End of Free Parking at NParks

I am shocked to see Wilson put up the banner and the gantry at the car parks at West Coast Park.  Sigh!  

Red & White

When I first come across the new parking lots, I thought it was intended to celebrate the approaching National Day since they are painted in a mix of Red & White colour.  So are they for casual parking or season parking?  Or both?

I find it a pain to drive up many ramps since the lower decks in most multi-storey car parks are painted in Red for season parking.  The introduction of this new breed of parking lots should be welcomed by casual "parkers" - these dual-use lots can be used between 7am to 7pm. 

Source: ST701 Cars

However, season parking holders are unhappy when they returned before 7pm to find vacant lots only much further away.

I felt that this scheme is much more GREEN to mother earth since visitors no longer need to drive to higher decks to find vacant lots and thus, do not waste fuel. 

Parking Lot Not Enough

Shortage of parking space is a common problem here with the growing vehicle population. Watch how a creative motorist in Taipei overcome the problem.

SG Carpark Wiki

Wiki is such a great tool to allow the public to make update to content and thus, I have created the SG Carpark wiki for my fellow motorists. There are a few good sources of information on carpark rates but all of them do not allow for the public to update the information immediately when any change is identified.

Here is the URL to the Wiki http://sgcarpark.wikispaces.com/. Please contribute your regular destinations to make the wiki comprehensive and useful to all. Thanks.

CBD Parking

It was reported in the Straits Times on Jan 20 that many carpark owners are raising parking fees in the CBD. The following carparks are having the lowest charges:

Venue, First Hour, Subsequent Hours
Chinatown Point, $1.00, $2.00
Suntec City, $1.05, $2.10
URA public carparks, $2.00, $2.00
China Square 1+2, $2.40, $2.40
Amara Hotel, $2.70, $2.70

Avoid these expensive ones with minimum of $4 per hour rate:

One Raffles Quay
SIA Building
UOB Plaza
Capitol Tower
Market Street/Golden Shoe

I have created pages detailing the parking charges at each car park in town (see Pages listing). Please drop a comment if you identify any update to the rates and I will have this post updated accordingly. You can also send me a picture (from your mobilephone) of the parking charges board at the entrance of the car park; please remember to include the name and location of the carpark. Thanks.

Stretch the useful life of your Parking coupons

Disclaimer: This technique may get you a summon for not following instructions.

The design of the parking coupon requires the motorist to tear off the tabs to indicate the year, month, day, hour, minute for the start of the parking payment validity. It is clear when one coupon is used but when a motorist wants to park beyond the validity of one coupon, multiple coupons must be used. While the instructions on the back of the 50 cents coupon booklet (instructions are not printed in the back of the $1 coupon booklet; I did not check the others as I rarely buy them) state that:

When parking for one hour, motorists can use two coupons with tabs torn at 30
minutes’ interval. Example: 1st coupon: 8.30am, 2nd coupon:9.00am

I usually tear the tabs off all the coupons at the same time as it is so troublesome to figure out all the different required intervals. Till date, I have not received a summon for doing so.

On one Saturday morning when my mind was very clear, I had parked for 3 hours from 9am to 12 noon at an URA carpark ($1 per half hour rate) to attend class and then I drove off to lunch. I then parked at a HDB carpark (50 cents per half hour rate) and almost tore a new coupon before realizing that my $6 worth of morning coupons are valid at this carpark from 9am to 3pm. Yes!

So I have found a loop-hole for stretching the useful life of my parking coupons but this is only possible in a scenario of parking at a higher rate before moving to a lower rate car park. Thus, you may want to plan your sequence of activities …..