Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Prepare for increase in fees in open car parks

Printed in TODAY paper, 31 January 2012

MR PAUL Chan said in his letter "Park funds in the right car park" (Jan 25) that "residents would prefer to use an open car park, where it is cheaper, more convenient and vehicles are easily accessible".

The Housing and Development Board is able to charge S$65 a month for these lots probably because it does not factor in the full cost of land. Otherwise, the parking fee would probably increase by two to four times.

With limited land, there is no choice but to build multi-storey car parks, including mechanised options. 

We also have to prepare for the day when the fee for open car parks are higher than for multi-storey car parks, due to the convenience for residents.

It would be painful for car owners to pay more for parking, having first incurred a high cost to buy the car.

One approach is for parking to be subsidised in some way (as the Government does have the Certificate of Entitlement revenue) and done holistically across all types of car parks.

A longer-term solution is to improve public transport, especially feeder services to train stations and bus interchanges, and to improve taxi services as an attractive alternative to private cars.



Tan Kin Lian

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