All entries for Thursday 14 September 2006

Work on Car Park 8a

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/warwicksport/news/car_park_8a/

And so the mystery is solved and the work being done on Car Park 8a has a reason. As predicted and as will have become apparent to anybody that has been past in the last couple of days, the University are putting a barrier in to charge people to park there.

The sentiment is a good one:

improve the availability of short-stay parking on central campus ? especially for sports centre-users

However, the application seems barmy with access available “only” to:

University Parking Permit holders and members of Warwick Sport

How many members of Warwick Sport are there? I’d guess somewhere in the region 2500-3000 plus external members. Add onto this Parking Permit holders and you’ve got a huge number of people, a lot of whom will park in the Sports Centre all day. Yes it’ll be easier to find a space as an external user come 5-6pm, but I don’t think it’ll solve that much of a problem.

But what if that was really the problem? What if the University wanted to control parking there:

1. Allowing Security staff to tell when the car park is full and then direct drivers to other car parks, and,
2. Preventing people leaving their cars in the car park overnight or indefinitely

There we go, that’s the real reason. Plus there’s the added bonus of knowing whose cars are in the car park, making tracking down people to fine more easy, oh and parking there is no longer free…

The University is wroking on the “development and implementation of a Green Transport Policy” with a whole host of measures to make it harder to park on campus easier to use public transport. What irks me is that this has been implemented within a revenue-generating framework:

The University has made a commitment to incrementally eliminate free car parking spaces on campus

Yes, this revenue is used to support various safety projects around campus, but over 500 car parking spaces are charged for during the day to stiff staff and students alike, before making them free after hours for visitors to the Arts Centre.

Even if the scheme has the desired effect and it becomes easier to park in Car Park 8a the University could well end up losing out on a significant amount of revenue. Faced with a choice of paying £30 for Warwick Sport membership (which many people will have anyway) or £140 for a parking permit, what do you expect people to do?

: 14 Sep 2006 13:59 |  Tags: Campus Car Park Sports Centre |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Job done

Follow-up to Someone must read my blog… from No I said DublIN marathon

Well that wasn’t so bad after all…

Sunday was the Experian Robin Hood Half-marathon in Nottingham and Nick Seagrave and I took part as part of Mixed Hockey’s fund-rasing for Ovarian Cancer Action (phew, that’s a lot of links). My task was to haul Nick’s scrawny arse around the course in under 1hr 45mins (Chip Time, not Gun Time) – 8 minute miling. Considering Nick was originally aiming for sub-2.00 this was going to be a tough-ish ask, but he’d cruised around the Godiva Harriers Autumn 5 in a little over 38mins (7min 38sec miling) the week before so eights were on the cards.

We lined up slap bang in the middle of the 1hr 40-50 block and set off at a reasonable pace, perhaps a little fast, but the hills at 2M and 4M made sure we weren’t too far ahead of the game and miles 6-10 were bang on the money. Nick was finding miles 11 and 12 a little tough going and I was a little alarmed when I heard my watch beep 10 seconds before we’d hit the mile marker. We kicked for home as I was concerned we’d have to pick up the pace about 30s/M and little goals of catching people seemed to spur him on as we overtook over 100 people in the last mile. As we hit the finishing straight (why do they insist on finishing road races on grass?) I put the foot down and squeezed through a closing gap between two runners to leave him for dead (which he later “thanked” me for) and we both got in before the clock got to the 1hr 45 mark – 1hr 43mins 7s and 9s respectively by Chip Time.

Considering I’ve done bugger all distance work recently (more speed stuff) I was quite pleased, but I suspect I’m going to have to get some “hard miles” under my belt if I want to get sub 1hr 25 for the Lady Godiva.

: 14 Sep 2006 12:21 |  Tags: Coventry Half-Marathon Lady Godiva Nottingham Robin Hood Running Training |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem