Can anyone spot the problem with the new parking plan?
16 November 2007
Confusion?
As you can see the parking situation on the seafront hasnt gotten any easier to use. Mass confusion seems to be the order of the day. People are clearly having problems manouvering into position especially and notoriously when they come from the Eastern Docks direction. And now with us being in deep midwinter, it is pitch dark down here on the seafront, with a whole smattering of streetlights not working. This could lead to accidents as the cars are parked directly into the line of fire of the oncoming traffic. See the letters on the Letters Page for more on this. As I understand it the streetlights are the responsibility of the DHB, but I may need correction on that.
See the original report below.
Also see the Comments at the bottom.
Original Report
Enter the seafront from the eastern side ie the top of the picture and how are you to park on the left?? There is a serious flaw here. The new parking system is only in place a day or so. I watched the black Ford in the picture on the left trying to park on the left without very much success as you can see. Without doing a 1970's Burt Reynolds handbrake turn its impossible.
You could of course reverse in. But the road is actually now much narrower all along the whole seafront so to try and reverse in will block traffic coming both ways. Yes you would have to swing out into the path of oncoming traffic in order to reverse in. Not very good, not very good at all. Oh dear!! back to the drawing board lads!!
This section of road in the picture above is much wider than the rest of the seafront road so you can see the difficulties.
Confusion?As you can see the parking situation on the seafront hasnt gotten any easier to use. Mass confusion seems to be the order of the day. People are clearly having problems manouvering into position especially and notoriously when they come from the Eastern Docks direction. And now with us being in deep midwinter, it is pitch dark down here on the seafront, with a whole smattering of streetlights not working. This could lead to accidents as the cars are parked directly into the line of fire of the oncoming traffic. See the letters on the Letters Page for more on this. As I understand it the streetlights are the responsibility of the DHB, but I may need correction on that.
See the original report below.
Also see the Comments at the bottom.
Original ReportEnter the seafront from the eastern side ie the top of the picture and how are you to park on the left?? There is a serious flaw here. The new parking system is only in place a day or so. I watched the black Ford in the picture on the left trying to park on the left without very much success as you can see. Without doing a 1970's Burt Reynolds handbrake turn its impossible.
You could of course reverse in. But the road is actually now much narrower all along the whole seafront so to try and reverse in will block traffic coming both ways. Yes you would have to swing out into the path of oncoming traffic in order to reverse in. Not very good, not very good at all. Oh dear!! back to the drawing board lads!!
This section of road in the picture above is much wider than the rest of the seafront road so you can see the difficulties.
- It looks as the only safe way to park there is to drive all the way to the end of Marine Parade, turn around at the roundabout then swing in from the opposite side of the road, whose idea was this, Duh! If you are just visiting (which is what the parking spaces are there for) as you say, major problems! Back to the drawing board is right on the button, Paul.
- Another superbly well thought out plan by the powers that be.
NOT !!!!!!!!
- A bit of wild speculation coming up here, because Barry W-S is right..for this new staggered parking to work properly and slickly you would have to approach it from west to east ( from the roundabout end). so..Are they planning to make the seafront a ONE WAY system??
There is still parking both sides of the road and as a consequence the actual driving area is much reduced making a once wide thoroughfare very narrow. If they leave it as is, there could be hell to pay on busy summer days. - I drive down Jubilee Way quite frequently to the seafront and park there, I nearly hit a couple of cars yesterday whilst they were manouvering into these ridiculously positioned parking bays, Whose idea was this! it's downright dangerous!
- I was down at the seafront today and noticed so many cars parked at all angles, there was only enough room for one lane of traffic, are they planning for this to be a one-way street?
- I was down there as well today, the road is now so narrow with the new parking bays that there is no way you can have two-way traffic at the same time, very trickey or should we say very dangerous.
- Just thought I would get this thread back to the top again as the topic has come up again on the Letters Page. I will add another picture shortly which shows some of the confusion..also you can see in the picture above how the parking bays encroach into the normal traffic lane. You can see how tricky it might be in the darkness with three main street lights not working..and so it goes on all along the seafront.
- I was reading David Hannents letter this morning and agree fully, as we know that the parking bays can fill up rapidly and with some street lighting not working, it will only be a matter of time until there is a nasty accident. Let us hope that the DDC take note of his letter and they re-align the bays at the correct angle.