Car parking chaos

[EASTENDER MARKY]

Lucky for me I park at my office.

Same here, except that the office isn't actually mine.

Ditto.

[M Brook]

Reading Council needs to force the management at Green Park to allow football parking.

Using what power?
Is Green Park wholly in the RBC area anyway? Are parts of it also in West Berkshire and Wokingham?

The council should link some bit planning decision or similar with the football parking issue. Something like "Yes you can build a new office block but in return you must..."

Councils do this to developers all the time.

Indeed they do because sections 106 and 278 (?) of the Town & Country Planning Act allows such agreements. However, they can not be entered into retrospectively so, presumably, the opportunity has been long since lost.

[Hoop Blah]

I didn't have any problems at all.

Straight off at J11 at about 7 o'clock, parked up within 5 minutes and a quick 10 minute stroll to the ground in time for a quick pint.

Back in town by quarter past 10.

I don't see what the problem is and only so much blame can be put at the club and councils door.

It's down to the indivual is to make their way to the ground safely and on time.

[MartinRdg]

The HP car park does cause the gridlock as the traffic approaches from all directions and queues to get into the car park. This applies to traffic from M4 J11, to traffic coming from town on the A33 and also traffic trying to take the shortcut through Whitley Wood.

A town like Reading with aspirations of being a City cannot allow this situation to continue. Reading Council needs to force the management at Green Park to allow football parking.

Perhaps not allow a turn right at the roundabout at the brewery before the match and force the vehicles to turn right further back and onto the old A33 and then round to the HP car park that way.

[MartinRdg]

Open Green Park!

Green Park have a clamping policy and will not let football traffic park on the roads in the estate. Lucky for me I park at my office.

My brother-in-law just flashes his ( out of date ) Costco card and parks in the offices of my sister-in-laws husband in Green Park.

Piece of p*ss.

I have an in-date Costco card. Does that mean I can park in there FOC?

[cmonurz]

I didn't have any problems at all.

Straight off at J11 at about 7 o'clock, parked up within 5 minutes and a quick 10 minute stroll to the ground in time for a quick pint.

Back in town by quarter past 10.

I don't see what the problem is and only so much blame can be put at the club and councils door.

It's down to the indivual is to make their way to the ground safely and on time.

I don't see how that is possible. At 6.35pm I was on the J11 'off-ramp', didn't get off the roundabout until 7.00pm, and wasn't parked at HP until 7.35pm.

Unless you are one of those cnuts who cuts in late at every available opportunity.

[Hoop Blah]

I didn't have any problems at all.

Straight off at J11 at about 7 o'clock, parked up within 5 minutes and a quick 10 minute stroll to the ground in time for a quick pint.

Back in town by quarter past 10.

I don't see what the problem is and only so much blame can be put at the club and councils door.

It's down to the indivual is to make their way to the ground safely and on time.

I don't see how that is possible. At 6.35pm I was on the J11 'off-ramp', didn't get off the roundabout until 7.00pm, and wasn't parked at HP until 7.35pm.

Unless you are one of those cnuts who cuts in late at every available opportunity.

Maybe it took 10 minutes from the M4 to my parking space then!

From the moment I was off the M4 to being parked was no problem whatsoever, there were queues leading up to the HP roundabout, but not if you were going straight over towards the ground.

[Silver Fox]

It's all about a monorail

[Jerry St Clair]

train station time. Start enforcing it now. Even on the bus it took 25 minutes to travel about 2-3 miles to the stadium

Why don't you cycle the two miles?

[HalftimePasty]

Arrived early, parked up at Pizza Hut. Took a look at the traffic and decided to gamble on leaving the car there after eating (heh, we paid our money for our pizza, surely we get to park....)

Got £40 ticket.

Now, I fully expect to be told thats what I should expect with all those "NO STADIUM PARKING" signs.

Anyone else got a ticket from there and tried appealing? I figure as I have a pizza hut receipt ...

[Volvicanus]

Arrived early, parked up at Pizza Hut. Took a look at the traffic and decided to gamble on leaving the car there after eating (heh, we paid our money for our pizza, surely we get to park....)

Got £40 ticket.

Now, I fully expect to be told thats what I should expect with all those "NO STADIUM PARKING" signs.

Anyone else got a ticket from there and tried appealing? I figure as I have a pizza hut receipt ...

I bet it also has the time you finished eating and got the receipt.

I'd say no chance in fighting that one.

[Volvicanus]

It's all about a monorail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2ps97TVH3E

[Elm Park]

Part of the problem is the cost of using the buses and the Park and Ride if you have a car full then is soo much more expensive than the Car Parks.

IMHO, What needs to be done is:

1) Instead of building a new station, provide a spur off the existing line and through Green Park on tracks in the road for a Tram service. This would benefit both the football on match days as well as workers in Green Park.

2) Return to Charge for Parking at Forster Wheeler and have a free bus )covered by the car parking fee.

3) Increase the number of buses running on this route as the queues, particularly in midweek, were the reason I stopped using it.

4) Build a new Park & Ride south of the M4 (I believe they were talking about this for normal services into Reading anyway) again with free buses to the stadium.

5) When the above is done, close the HP car park to push people into using the Park & Ride services and keep cars away from the stadium area as much as possible as the large numbers of vehicles all converging on a one small area are what causes the gridlock.

[Warfield Royal]

Arrived early, parked up at Pizza Hut. Took a look at the traffic and decided to gamble on leaving the car there after eating (heh, we paid our money for our pizza, surely we get to park....)

Got £40 ticket.

Now, I fully expect to be told thats what I should expect with all those "NO STADIUM PARKING" signs.

Anyone else got a ticket from there and tried appealing? I figure as I have a pizza hut receipt ...

Appeal on the basis that you were a bonafide customer of Pizza Hut.

Also challenge the authority for the charge. What legislation allows then to charge you for parking on private property?

Is there a discount for paying early? Discounts are designed to stop you challenging the charge.

Please post back with the outcome.

[Huntley & Palmer]

It's all about a monorail

Agreed. If it takes longer than three minutes to get there from the station then there will be problems. It must also do a quick loop through the hotel ala Disney World

[Freddy]

With a lot of people converging on the same destination at the same time there is bound to be congestion. The parking in HP etc makes it worse largely because they have to take money off each car. Do they do season tickets?

It's part of the price we pay for the full stadium, and it will get worse if and when we expand it.

The only solution is to get people out of their cars. Additional parking could be argued as adding to the traffic on the road. If you are in a full car it is cheaper than public transport for most people, and people may choose that option if parking is made easier.

There are some things that could be done to alleviate matters, but they all cost money.

Examples include cheaper (free?) buses and a train/tram line with a local station. Wasn't there a plan at one point to have a new exit from the motorway that took you straight to the stadium?

Overall, I don't think it is too bad though. It just takes some getting used to, and it means setting off a bit earlier. I'd certainly rather this than be back in Div 2, even if I could set off at the last minute and still find parking easily!

[Dirk Gently]

With a lot of people converging on the same destination at the same time there is bound to be congestion. The parking in HP etc makes it worse largely because they have to take money off each car. Do they do season tickets?

No, because as yet there is no guarantee that they will still be there beyond October.

[Riseley]

Left Riseley at 7-15 parked at 3 Mile Cross and walked. Arrived stadium 7-50. The lengths I go to for RFC are legendary.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Isn't Green Park owned by Prudential so therefore the councils can have little or no input so it's down to the club to continually talk to Prudential to try and persuade them that its good PR.

If that fails then I wonder if there's any Health and Safety regulations that could be applied to force the issue.

Otherwise, god help us when we have a 40000 seater stadium selling out!!

[TFF]

I started this thread to point out that car parking will be further restricted for the next two (?) games because Smallmead won't be available.

So it's "God help us" now!