Just looking to see what OzBargain thinks about the logic behind my work commute.
I live about 7km away from work as the crow flies.
I've tried catching the bus to work, but it's too slow - it takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes on two all-stops services and requires a transfer + a fairly long walk. This was not helped by my direct bus route to work being truncated and replaced with one that goes around the world before requiring a transfer (it previously took me 50 minutes by bus with the direct service). I also tried riding my electric bike to work (~40-50 mins), but a few close calls with cars has spooked me.
So I went back to driving my car. The parking situation is like this - there are heaps of '2P 8am-6pm/8am-10pm Residents Excepted' zones within about a 400 metre radius to the south of the building, with parking spaces usually always available, but obviously I'm going to be spending 8 hours at work so that was out of the question.
Unrestricted spaces were available around 400 to 1000 metres away from the building to the south, but they were pretty much full by around 8am. After that, parking choices are a 20 minute/1.5km walk from an industrial area into work, or pay $30 to park inside the building for one day (yes, that expensive - this isn't even the CBD, either).
Now, the council have started removing many of these unrestricted parking spaces as of a couple of weeks ago for various reasons - a school redevelopment with associated movement of the pick up/drop off zones was one. Expansion of the residents' parking zone to another side of the road was another. Hence there was no more unrestricted parking available within fairly reasonable walking distance to the office unless I arrive before, say, 7am.
So after these changes, I actually paid $30 a day for parking in the building for a few weeks because I'm a foolish, lazy bastard. A friend snapped me out of it once they showed me the obscene amounts of money I was throwing away on parking (yes, I know…).
I realised there was a third option - parking in the 2P zone all day and going out to the car and checking for chalk marks periodically (e.g. at lunchtime). I worked out that even if I did get booked, say, once a week, I'd probably still come out on top budget-wise (the parking fine in NSW for overstaying in a spot is $110).
The thing I was most concerned about was the reputed zealousness of the City of Sydney's parking rangers - I'd heard that they are absolutely ruthless and have armies of parking rangers in hi-vis coming around with the chalk every two hours…one month later, and I haven't even had my tyres chalked once.
I've noticed several other cars in the 2P zones near my office building with the same idea as me. They're often still there when I come back to the car.
So as a result, I'm saving heaps of money by parking in the 2P zones…but there is the ethical problem where I'm potentially depriving residents of parking, which is presumably why those parking restrictions exist in the first place.
What would the people of OzBargain do if they were in my shoes?
Is there a slightly longer bike route that avoids trafffic better? Or perhaps get a folding electric bike or scooter to fit in the car, park 1.5km away and save time that way. 5 parking tickets = one of those Xiaomi scooters.