The Economics of Parking in Port of Spain

Car park in the city 

The Economics of Parking in Port of Spain

Some Question IF Driving or Taking Public Transport to the City Would Be a Better Option.

When Walking through the busy streets of Port of Spain there are many vehicles parked along the side of the road. Have you ever wondered why?  Most of these persons are trying to acquire free parking and not having to pay the fee of entering a Car Park which is about 40 TT for the day. As two urban geographers we stood outside on the Car Parks in Port of Spain and asked persons questions on why they prefer to Park in this high rise car park than on the street. Then we moved onto the streets and interview this interesting man by the name of Ryan when he was vacating his car on why he prefers to Park illegally. He stated that he was only going to be in town for a short while he saw no since in going to pay all of that money when he can Park along side of the road. We asked him if he is aware of the consequences of parking on the streets for example having his car taken up by a tow truck or it being accidently hit by an oncoming car. He stated that it has never happened so he would continue risking it.

As we continued our adventure throughout the city, hearing the sound of the talking vendors and the smell of fresh pineapple, we asked Ryan along with two other drivers if they considered the calamities of parking when buying car, their answer was no, their only thought was using their vehicles mode of transportation. Many of the factors such as parking spaces, gas money and the up keep of the car is sometimes neglected when purchasing a car by many owners. One may question how does this tie into urban geography; it doesn’t actually have a specific topic but the greatest highlight in this blog is the prices in the city versus other places within the country and how the how the working class mainly makes up the greater percentage that use the parking in the city.

According to Michael Pacione, in most cities centre, finding a place to park a car is difficult. In many cities parking is often seen, by drivers at least, as the major problem of urban transport. He also stated that it is impossible for a large city to provide car parking space for all who wish to enter the centre restrictions apply. These may lead to illegal parking, which can impede the flow of traffic. This is not the case in this Caribbean country however on special holidays such as Christmas and other special occasions there would be a massive load of persons invading the city making it hard for persons to park but on a daily basis car parks are very empty. Especially on weekends because on weekdays the working population take up most of the space within these parks. In comparison to these continents there are greater amount of cars than in Trinidad giving rise to the problems they encountered, this was experienced first-hand in the U.S.A when my aunt hand to continually circle the high rise parking lot in search of a parking space other than my experience here when I entered the car park there were so many spaces it was unbelievable. There are 256 million cars in North America versus Trinidad which was 13,500. See Figure 1 below

Our las venture was interview persons at the toll both, although they were a bit sceptical at two strangers walking up to them answered us with a smile. This specific carpark’s name was Trinity Cathedral Carpark which the lady stated to us that this car par does not take daily persons that come for a one off park but it more made out for working persons which pay a monthly fee. She was unsure of the price and referred us to the main office which was close due to it being a Saturday. We followed by asking her if many of the car parks around the city are like this and she stated that yes a couple of them are only monthly payments only. One can see economically why persons why take monthly payer over one off users. A greater revenue is generated at the end of the month than just a couple persosn paying for a couple hours.

256 000000

13,500

Happy Reading J