UCD's HR at first were completely against it (too much paperwork for them!) and only caved when staff got a petition going.

Things will probably get worse before they get better, anytime construction on a new building starts, the nearest car park gets shrunk/taken over..

mloc

Any solution with subsidised (or free) car parking for staff will simply not happen becuse of the tax complications involved. As I can't see staff willing to pay either, someone will have to come up with a very inventive solution for this to work.

Additionally, I am aware of campaigns by residents to have local areas pay and display to avoid staff/students using the roads near UCD for parking.

WeeBushy

errlloyd wrote: »

Btw the key to getting a space is "do not use tape". Honestly a roll is about €5, you smash it on a space in O Reilly car park and people will think its reserved for some function.

Also humerus to put it other places where it needlessly inconveniences people. Like bins, vending machines and the arts block in general.

Yeah, being a dickhead is hilarious.

WeeBushy

stop wrote: »

Staff should be encouraged to sign up to Bike to work. UCD's HR at first were completely against it (too much paperwork for them!) and only caved when staff got a petition going.

The bike to work scheme is a great idea, however I think it has some failings which need to be addressed. The most obvious being a terrible lack of quality cycle lanes (in fairness, access to UCD by cycle lanes is very good, but dublin in general is very poor).

The other issue I have with it is the price of maintaining a bike. Buying a bike is great, and wonderfully easy and fun to use when its in top condition. But then it gets a bit battered, brakes and gears stop working, lock gets all stiff and the bike rusts because the bike racks have no shelter.
Not many people are proficient at/want to fix their bike, so bring it to a shop and thats where people get put off. No one wants to fork out €50 to get their bike serviced especially when its wet out and they could just take the car to work/college.

Some sort of allowance or something should be introduced for servicing your bike. I think it would encourage people to take their old bike out of the shed and start using it more...

Just my musings on the bike to work scheme when I should be studying for my last exam tomorrow

Offside

WeeBushy wrote: »

If you live in the rathgar/terenure/rathfarnham direction there is no public transport to speak of. Oh, and I'd say Trinity has better public transport access than UCD what with it being in the centre of town...

There's the 17! Piece of **** bus i know but it has worked grand for me!

Tayto2000

convert wrote: »

Unfortunately it's not a common myth. Have you ever been in UCD early in the morning and watched the huge number of cars stream into the Vet/O'Reilly Hall carpark and then walk straight out to get the bus into town? It's unbelieveable.

Although it's pretty big, the ORH car park is still only a small percentage of the total car parking available - and what about the days when it's not available, like on conferrings? Even if it were half filled with P&R people every day, that wouldn't account for the parking problem.

I'm not saying parking and riding doesn't happen, I'm just saying it's not the huge issue people think it is - it's a minor annoyance on top of a major problem. If anything, as Mloc mentioned, people clogging up the surrounding roads and estates and walking IN to UCD are more of a problem.

Agree completely with the rest of your post.

ironclaw

I don't have a problem with students parking early and going into town for a bit, and then coming back (Some of my mates do) But I have a HUGE problem with people parking and going into work.

If permits arn't the way to go, they should do what they do in the States and the UK. Log every reg that comes in (Not that expensive to do - AVPR systems are common place in office blockes) and compare this to a database of regs for students (Again with UCD Connect it would be simple to create a database e.g. Every student is allowed two cars)

The end result if a reg appears that isn't on the list, its clamped. It would be a minimal investment and solve the problem.

errlloyd

Actually does anyone know what the parking near Quinn or Roebuck is usually like, I do law so its where I spend most of my time

delta_bravo

Tayto2000 wrote: »

If anything, as Mloc mentioned, people clogging up the surrounding roads and estates and walking IN to UCD are more of a problem.

Although it is possible that a lot of these people of also people using it for P&R. I find the estates near The Montrose Hotel are the ones most clogged with cars while theres not too much of that on the other side of UCD near clonskeagh or around fosters avenue. The Montrose side has all the transport connections, buses into town one side and into Bray on the other so the people parking around there are probably not all students