Parking at stations - Can the franchise specification help

[whole diary]

[ellendune]

On page 49 the Consultation says:

Better access to stations is an important element in improving the door-to-door journey, of which rail is just one element. The review highlighted a desire for additional car parking and cycle spaces across the National Rail network. Car parking is seen as a constraint in many locations because of limited capacity, and bidders will be encouraged to develop proposals to enhance provision across the franchise area.

Because of the closure of many small stations on the main line in the Beeching era, many people have to travel long distances to their nearest stations. Also many long distance commuter journeys start and finish outside the hours of normal commuting bus services.  Car parking is therefore an essential aspect of rail use. Many stations are in town centre locations where the station cara park has considerable non-rail use.  To reduce this prices have to be at least in line with town centre parking prices and there is still a considerable amount of non rail use at Swindon station. 

I would like to see an extension of the schemes in place at Oxford and Bristol Parkway to ensure that station car parks are solely used by rail users.  This would make more parking available to rail users at minimal cost to the railway. 

[Andrew1939 from West Oxon]

Totally agree with ED. On the rural lines where stations have much wider catchment areas and road PT is either very limited or non-existant, adequate car parking facilities are essential to persuade and enable people to cut their car use even if they have to use a car to get to their local station. At Hanborough, the station car park is full by 06.30 and by 08.00 there are now sometimes over 40 vehicles parked on grass verges of the road outside the station. Use of Hanborough station has grown enormously but is now constrained very much from the lack of station parking facilities. Much of the success of of Chiltern Trains can be atributed to the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) arranging for much more parking in or around its stations.