UKH

Pen y pass car park closed and a park and ride from 0645-1840

https://www.snowdonia.gov.wales/authority/news-and-media/latest-news/2020-p...

It sounds like they’re closing the PyP car park without increasing park and ride capacity? Will that even help?

Whenever I’ve used the park and ride from the campsite in Nant Peris the car park has been full with cars parked outside. Maybe it isn’t always like that though. 

Seems like the authorities have been caught with their pants round their ankles to be honest. If they had introduced measures like extra signs and actually towing offenders away rather than giving them a £30 fine then they probably wouldn't have had the recent problems. It's been an issue people have complained about for ages.

Pen-y-pass car park itself probably doesn't have a massive capacity compared to others in the area, so guess it won't make too much difference to the overall state of affairs. Still suppose it's a shame for the small number of people that would have been able to park there (maybe especially for people that would like to be there earlier or later than the shuttle bus is running). 

There are matrix signs on the A55 advising that people use park and ride to visit Snowdonia. Given the local service buses are running at a much reduced passenger capacity to fall in line with social distancing I don’t see how even a fleet of coaches could cope with demand never mind the car parking or the two days notice that has been given. It’s not even in the local press. 
 

I predict a lot of unhappy people, continued parking issues that may have moved and a further bad press for the local tourism industry with Welsh Government blaming Covid even though the issues have been around for years. 

is it really only 30 quid? I. think many just factor in the fine. But that seems incredibly low.

It’s crazy. A ‘big’ Arriva bus is only taking 11 people at a time locally due to social distancing. It’s probably a 40 min round trip in a bus so when a group of people get down at 1830 is there going to be 4 buses? There’s also no real shelter for those waiting so what happens when you get down for the last bus and it’s full? An accident waiting to happen. 

My view on PyP is that it should be pre-booked only.  Then you know if you have a space or not.  Then double yellows all along the Pass.

If everyone parks on the road the is little that can be done in all reality bar a fine which just creates bad press. There simply isn’t the space to store the many any cars that may be towed which is why they aren’t unless it’s really bad parking.
 

What angers me is that for years there have been calls for better parking and transport but it’s knocked back over funding or planning. Tourists and day trippers have the potential to bring in lots of revenue to North Wales but councils, National Park and WG appear to do everything they can to put blockers in rather than embrace the income streams that could benefit the locals. 

It's a 1.5 hour walk along a paved road to town from PyP.   It's slightly downhill.

Not really.  A lot of strops and stresses, but I can't see many people who've just climb and descended Snowdon choosing to wait all night and get hypothermia instead of phoning for a taxi, or walking along the road in to town.  It's not even like they can get lost...

Its £60 with i believe 50% off if payed in 30 days so between  4 people in a car its a no gamer.

They should take a leaf from the Spanish with a fleet of low loaders to impound them at about £1000 at time to retrieve them a week later from a council site in the middle of Anglesey .      There was no way emergency vehicles could get over the pass without spending a long time in the jams last Sunday.                                 

Looked it up and was a bit out, actually £35 (well, £70, but surely everyone will just pay it within 2 weeks so it's £35 for all intents and purposes).

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/huge-number-parking-fines-iss...

Yeah it really isn't much of a deterrent if you look at it in pure cost/benefit terms - only double the cost of parking in a city centre multi storey for a day!

90 min walk down a 60mph road, no/little mobile phone reception and tired children who are wet/cold.

There might not be space in existing impound lots, but if they wanted am sure they could rent a field off a local farmer and use that... Am sure the numbers would drop off pretty quickly. 

Although to be honest if it was well signposted then I don't think that many people would actually do it. Parking on a road which you vaguely know you shouldn't, having seen a 'no stopping' sign half a mile back is quite a different mindset from parking on a road where every 20m there is a sign on the wall saying 'no parking, you will be towed, release fee £300'.

Dump the kids and one adult in the carpark with your bothy bag or whatever and jog in to town in less than an hour, return with the car.  Walking down a main road really isn't dangerous for an adult who isn't a half-wit [*] and its not hard to get off that road.

[*] or blind drunk, but that doesn't really apply here.

You or they could always walk down the Llanberis track straight to the car parks. 

Isn't there a footpath down the side of the road or is that only part of it?

I'd agree the bus should operate later, though.  It would make sense for the last bus to be just after dusk, even if it's only hourly, and there should be space in the contract and shifts arranged for an extra run if the last one is full.

LOL, as if most people going from Pen-y-pass have a bothy bag on them. (But I agree with your point).

The problem with PyP is that to satisfy demand to park there you'd need to put in a large multistorey - do we really want that ruining the scenery?  The solution does indeed involve the bus, which does appear to be being increased in frequency, to allow people to get up there easily from any Llanberis car park.  The only thing I'd say is that the finish is too early, it needs to go well into the evening, at least until dark.  Though I suppose if it looks like you're going to miss it you can just descend the Llanberis path instead.

I would like to see the bus service better designed and more Swiss-like, with a decent, staffed bus station in Llanberis (rather than random stops that don't even have a timetable on them) and some proper, sympathetically designed shelters at PyP, but those are more of niceties.

From PyP to Llanberis? Only part of it sadly.

Fair enough, I've never walked all the way up/down, just from one of the laybys half way down to PyP when the car park was full.

A long time ago (Early 2000s) I went up Snowdon with a novice hillwalker who was recovering from recent surgery, after taking the Sherpa to Pen Y Pass. We planned it safe by getting back in time for the second last bus back to Llanberis. Guess what, the second last bus didn’t arrive, and neither did the last bus, and after a long time in the car park getting cold and (for the novice hillwalker) having the nervous moments of the day come back to play on their mind, it really wasn’t great walking back to Llanberis in the dark with traffic hurtling around us and weedy emergency torches to light our way and find the footpath. At the time I felt confident exploring the Italian Dolomites, where the public transport was reliable, but the problem with buses is that it takes just one bad experience to sour you and want you to change your plans for decades to come. The people leaving cars there want certainty. I desperately want a good public transport system, so we can go to Wales on the train and start a walk without being restricted to go back to the start, but it needs a thorough approach in order to free folk from their steel cages.

I'd assumed anyone climbing the hill with children would have a bothy bag.  Of course that was totally unreasonable of me...! 

Really the question is what about people coming off the hill after the last bus with tired children who go down to the end of that road there?  They want to watch where they're stepping.  They might fall down a hole.  In the fog.  Stuck in the hole in the fog in the middle of the night with an owl.

youtube.com/watch?v=1CwoYd-rZJc&

For what it's worth I agree that either a later bus or an emergency contact phone in the car park make sense, but I despair that it's come to this.  The more we treat people like naive children who can't look after themselves, the more people end up coming to depending on that sort of thing.

A walk I remember well from 2001.  The good news is that torches have come on massively since then; and whilst it's not great it's not the end of the world.  I have similar memories from 2002 when the last Wall Bus failed to materialise on Hadrian's Wall one particular day.

I'm a great fan of linear walks, and have done the odd 30 mile walk starting from home - the only real problem is the public transport getting back.  I've given up expecting improved public transport and am pinning my hopes on autonomous cars.  Get out at point A, have the car meet me at point B 10 hours later.  

For places like PyP, a tunnel could be the answer; "The Boring Company" reckon they've got tunnelling costs down to £8m per mile (which is a massive reduction over the status quo) so for £60 m you could get a tunnel from Llanberis to PyP, and they can be serviced by autonomous on-demand EVs.    I suspect that's cheaper than the inflation adjusted cost of the mountain railway.  Assuming a 100 year lifetime and no increase in visitor numbers it could be paid for by parking charges; in practice I'd think there are sound reasons for government to chip in over and above.  Give it another decade and tunnelling costs will be down more if Boring keep up the innovation and succeed in building hundreds or thousands of urban area tunnels; this could transform our national parks.

The buses are a joke. The locals don't want cars and don't want to provide a proper bus service either. Has anyone ever made sense of the timetable anyway, runs daily but not (insert bizarre exception here).

If you want people to park their cars miles away then you need to reunite them with their cars afterwards not tell them to do one.

As you quoted , I said that... " I agree that either a later bus or [...]" so it's clear I agree with you.

On the other hand I also said  "The more we treat people like naive children who can't look after themselves, the more people end up coming to depending on that sort of thing."  

I don't see a contradiction here.

Is that really what you think could happen in the near future?

Did I say I thought it would happen in the near future?

No.  

But I think there’s a sound case to be made on environmental grounds for a narrow bore tunnel with EV skates, and I think in the next few years there’s a good chance the technology and cost will hit a point it’s conceivable.  Consider that nearly £10m was spent rebuilding the cafe on the top...

I'll believe the Boring Company's figures when I see them build an actual tunnel for public use and compare the costs on a like with like basis with an alternative contractor. It's easy for them to make these bold claims without having to actually demonstrate them to be true - a bit like its sibling company hyperloop which claims they'll be able to build a super high speed maglev railway operating in low vacuum for less than the price of a conventional railway. Just seems fanciful to me, given how much development research etc has gone into tunnelling in the past few hundred years that they'd be able to cut costs by an order of magnitude just like that.

Edit: although at the rate Elon Musk keeps popping up in random news stories (from Thai cave rescues to Johnny Depp) maybe it's only a matter of time before he pops his head in to solve Snowdonia's problems... 

I don't entirely see the point when an electric bus with regenerative braking (so it partly recharges on the way back down) would do the job perfectly well.

If you compare Snowdonia with what a similar place in Switzerland has transport-wise, you can see that there is plenty of potential to significantly improve the situation using conventional technologies.

That’s exactly what’s happening with the Vegas convention centre tunnel.   Contract won, tunnel built.  It’s not quite down to £8m per mile but it’s their first contract; as I said above - give it a decade...

You seem a bit misinformed about hyerloop.  It’s not a “sibling company” of Boring.  Hyperloop was a concept which has acted as a rallying point for a series of open design competitions, and there are several unrelated firms based around “Hyperloop” concepts.  The Boring Company is not involved in any of them in a corporate way - not a shareholder, not a sponsor etc.  Another Musk firm, SpaceX, provides - at its own expense - a vacuum track and facilities for the annual hyperloop competition.  The Boring Company tunnels are a much more concrete thing than hyperloop.

Many people said the same about SpaceX’ claims to change space access costs so dramatically and a decade later every other major launch provider is bricking themselves trying to get down to the cost level of SpaceX’s current hardware when their next gen stuff is about to fly (next Monday?!?) at 1/10th of the cost.

Sometimes an order of magnitude improvement is there just waiting for someone with the right skill set (technical, financing, PR, marketing) to take it.  

Is all this not a bit more about challenging HS2 and similar rather than the rather simpler problem of how to shift a busload of hillwalkers up from Llanberis to Pen Y Pass?  (There's a clue in the word "busload" as to what is a perfectly good way of doing it!)

You could be right; especially if you stick bicycle carriers on all the busses in the national park.  On the other hand, just imagine a future 30 years hence where people park on the outskirts of national parks and tunnel based low cost, low capacity EVs provide on demand services 24x7 all over the NP.  No limited frequency bus routes, no “last bus” problems, flexible responsive, demand driven capacity.  And, the big one - roads nearly empty or large/fast vehicles.  

Perhaps I’ve suffered one to many bus rides in the UK but with al the will in the world, they always suck in the end.

Perhaps I’m just to fascinated by tunnels.  I really want to cycle down the new 30 mile one from a dock on the Tees to the new pothalite mine near Whitby.  That’s been financed and built on a 100 year plan and is far larger in diameter than a Snowdon one would need to be - a 2 meter wide conveyer belt running 24x7 for the next century and a 2 m wide transit corridor.

No; their main target market is local transit in dense urban areas; going 3D with tunnels allows far more point-to-point routes crossing each other than roads.   Busses, but underground and without cross roads - which admittedly aren’t an issue for this case.  Well, 155 mph 6-seater on-demand busses.  They’re also working on ways of getting road vehicles on and off the network quickly which again doesn’t apply here.  

I'd certainly support that, yes.

But then if all the cars are parked up in a P&R on the fringes, then you've got lots of big, empty roads - which are perfect for running these things on!

The UK is terrible at buses, it very rarely does them right.  The annoying thing is that there's no reason it actually needs to be bad at them, and there are odd islands of it being very good in the UK.

There is that   To be honest, though, if you were going to spend a packet on building tunnels, it'd be better spent giving one or more of our provincial cities a proper underground railway system rather than on digging holes under Snowdonia, a place that doesn't really suffer traffic congestion and so road based public transport (ideally electric) would be just fine if only it was run properly.

Spending time in Albuquerque in the US I was blown away that all their busses had bicycle carrying spikes on the front.  The power of a  bus that goes quickly along a straight line route and takes a bicycle for the off-route miles at either end, that could transform commuting here.  If it was reliable, punctual and ran hours related to modern working habits.

You’re probably right; I tend to avoid city areas so I find outdoors honeypots more blighted by traffic but when you think about the health damage of traffic, cities are infinitely worse.

But, it remains the case that tunnels may make economic sense in another decade or so.  Imaging building a couple of giant carparks of the M6 with some tunnels into the lakes.  You could quadruple the number of people doing the 3 peaks....   Sorry forget everything I said!

It really depends what they're comparing it to though... If it is 14 foot diameter ( https://www.conexpoconagg.com/news/elon-musks-the-boring-company-completes-... ) then that is an awful lot smaller than most other tunnels, so you'd expect it to be a lot cheaper, and £8m per km doesn't sound so unreasonable in that context (eg for comparison https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://as... ). I've only done some brief googling, but haven't really found any more details so hard to do more of a comparison. Time will tell I suppose, but from scanning their website again I just don't see how they can make any massive savings against current practice.

I was using the term sibling loosely, meaning more 'offshoot of Musk' rather than anything technical. That seems like a very cheap get out clause if they are no longer taking any responsibility for actually building hyperloop themselves - I remember seeing hyperloop marketing (and news stories) which featured how cheap it was going to be quite prominently, so a moved the goal posts a bit if it's actually up to 'someone else' to actually build it that cheap.

Maybe Spacex is about to cut launch costs by 90% and put everyone else out of busines , but  just because it might be possible in that field doesn't mean its possible in other fields, which for example in the case of tunneling have been commercially driven for a lot longer than space flight. 

Anyway I feel like I'm out of my depth now and have already dragged the thread too far off topic so I might leave it there with my doubt on record! 

They’ve been totally open that small tunnels is part of their cost saving - it’s not just the tunnel boring tech but making a useful, high throughout system out of small tunnels.

Key points are continuous operation not staged of each part of the process, electrification of diesel machinery, processing extracted material in-situ into lining (mixed rock/earth/clay+cement) and getting high throughput from small tunnels.

There was no hyperloop “marketing” because their was no product. The original introduction was a release of a conceptual design produced by a team from SpaceX, intended to shake thinking up - there was no corporate interest, no selling, no shares, no product, no concrete costed proposals, no city hall budget for a Simpson’s monorail.  It was an idea with a conceptual engineering study.  No promises.  It was thrown out there no-strings-attached and with no support to see what would happen; the “goal posts” were - right from day one - “here’s an idea and some studies, can anyone make it happen?”.  It’s got lots of graduate level teams and several enthusiast teams competing on a world stage.  It’s had a couple of businesses form around the general idea.  It may be that the media grossly miss-represented it and some people got the wrong end of the stick, but the reality is quite different.  

Got to ask, what kind of ground is Musk tunnelling through?

Llanberis to PenyPass will be hard rock all the way.

The path is partially built. I ran it lots, but it wasn't easy to follow and all but disappeared in a few places.

I was at a BMC meeting and mentioned to the National Park Warden why not improve it. He looked me the face and swore there is and never was a path down the pass. A mate drew the GPS maps for them so they bloody well know its there.

There still seemed some in the SNPA who really did not want people on the mountain. 

There was a plan for a round the mountain trail but I don't know if it was ever finished. I ran it a few times and it links up the bwlchs well but was just sections of existing paths.

Tunnels??????? Its taken them years to put in 1mile of path in about 30 years of talking about it re Roadrunners post.

And someone wants bike carriers on bus,s   ffs grow some or stop at home

There was some talk of a big new P&R car park in Llanberis at Glyn Rhonwy old quarry site

I'm sure there's some 'Extreme Rock' in the Llanberis Pass as well

Just to clarify - the car park is only closed Saturday and Sunday right? So we'd be fine parking up at 5am on a Friday and being out by the afternoon?

In reply:

Constructing a tunnel for £60,000,000 from PyP to Llanberis is about as likely as a bridge to the moon. One look at HS2 (or Crossrail) finances shows that. Not to mention the political will and the opposition to it and other factors. And even the need for a tunnel: I would just put on some extra small buses instead of doing a tunnel

About as likely as building a mountain up a railway, right?

I think there’s a much better case for some in the Lake District.  Depends if the boring company can really deliver tunnels at the kind of prices they’re claiming.  They’re in a different world to HS2 and cross rail - both in claims about tunnelling technology and in demonstrated tunnel operating model.  

I’d hoped it was clear this was a speculative future thing and not a serious suggestion for fixing the immediate problems now.  Look at the growth in visitor numbers over the last century, then look ahead to the numbers in another century; long term are more busses going to cut it?

Sedimentary I believe but I don’t know if it’s as hard under Vegas as under Wales.  I don’t even know anyone who is likely to know... 

Good boring conditions rely on homogeneity rather than hardness. You set your TBM up for certain ground conditions and all is well I.e. it doesn't really matter if it's all bullet proof granite or all mudstone as long is it's all these same with little folding or faulting. Unfortunately the geology of Snowdonia (and the lakes) is very heterogeneous with lots of complex structure. Heres what happened in a recent ish uk tunnel scheme with complex geology https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00603-019-01812-w

Mind you, they seem to manage in the Alps.

Yes, you can park on a Friday.

If you took most of the cars out, yes, of course they would.  There is no shortage of road capacity in North Wales and the distances are not massive.  The existing bus service tends to be slow because it wanders round every village to serve the locals, despite the strong Sherpa brand it really is not well marketed at tourists.

If you want to see how that can be done in the UK, see the Stagecoach Lakeland network (which is surprisingly good) or Southern Vectis on the Isle of Wight (probably the best semi-rural bus network in the world), but sadly North Wales has always been the preserve of the terminally un-innovative Arriva plus a load of small family bus companies of very mixed repute who just don't give a monkey's provided they make an acceptable profit.

Sorry, I missed that. Thanks for your reply. I agree this needs serious thought regarding future needs. Though the situation seems serious now to me. I suppose buses might be a good interim solution 

There’s no reason why a bus service can’t work. There’s never been a good reliable service. They want $$ and won’t risk putting on buses for a while and waiting for the public mindset to change.

the railway could also be used but it is stupidly expensive.

I’d not look at anything else until they try and reliable bus system. No going up the backs of villages. Just simply looping the mountains. Car park to car park. A simple one day ticket system or week passes like in European destinations.

And Rob the councils re court result couple of years back

In reply to

When does parking on a road like the pass become legally definable as "dangerous parking" and attract points on the driving licence and larger fines?

If they started doing that and making it very well known that they were doing it, I'm sure it would focus peoples minds to find alternative parking.

It'd be easier just to shove double yellows down it, as you don't have to prove anything in Court.

Might even be worth looking at funding it via some sort of tourist tax (so you'd pay maybe £2-3 per day tax on any stay, but get a free bus ticket for the period of your stay, encouraging you to keep the car at your hotel/campsite and use the bus - perhaps a cheaper rate for camping).  The Swiss do that and it works very well.  Obviously day trippers would have to pay, but you could make parking at a P&R off the A55 and/or A5 including a bus ticket covering all passengers in your car for the day cost much less than parking inside the Park - maybe make that a minimum of £20 per day or something unless you're a local, including on street (make the whole thing a big Controlled Parking Zone).

The railway isn't much use as it doesn't go up PyP, it just follows the Llanberis path up.  If you're happy with the Llanberis path the issue doesn't really arise as there's tons of parking in the town.

Although you don't get points for parking on double yellows do you? Think it's just the same £70 (£35) fine as you'd get currently due to it being signposted as no stopping.  The police would still have to claim it was parked in a dangerous place for you to get penalty points I think . 

Yes, I believe you're right.

A bit of an update... 

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/row-breaks-out-among-snow...

I certainly agree that Pen y Pass car park should be prebooked and prepaid only on a permanent basis.  I'd make one exception, a couple of 1 hour bays (enforced strictly) for popping into the cafe.

As off Saturday am there is a  breakdown truck waiting for customers with the boys in blue in attendance at PYP

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53536557

Sorry I meant the ffstioniog railway that runs through to waunfawr now. Around the back of Snowdon.

The Swiss would build multi-storey car parks in ogwen, blaenau and llanberis using old quarries, bury them and grass them over. Park and ride would run for free, you just pay for the car park, the more passengers in your car the better the deal. The other car parks within the park would be for those working and permanent residents.(and youth hostel residents)

I'm sure places like Kaprun in Austria had a hidden multi storey either buried or in a forest as far back as the early 90s. 

If the park still sells those car passes to those working in the hills will they now refund them? 

Ah.  That runs via Snowdon Ranger, so isn't really relevant to Pen y Pass.  There's a decent big car park there already that doesn't have the same issues.

TBH, the most sensible plan is probably to park in Llanberis, take the bus up, go up the Miners/Pyg/Crib Goch as preferred, then walk down the Llanberis path back into town.  I don't really find walking down the Miners (it always seems to be up Pyg down Miners for some reason) that special, it's a bit of a boring slog towards the end.

They’ve the industrial estate unused and paid for. It really wouldn’t cost much to get going. Obviously an issue with Covid though. 
 

I just think the whole area can do better with transport. The roads weren’t designed to take the traffic they do.

No the Romans would be amazed at the A5 now !

Lots of parking in Ogwen today although Traffic Wales had even coned off a lay-by? 
 

Saw Gwalia with their tow truck and the driver merrily chatting away on his phone when driving. 

Do you know if all the parking in the laybys is off-limits during the week aswell? 

Cheers 

 2 years ago in August,I went with an Old mate of mine who was over from Italy to do Left Wall, the Corner. and the Gates with direct finish.I warned him before hand it would be busy parking .Chaos on the pass roads.

Parked in a farmers field in Nant Peris.Then shared a taxi and got dropped off at the boulders.There was a fleet of taxis ferrying people up and down the pass.I think it was 
8 quid..

After finishing climbing, texted the taxi, who picked us up and dropped us back at the car a few hours later.

All very efficient.Did the direct finish on left wall as well.. Last time we were there was in the 80’s........it was quieter on the roads then..

Could not believe how busy it gets there in the summer. 

Hadn't realised this was going to affect Ogwen too, was thinking about going over early tomorrow... Shame if they've coned off the actual laybys for some reason! Don't know whether to go somewhere else or go there anyway just to see the system in action! 

Judging by how much they've screwed up the roads, and made it Christmas for taxi drivers (if you can get a signal !), I don't think I'll be going to North Wales for a long time - and so therefore my wallet won't either.

How long before the business's go bust ?

How long before us English can buy up all the properties cheap as second homes while the Welsh become unemployed ?

There’s lots of parking and it’s only a small lay-by near the cottage so still go. I was just commenting on the rather overzealous nature of it and how they’ve coned off areas which for years have been an accepted and tolerated parking area. 

It’s busy enough without you actually.

I'm lost for words

You can see why the English are not thought off very highly in a few places with ambassadors like Fred

Probably about November for some poor people in the tourism trade once the furlough finishes and their cash reserves run out. 

Second homes has and always will be an issue. Some houses have already dropped by around 5% although I’m told by a neighbour who is in the trade that he has had a steady increase in enquiries over the last few weeks from those over the boarder looking to buy in North West Wales and Anglesey.  

Just out of interest, was Snowdon noticeably quieter/less crowded over the weekend? 

I’m not sure to be be honest. The weather wasn’t the best. I thought Ogwen was maybe a little quieter than it has been. The traditionally less popular beaches on Anglesey have been much busier recently lately though, as have the large supermarkets. There has been lots of posh cars too suggesting the second homers are back but how this impacts on money in the bank for local business just yet I don’t know. 

Why are they only taking 11 at a time? Everyone should be wearing masks now and getting on with it. 

Masks (unless everyone had N95 respirators) aren't really good enough to remove social distancing.  They're good enough to provide mitigation to reduce it from 2m to 1m though, in practice on a bus that means one seat of each pair in use.

I think that’s overkill. Groups of people will have travelled to the park and ride in one car. To then separate them out is pointless. And we are taking about a 10 minute journey or less.

Pointless but simplistic and therefore enforceable or implementable for the driver.

And as per Government guidelines, which they have no choice but to follow otherwise they will probably be shut down.

No idea. I believe they have increased to 22 since wearing masks on public transport was required but services are much reduced. At times there is not even enough provision for key workers let alone anyone else. 

I forget this is Wales. Hey ho. 

There is no wonder that the English are hated world wide with a self righteous attitude like you.

Even though tourism is a major employer in North Wales its not the only one. People here will be OK. All the employees on my books are doing fine and are actually  getting a bonus this year but what would I know I'm only a lowly Welshman.

Buses are running with reduced numbers as we still adhere to a 2 meter distancing rule here in Wales as we have a devolved health service thankfully and not a clown like Dim Boris. 

As already said the weather wasn’t great, it was definitely quieter than last Sunday across this weekend. We’ll find out on the next sunny weekend what impact this all might have. 
 

I’ve heard on the grapevine that SNPA are looking to install barriers and an online pre-booking system for Pen-y-Pass this week(!)

Thank goodness for that.  As such a limited resource this has been needed for years.  If you book, you know you'll get a space.  If you can't book because it's full, you'll know to make another choice instead so won't even go there.

A genuinely excellent and long-needed idea.

The one thing I'd say is that they should retain some spaces for the YHA (bookable only via them), and maybe 5 or so spaces limited to 20 minutes or thereabouts so you can use the loos and get takeaway from the cafe.

And how many fewer deaths/day does Wales have as a result of their greater restrictions?

Perhaps the bus driver could work out a custom seating plan for every journey depending on the groups that turn up, like a social distancing version of Tetris changing at every bus stop where somebody gets on.

Alternatively mark which seats to use and sit people singly so the driver can get on with driving.

As I say I forgot it was Wales and different rules.

We seem to be able to work it out in cafes, pubs and restaurants in England but we are a few weeks ahead.

No doubt they’ll work it out in time.

How about the car/tourist driver drops off their passengers and gets the bus themselves, thereby freeing up much needed space on said bus?

They’re not allowed. It’s bus and taxis only. 

Self righteous like me ???

Where did I say that I SUPPORTED the idea that those living in North Wales would be made redundant and lose homes ??

Where did I say that I even liked it ??

For your information I'm a lifelong opponent of second homes, I believe they are the biggest reason we have a housing shortage, and where I live we also suffer from it, along with the cost of housing outstripping locals ability to buy which leads to outsiders owning greater and greater numbers of local housing - which they then rent out at exorbitant rates !

All I said was that it would happen. Not long after along came a resident to say it was ALREADY happening.

The people to blame are the politicians. The Snowdonia (so-called) "National" Park authorities, the local council and the Welsh Government. The Park is run from Cardiff, the local council are incompetent, and the Welsh Government are only interested in South Wales where the majority of the population live (and vote). By the way, you've got your own "dim" leader in the Welsh Assembly.

You play the "lowly Welshman" card - effectively claiming racial prejudice. Well stuff your attitude. We're all in this together, we're not Welsh, English, or Scots - we're all victims, no matter where we're from, or what team we support in sporting battles. All along we  have been hearing about Wales claiming that they were worried about being infected by the diseased English - hence the border "blockade", especially for "poor North Wales". And where was the outbreak found - in a food factory on Anglesey, not exactly a tourist destination. No different there from the Cumbrians (that's England you know), their outbreak was found to be in Barrow-in-Furness - another well known tourist "non-destination".

When people start losing jobs, along with all the unpleasant side effects, it will NOT be the fault of the English (me included !), it will be the fault of YOUR POLITICIANS for not planning ahead, and for having such an insular attitude. (Enough comments have been made regarding land that could be used for parking, but not used).

An example; The weekend that Wales "opened", I got on my motorbike for a ride to visit a couple of venues in Wales, in order to spend some money and support businesses which I had enjoyed visiting before. First part of the run was OK - the cafe in Abergavenny. Then I went on to Brecon - road closed just at Brecon that I intended using, so I took an alternative, and then re-joined after. A couple of miles along the route to Builth Wells the road was being re-laid - for MILES AND MILES, on a Sunday, the Sunday of the first weekend that people were allowed to go further than 5 miles. Which damned idiot decided, after weeks of no-one being ALLOWED to drive very far, to relay miles of the road surface on that weekend (and presumably intended white-lining the weekend after !). I haven't been back since, and probably many others, especially those stuck in their cars in those multi-mile queues have done the same.

oh dear...

Maybe but equally that’s a very short term view. I suspect many more deaths will be attributed to impact of stopping healthcare, l mental health and such like. I know a 40 something chap who presented to a gp in March and their cancer referral was delayed until late June when they presented again with increased pain and it was found they hadn’t been seen. It has now been diagnosed as terminal. Of course we may never know what may have been but these examples never make the press nor do the suicides of which there have been many of recently. 

That would look horrible in everyone's drone footage!

Yes, but that’s not really relevant to *checks notes* how many people are allowed on a bus, without making some phenomenal stretches you’d need a good warm up for.

Double yellows were painted through buttermere village 20 (?) Years ago and it caused quite a commotion amongst locals because it looked so out of place.

I think they would look pretty horrible painted down the pass. I know something needs to be done though. 

It would as an alternative be possible to make it a Controlled Parking Zone (Park in Marked Bays Only) which would only require signage at all accesses (which is only 2, so dead easy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Parking_Zone

Couldn't they designate the Pass etc as Clearways, with you'll get towed away signs?
Only need signage at the entrance points(?)

Yes, you could probably do that as well, though the Clearway repeater signs are needed, the advantage of a CPZ is that it requires no repeaters.  For a Clearway there's no loading either, whereas a CPZ just deals with parking, though I think that's relatively moot.  (I think there should be provision for drop-off in any mode of transport at Pen y Pass, then only the driver has to get the bus up, the others can sit in the cafe).

Big chunks of it (from PyG to just past PyP) already are a clear way...

It has already been a clearway for quite a few decades but people seem to be increasingly ignoring it.

To be honest a lot of drivers probably don't really remember what those no stopping signs mean, or might miss them if not concentrating. Psychologicaly It's also much easier to ignore a sign that you saw half a mile back than it is to ignore a sign that you park right next to and is repeated up and down the road. 

So, er, why not just go up there every day and ticket everyone, then?  Would be a nice money spinner.

That's what they were doing, but the issue is that the cars still cause a blockage even if they have a yellow ticket in the window. 

True, but if it was a guaranteed ticket people would learn in time and the problem would go away.  Like with commuter train car parks you'd only really have to go round once somewhere around early afternoon, as pretty much everyone is there for a full day out.

"True, but if it was a guaranteed ticket people would learn in time and the problem would go away."

Hi Neil,

Ticketing of cars which are illegally and unsafely parked on this stretch of road has always happened (I have lived in the area for nearly 20 years) - it just isnt a large enough disincentive, so people still do it. I dont think they can put up the ticket charge so other measures are needed. I'm not sure I agree with the closure of PYP parking, but I fully support more proactive action to prevent cars parking on the road, and action to remove those cars if they do.

It would be great if this was all part of a park wide joined up plan for parking, access and related tourist infrastructure... but I wont hold my breath.

Rory

That only works if it is the same people transgressing repeatedly. If it different people every weekend, the degree to which they learn the consequences will be limited, and as been suggested by a number of people, the level of the fine is not a sufficient disincentive for one-off transgressions. 

I think the fine is £35 if paid on time.

The PyP is £10 for the day?

That makes it a £25 extra cost, probably between two or more people.

I expect many people see that as a bargain!

I agree, and I suspect that a lot of people parking there will probably only ever go up Snowdon once so any lessons learned won't really have any impact on illegal parking problems. Snowdon is a big enough attraction that for example someone at my work who has no interest in hill walking is planning to take a trip there 'with the lads'. Am sure it's a one off for plenty of other people too. 

Too many one-time visitors for that to work. Yr Wyddfa is a thing lots of people will "do" once rather than having bundles of repeat visitors. I'd suggest from my casual observations/experience working with walkers there that most of the bad parking is attributable to the non-returners. 

The problem is usually people getting on a Taxi or bus are on a short ride with their pack on their lap and can just jump out. 
 

I suspect people arriving with cars (in my experience) have come a long way and have items in boots to sort through and footwear to change. 
 

Even limiting stopping to 10minutes To drop off would cause bottlenecks in the car park and tailbacks down the pass. 

The car park isn't that small, if you did it that way (i.e. the whole thing just 10 mins max) I reckon it would work.

100 spaces. 600 an hour in and out? That’s a car entering and leaving every 6 seconds. 

Where did you get 600 an hour from?  That might have happened as a one-off during that "day of madness" but it certainly isn't happening every day.  You wouldn't be talking about a small bus every 15 minutes for the P&R there, you'd be talking about double deckers nose to tail up the Pass, which is hyperbole.

100 space car park restricted to 10minutes. That’s 6 cars to each space. If you increased it to 15mins then you reduce the number of cars to 400, that’s still a car every 9 seconds.  How many cars were trying to get up the pass to park along the road? If you introduce a dropping off system then I would expect people who were using the bus to then be avoiding the bus. 
 

I’m not saying it’s unworkable, just trying to work out how many cars we are talking about. If it’s only 100 cars then obviously the car park wouldn’t be full. 
 

edit: 500 last weekend with additional police enforcement. 

Ah, I see.  I think we're arguing cross purposes.  My point was that it is possible to provide enough capacity for drop-off only by all vehicles (not just buses/taxis) at that car park just by making enough spaces "15 minutes only" or something, and the rest advance bookable only (as you won't drive up there, and therefore think about parking elsewhere on the Pass if you can't get in, if you know you can't get one booked - you'll just make other plans).  I think that clearly would work.

You’ll also have 3/4 of your team sitting around for an hour or so waiting for your driver to get to Llanberis and join the bus queue. 

The cafe is pleasant enough.

Was probably only a matter of time, but the local council has now decided they could be making more money from their proximity to the mountain and want to charge a summit tax:

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/snowdon-visitors-could-ch...

Guess it's seen as a compulsory version of the Snowdon partnership scheme, which I hadn't heard of before: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-36325674

Personally my first thought is all the expenses of paths etc should be met by the national park authority, as that's kind of what they exist for and one of the things they are funded to do. But then again in the situation where they're underfunded I can see why they need more funding to cover Snowdon related expenses, which must be uniquely high compared to the rest of the park. I'm not totally clear what the council's extra expenses actually are that aren't covered by car park revenue and income from local tourism businesses, and to be honest reads a bit like they just see it as an opportunity to get some free money.

Anyway, could be the thin end of a long wedge if they get away with it, but then again Snowdon is exceptional. 

Not sure it would really reduce the number of visitors significantly, so probably not a solution to the car parking issue! 

That is a very nasty precedent and must not be allowed to happen.  Just increase the price of the parking.

Lots of countries ready apply tourist taxes to hotels. A £1 levy to every visitor staying in a B&B or campsite would raise thousands and no one would blink. 

I'd be in favour of a tourist tax in the way the Swiss do it, i.e. each night's accommodation includes a mandatory local public transport pass for the day of arrival to the day of departure.  As proven by the likes of my Dad who would previously never use a bus in a million years, but now uses them several times a week now he's got his free pass, this would substantially reduce car use.  It'd work in the Lakes too.

I wouldn't strongly oppose a congestion charge used to fund public transport.

I strongly oppose charging admission fees/climbing permits for UK mountains - if you arrive on foot or by bicycle it should be completely free, and if by public transport only the fare.  It would be the thin end of a wedge.

I think as soon as you start charging admission to something you infer liabilities. 
 

Fencing off Snowdon and installing CCTV to catch trespassers would be interesting. 

Does anyone know if the Sherpa will drop off at the Cromlech Boulders please?

How on earth could they enforce it ? - A massive (electrified) fence all around, with only a couple of manned entrance points, and how late will the gatekeepers stay ?

Then you have the liability angle - once you've paid for something, the owners are accepting liability in some form. Will they be checking equipment and the capability to use it ?? How much would it take to ensure all the paths are "up to standard" for paying customers ?

Then also will they be paying the MRT (the full going rate) if they're needed - after all, they would be "responsible" for the safety of their customers.

"Even though tourism is a major employer in North Wales it's not the only one. People here will be OK. "

You really think that?

It's a depressed area. They got a huge EU Framework programme (FP7) because it was one of the most depressed areas in Europe. 10% of employment in Wales is tourism and that's probably much higher around North Wales and Snowdonia.

What does Snowdonia have without tourists? Power? But the locals opposed power development schemes. Farming is dead. What's left outside of tourism? and outside the EU.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0261517787900884

"International tourism receipts as a percentage of GDP in Wales are at about the same level as in Spain and Greece."

Now imagine the Spanish and Greek economies without that tourism.

I don't know if anyone saw, but Bryn Williams shared a 50 year old photo of cars parked on the road at pen y pass on facebook..

I thought the problem was at least 10 years old, I was wrong, it's at least 50 years old...