UKH

Re this: https://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2020/08/19/snowdonia-bosses-introduce-pre...

- do you think the weekend Pen-y-Pass Park and Ride scheme will get extended to the weekdays, and also to other car parks around Snowdon and Ogwen Cottage?

Is that what this text means: "long-term plans for a new and innovative parking and transport system in the Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and Ogwen areas"?

I think it means restricted free parking and more expensive and inconvenient paid-for parking and bus rides.

I wonder what llanberis mrt might make of this? Surely it's just going to encourage people who've booked to go up whatever the weather rather than making more sensible plans. Hard to see how this is compatible with the way that climbers make decisions on where to go last minute based on conditions. I wonder if these restrictions going to persist beyond the summer season?

Just read a news article that says parking places at Pen-Y-Pass can be booked in advance on line - think there may be more of that coming and not just in Wales!

£20? Yikes. 

I've often turned up at say 5pm for a summer stroll and  put the minimum in the machine. Clearly you're not allowed to do that anymore. 

Shame

Free parking is not a right, however much the motor industry would like you to think it is.

I think that expanding the new transport system for Snowdonia sounds like a fantastic idea.  I'd go further and say that more should be done to keep the private vehicles of visitors out of national parks in general where the infrastructure can't cope and replace them with environmentally friendly public transport.

Agreed. A couple of weeks ago there were huge numbers of people on Snowdon, but the pass was empty - it was safe and friendly for cyclists and walkers to use.  Ogwen valley on the other hand was full of dangerous parking, pavements blocked, everyone trying to get as close as possible to the start of their walks. It would be incredible if we could get to a point that some Alpine valleys are already at. How many cars do you see driving round Chamonix? Barely any because the bus service is amazing.  Same for the Saas valley in Switzerland. Why would you drive when the public transport is easy and free? Obviously a lot of thought and infrastructure needs to go into this but public transport and park and rides should become the done thing and shuttle buses up and down the valleys should be extremely regular, reliable and free. Imagine being able to get the train to Aviemore and bus up to the ski centre car park really easily for example, a holiday all on public transport!

Park and rides could also bring more money to the towns nearby - so many people will normally park at Pen-y-Pass and totally bypass the cafés and shops of Llanberis, whereas I'd say they're much more likely to go into Llanberis (or Capel Curig, Bethesda etc etc) if park and rides are in place. 

I can definitely see the point about booking parking making people go up whatever though, park and ride is the way forward I think.

I'm scratching my head with this one. Personally I agree that things need to change to reduce the carnage that occurred this month around snowdon but Im not sure how the pre booking is going to work.

Not read the official website details yet but some questions came to mind earlier when I read the article on BBC. 

Will there be an 'attendant' in the car park 24/7? People rock up at all times of the day so does the ticket run 00.01 to 23.59? In this case I suppose people would just display a ticket if there's no attendant so does something have to be downloaded and printed? Maybe the booking is linked to the pay and display machine so you can pick the ticket up there??

What happens if you pay for a full day's parking but don't arrive, is that space vacant for the duration?

What happens if you pay for a full day's parking but get back to the car in the early afternoon and leave. Does the parking space stay empty until the next time its pre booked. 

Think I'll have to check the website and see.....🤔 

It's a half baked measure, was thinking about it earlier. I used to be able to knock out the horseshoe sub 5 hours, then I'd be off.  An empty space for over 6 hours.  Then people like Babika can't roll up for a stroll.

It would all be fine, but the bus service will not catch up with the idea for a very long time, if at all. So there will possibly be a lot of our precious free time, getting eroded waiting around for ages. Other times will be involved with not being dropped off near where you would want to be dropped off.

Yeah I'm not convinced that pre-booking is the way to go either. 1000 people every weekend trying to book what must be about 30 spaces at PyP isn't going to work. Park and Ride all the way for me. I'd do the same for much of Ogwen as well.

Us as climbers might see ourselves as different and that we should be able to enjoy the hills whenever we want and with perfect convenience, but what if everyone else wants the same? That's where we are now and it's a mess of inconsiderate and sometimes dangerous parking, and roads that are offputting to absolutely everyone except the person driving on them.

Rising visitor numbers to National Parks and the towns around them has revealed that we simply don't have the required infrastructure, and quite frankly haven't for a while: think of driving through the central Lakes on a bank holiday, trying to park at the Roaches on a Saturday morning after 10am, trying to get an early start from the north face car park at Torlundy but finding that vans still full of sleeping occupants have filled the car park. As mentioned above, some Alpine valleys have got it pretty well worked out, and no one with a brain expects to be able to drive through central London: we need to stop fussing over the ten minute saving that comes with roadside parking and the apparent inconvenience of having to plan a short journey around a bus timetable. We should be doing everything we can to support schemes that will reduce reliance on cars travelling to the National Parks and then making short journeys in those places where, with very little effort, they could be replaced by 'public' transport schemes.

I own a car for basically one purpose: going to the hills. How ridiculous and extravagant is that? I'd love not to own a car, but if you want to climb or hike in remote places then you need one, and maybe that will never change. But if you want to go to Aviemore and access the ski centre car park, if you want to go to Langdale, if you want to go to Pen Y Pass or Ogwen, then you should be able to do so easily without a car, and supporting schemes like the PyP Park and Ride is essential to that.

I've long thought it made sense to allow pre booking of such a limited resource.

There are enough other mountains.  You don't have to walk up the busiest path on the busiest one.

I do however think there needs to be a serious look at upgrading the Snowdon Sherpa bus network to European standards.  It really is dire, even compared to what Stagecoach do mostly commercially in the Lakes.

There's a bus down Great Langdale and has been for years.  It's not super-frequent, but it is perfectly usable, and I have used it a number of times.  It's actually one of the easiest bits of the Lakes to get to without a car.

In principle I agree with all that, and that while remote places may always need a car to get to, it should be possible to get to the really popular hotpots more easily by public transport. However I think it's in the details and the practical application where things could go wrong.

Ideally the new park and ride schemes would be well integrated with other public transport, which would also be upgraded, and would run a reliable and frequent service from very early until very late, and would cost relatively little. 

What I worry about happening in reality is that the schemes will be used as an excuse to get rid of free parking in a much wider area, and an unreliable, infrequent bus service running from places which are inconvenient to get to to places you don't want to be from 10am to 5pm will be introduced, for the low price of £20 per person. 

​​​​​​In effect, it will be an excuse to limit access, and make life difficult for anyone that doesn't want to do a national park endorsed walk around Llyn Ogwen with a stop at a new gift shop half way round. 

Also, however much public transport is improved within national parks, public transport to and from the park itself will probably remain a limiting factor for doing the whole journey car-free. For example I live about 1h30 drive from Ogwen, so can easily have a nice day trip there. If we took Llandudno Junction as a well connected potential 'north snowdonia travel hub' It's a 1h20 train ride once per hour at best from my local station. If there was a non-stop bus from there to Ogwen it might take 30 mins, with a 10 min average transfer time maybe. Adding on my journey to the station and it's already a 2h30 journey at best, 3h in the way back (accounting for a half hour average wait time for a train home). Much less doable, and that's a best case. In reality we'd probably get transport hubs in places like Betws-y-Coed and Llanberis, which would take much longer to get to on public transport, and the bus service would probably be a lot worse than my best case example. 

If we took Llandudno Junction as a well connected potential 'north snowdonia travel hub' It's a 1h20 train ride once per hour at best from my local station. If there was a non-stop bus from there to Ogwen it might take 30 mins, 

Yes it might, with Lewis Hamilton behind the wheel 

Pen-y-Pass is tricky but in Ogwen especially I think they just need to increase the the strict use of parking tickets and tow trucks for illegal parking.  And clear all those bloody overnight vans out of the Ogwen laybys too

This year has been bad because of  pent up demand from lockdown and the increase in Staycations - it would be a shame if that lead to an over reaction to what is an occasional problem.

Not sure of the equivalence of Chamonix and Snowdonia, and in any event when last in Chamonix during the summer I didn’t use a bus once, driving from campsite to carparks, walking to shops etc.   

If you try and resurrect the “Green Key” initiative with the idea of increasing visitor spending by removing all the parking say in Ogwen and replacing with a Park and Ride from Bethesda I think it would have the opposite effect.

Agree with this, we got to Ogwen at 7:30am a couple of weekends ago and the carparks were almost full already, mostly with vans that had been there overnight - including in the carparks with "no camping/caravans" signs.

It won’t get extended. Once the weather turns rubbish and people don’t come they’ll be sat empty again and buses etc will be running at a huge lose if at all. We can’t even sort the service buses and trains out for the locals. 

Good to see they took our advice re Ogwen...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53959926

I drove through the Ogwen valley yesterday and was largely disappointed with the way that it’s now signed. A layby near the cottage has been blocked off as well as the traditionally accepted parking.
 

How this will impact on the tea shack only time will tell and while the snowdon park and ride been well advertised (although I’ve no idea how well this is working in practice) there appears to be little/no option of it in Ogwen at present. 
 

With the now staggering cost of parking in PyP the mountains appear to becoming the reserve of the rich. Sad times. 

Could I ask why you believe you're any more entitled to a parking space than someone with a van?