Car Parking charges in Abingdon go up from 4th April. The big change is that only one hour will now be free in public car parks. It uses to be two hours free parking. You can check the Vale website for the full charges, but two hours will now cost £1.50.
There were also tariff changes for street parking, which are now slightly cheaper for two hours.
Given the abundance of car parking that’s available in Abingdon, can anyone explain why one lane East St Helens Street is reserved for car parking?
East St Helens Street forms part of National Cycle Route 5. It’s an important route for anyone heading to, or through Abingdon. Yet, approaching Abingdon from the South you can’t use this cycle route to cycle along.
In a busy town that’s often congested and polluted due to standing traffic, I struggle to understand why a handful of car parking spaces are given priority over a strategic transport route.
Erm Phil….people live on that street so I think the parking is in place for their cars. Not sure I would call East St. Helens as a “strategic transport route”; I don’t think its used for transporting weapons to support Ukraine.
Bill; hopefully, soon, when cars and all vehicles are eradicated from our roads, then transporting weapons etc WILL be by bicycle…and so it WILL become a strategic route… “Failure to prepare…etc…”
Feel free to mock, but I feel the presumption that you everyone wants, and is able to drive get into Abingdon is really backward and exclusionary.
It should be easy, quick journey for a family to cycle into Abingdon along the river, but car first planning removes this option for all but the most bold.
I will feel free to mock Phil.
The town like almost all other UK towns and villages were not designed or built around cycling. Get over it!
FYI – you can’t go for a family cycle along the river, annoyingly someone built houses in Abingdon hence the diversion up East st. helens. Maybe we should start a campaign to demolish the houses are they are the true culprit here. River access would make the route much more strategic!
The clue is in the name. National Cycle Route. It also forms the Science Vale Cycle Network. Or it should, if you could actually use it for cycling.
The short stretch I’m referring to used to be the taxi rank, and currently reserved for storing two or three cars. If residential parking is an issue the nearby parking meters should be removed, and space repurposed for residents.
As I said there is masses of car parking in Abingdon. It’s a pity it’s given priority over people friendly streets.
No wonder Abingdon regularly grinds to a halt because of too many people driving. However, given the alternatives are so poor it little wonder people people feel compelled to drive.
I think Peep o’ Day Lane is part of the national cycle route. However, it is also a pedestrian route, so some degree of sharing is required. I imagine that similar restraint will be what is required along East St Helen’s Street. We are working with a medieval street plan and so there are compromises which are not entirely satisfactory.
The onus on those of us who drive is to take particular care for those who are on two feet or two wheels (it also includes tricyclists and horse riders). Cyclists, similarly, are required to give way to pedestrians.
Ppjs. Absolutely. Peep o’Day lane is a good example of cycles and walkers existing in the same space.
However, parked cars can’t co exist with any other use of space. Otherwise public space is reserved for the private benefit of the person storing their car.
Given the medieval street plan, and demands on public space, I question giving priority to a handful of empty cars, over what could be a useful route for people to access, and travel through Abingdon
People will not want to come into Abingdon to shop.
With the price of fuel going the way it is, it would be a false economy for people to drive to Witney or Didcot to save £1.50 on parking! Sadly they may give up coming out to shop at all, but I don’t really think that £1.50 charge (less than the cup of coffee they will probably buy when they are here) is entirely to blame.
Not really because you get way more shops in Didcot or Witney.Plus you can park of two free hours in Didcot! One hour means you can maybe go to one shop and not have time for a coffee in one of the now many coffee shops. Since this has been put into force the market place is very quiet, with many empty seats in the coffee shops.
Hi Janet. The next time you are tempted to complain about the terrible traffic in Abingdon, remember that you are supportive of a tax payers funded policy that aims to encourage people to drive, into Abingdon.
So I guess everyone’s going to park in Waitrose now…
Thats what I thought as there were plenty of places in East St Helen Street today and normally there are no spaces.
Perhaps we could all park at the Upper Reaches….
there is parking in the towns car parks but this is being reduced to allow charging points to be installed, hence reducing the no of parking spaces
What will be using the charging points, I wonder?
Oh, of course, cars…. and while they are charging, they will be parked, so no loss of parking spaces.
accept your initial point however, except a lot of locals will lose an overnight parking spot whilst cars will be charging and then move on, have alook how busy west st helens st car park is overnight.
Is the charter multi-storey going to fully reopen?
The last I heard the Vale did not want to spend the money to do the repairs. No contractor had been appointed.
You can continue to vilify cars all you want; but you simply won’t get the cycling utopia you dream of.
Phil – A couple of points
If is a medieval town not designed for cyclists. Unless there is wholesale change and demolition you will just have to live with it.
So you were OK when it was a taxi rank (with taxis sitting parked) but not ok when there are private use cars parked there?
If that little stretch of road is the only cycling obstacle you want to complain about, then the overall cycling infrastructure must be pretty good!
Colin – A couple of points
It is a medieval town not designed for modern traffic which, by volume, is mostly comprised of cars. There doesn’t need to be wholesale demolition just a more efficient use of the very limited space which would tend toward encouraging active transport and discouraging 4 seat cars with one person in them.
Phil says it used to be a taxi rank, I can’t find the word happy anywhere. The point is, in terms of congestion, taxis are a better option than private cars. They spend less time taking up precious space just because the owner doesn’t need it right now.
I can’t speak for Phil but this is by no means the worst (or only) aspect of Abingdons abysmal cycling infrastructure which is either pathetic or entirely missing. None of it, and I mean NONE of it, is good. Only people who never use it think that it is adequate.
Until I no longer needed to cycle to Oxford from Abingdon each day, I found cycling “from South Abingdon” to Audlet Drive and beyond…no issue at all.
I am a road user.
I use roads as a bicyclists, a motorcyclist, a vilified car driver, and also a pedestrian.
I think that that gives me a reasonable experience from multiple view points…
Personally….I don’t want or need to rely on anyone else to account for my safety when “using the roads”. I simply don’t trust anyone else to adequately account for welfare. My wellbeing and safety on the roads is entirely my responsibility.
I could tell you umpteen situations where “motorcycling could be made safer”. But why should that take precedence over any other travel method?
I think you can make driving cars so awful and expensive and horrid as you like…people, en masses….won’t start cycling instead.
Anyway, i will continue to walk down the middle of Street street….as is my right.
Hi Daniel
As you are already a confident cyclist, with respect, this is not about you. This is about the people who are excluded from active travel. Not everyone can, or wants to drive – no least children.
Part of this is down to a policy that prioritizes free car parking, over the provision of safe and accessible routes into, and across the town. As demonstrated on this small stretch of East St Helens Street.
Colin
Imagine being directed to along the main road through a town in your car, only to be instructed to get out and push. The reason, because free car parking is blocking the route. it would be absurd. However, this is exactly the situation along East St Helens Street.
The minimum requirement of a cycle route is that you should be able to cycle along it. Yet, assumingly, because of the policy to encourage people to drive into Abingdon with free car parking, instead of a functional route you find parked cars are prioritised.
Nearby is the West St Helens car park, a couple of points on this. Abingdon is a medieval town not designed for motors. Yet wholesale changes, and indeed demolition was undertaken to accommodate parking at this location. In addition to dedicated car parking, nearby narrow streets are given to tax payer funded parking.
I mention this small section of East St Helens street as a small reallocation of space could bring about large improvements for all. For example, a colleague new to Abingdon cycled to Abbey Park with her family. Due to the stress of this journey she promised to never cycle again. Now she drives to Abbey Park, and school. Collectively, this behaviour adds to Abingdon being congested and polluted city. No one gains from people being forced to drive, especially not drivers.
I mention the Taxi rank as the parking spaces replace it. It illustrates where active travel is on the pecking order. It’s also worth noting that when the Fair comes to Abingdon, parking is removed along this stretch to make it easier to drive.
The bold, fit and brave cyclists are generally okay on roads. However, it’s the less able, the elderly, even wheelchair users who lose out when cars are prioritized above all other possible uses of our city space.
I’m really not vilifying all cars. I drive, and I get fed up by Abingdon being polluted and congested like everyone else. I’m merely giving a suggestion of how to improve access to Abingdon for everyone, regardless of if they drive or not.
Phil your argument is nonsensical. If there was a car blocking the road., why would I get out and push? If I can push my big fuel guzzling carbon emmiting SUV past a car on the road I could certainly drive around the car.
It would be an inconvenience but not unlike when one encounters roadworks.
The problem is if we did do something about these dreadfully inconviently parked cars on east St Helens st, you would simply move on to complaining about something else and no real progress will have been made.
Okay.
You believe that parked cars should take priority over a functional route for people to be able to cycle to, and across town.
Not only that, you believe it’s preferable to encourage people to drive into Abingdon with offering free parking along narrow streets, over the provision of accessible and safe routes for people who are not able, or don’t wish to drive.
You also you refuse to understand how absurd it is to have a National Cycle Route that you can’t cycle on?
But you can cycle along the route – Not sure what your problem is. You just have some cycle in the middle of the road to cycle around any parked vehicles. Not a big deal
I rarely disagree with Daniel, but …
It would help were people to take mutual responsibilbly for safety on the highway, including pavements.
Like Daniel, I am multi-talented re. road usage, except for motorcycles, which look like a lotta fun and I think that could be a problem.
Twenty years ago I was a born-again bike-ista and It’s one of the best things I’ve done, though most of my cycling is done at the crack-of-dawn, for defensive reasons, and fitness purposes. An unexpected bonus is that cycling requires that you take a LOT more notice of what’s happening around you and this carries-over to your driving … you just have a much better idea about the real speed-of-reality for other road users.. I don’t think I was a bad driver before, but returning to cycling gave me another layer of ‘road realilty’. I think that people should all have a monitored year of cycling prior to getting any motorised licence … it would be a kinda ‘humility training’.
Pre-dawn, several year’s ago, I was heading out through Marcham with it’s bendy road and THAT blind corner. I could recognise, by the engine note, whether, or not, the car behind was going to hang back. This time, inside about 30 yards of THAT corner, the driver behind gunned his engine to overtake at about the same time as I saw the oncoming headlights, on the outside apex of the corner, of something coming the other way and hit my brakes. Nano-seconds later the idiot who had been behind me cut infront and missed me by millimetres … I assume he sped away toward Frilford thinking what quick reflexes he had … driving from a GP pole position almost guaranteed for a driver as skilful as him. Meanwhile, the driver of the van who’d been coming the other way and seen The Idiot on his side of the road and luckily been taking the corner at a sensible speed and slammed-on his brakes. We exchanged one of those ‘What the **** happened there glances’, and went on our way. Call the police … Life is too short.
As a cyclist I’ve observations about what cyclists shouldn’t do and this is one of those observations: DON’T BE A PRAT AND WEAR EARPHONES/EAR PROTECTORS. You need every sense about you on a bike … especially common sense.
Another thing … while electric car drivers might cruise-about feeling a tad pompous about their eco-credentials they should remember they might be a silent killer (even at low speeds).
Actually, Daniel is a Top Man and any politial party would score a coup should they persuade him to stand for them the next council elections.
(So, Daniel, next time the first pint is on you)
Wow! Alastair has launched one of his really contentious threads, attracting all sorts of crazy people … well done Our Man .. for a while it seemed as though the Incendary Alastair had gone away … keep up the sedition!
This thread is a ‘runner’ and I’d like to throw into the arena that anyone who has moved into the East/West St. Helens Bermuda Triangle of Parking Hell since several decades ago, or whoever thought that feeding car drivers escaping Rush-Hour Drayton over the Iron Bridge was a good idea, should have figured out what was happeining and sold at the peak of the last house-price boom. … but, they stayed, because it’s a nice place and its still a nice place … well, taking into account that, walking down East St. Helens, you can’t see what The Philstines did to The Old Gaol. After a couple of pints in The Broad Face … now the best pub in Abingson, despite the wallpaper … you can walk back home along East St. Helens and reflect that this isn’t a bit of Fantasy that Disney has bought … yet.
I like Abingdon. I’m not a native. I invested in Abingdon by retiring here. The Problem isn’t a line of parking spaces in East St. Helens. The Problem is the Ziggurat of Councils who are skrewing-up our part of the World. Taking instructions from developers and blaming each other when the ill-informed electorate finally figure-out what’s going on..
As I’m in a mood for givng advice (see posts above) I’d like to give this advice to the multi-layered cake of buck-passers who ‘represent’ us in the unnecessary cascade of pension-seekers on Councils … you listening, for a change?
DON’T EVER AGAIN LET THE VENAL ARGUMENTS OF DEVELOPERS PERSUADE YOU THAT BUILDING/CONVERTING TO ACCOMODATION IN CENTRAL ABINGDON WITHOUT BESPOKE PARKING IS A GOOD IDEA
CAPTALS are referred to as SHOUTING on the ‘net … I just wish I could say this louder.
Most Councilors are pretty thick/self interested, but I’d like to apolgise to Iain, who had some grief from me, but got some professionals into the Guildhall after I’d been giving it some ‘righteous’ about it for about a year … sorry Iain (would you like that apology in CAPS).
I’m ever so ‘umble ;0)
And Iain … I’ve got a crackin’ idea.
Hi Newcomer – I hope that when you walk to/from the Broad Face you make a point of using the right of way through the Old Gaol – even though that means looking at the flats? That right of way and the ones through to the garden were the only concession we got when we campaigned for public access so it is important that people use them – and are seen to.
Hester – sorry to be thick. How do you access the right of way through the Old Gaol from East St Helen’s? I only ever see huge gates always shut. A whispered answer will do! 😉
From East St Helen Street use the side gate (right hand side of the big gates). Just give it a firm push. It’s open between 9-5ish. Likewise the gates at the top of the steps on the other side.
Thank you.
Happy to share ideas over a beer sometime Bill – just drop me an email and we can fix up a time
Of course, Hester. I go via the gate at Twickenhan House to the Bridge Street exit every time I’m passing that way. Who would willing miss the visual dissonance of the Old Gaol buried against the Nouveau Popsicle Torremolinos styling of the ghastly flats? I don’t blame the people who live in the flats and think they’ve bought into a pierce of history … they’re only looking out of their windows … and yes, ‘pierce’ wasn’t a mis-spelling.
I usually leave The Broad Face before closing hours … that’s before they close the permissive Old Gaol gates at circa 17:00 hours, not before they stop drinkers quaffing the Broad Face’s excellent ales. As I totter down the assess path I always wonder which lunatic archetect thougt it was a good idea to give those flats on the ground floor glass walls, or… is the Old Gaol a really rocking place later on and the ‘portal’ only a signal for ‘swingers’ coming down the Culham Road that the Old Gaol is a Doggers’ Paradise? I’ll never know … way past my bedtime.
‘I didn’t mean to write that, yer Honour’, said the MP.
How long before The Old Goal will feature in an episode of Midsummer Murders?
As flagged to Iain … I have an idea …
That Ukraian fella … you know … the comedian they’ve got as a Prime Minister instead of the end-of pier nitwit comedian we’ve got as ours … he’s given me an idea.