Debated in Parliament on 7 Feb 2017.
Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling asked the Minister for National Development whether the Ministry will consider providing a longer grace period of 15 minutes for parking in car parks with electronic parking systems during peak hours in areas where there are childcare facilities and schools.
Madam, the 10-minute grace period in HDB and URA car parks with electronic parking system (EPS) is generally sufficient for most motorists to pick up or drop off passengers, or for motorists to exit the car park if they cannot find a parking space.
HDB and URA need to impose charges after the grace period to ensure quick turnover of vehicles in the car park. This prevents build-up of congestion in the car park, allows more motorists to make use of the car park and ensures that the interests of residents who drive or have season parking are adequately taken care of.
Nevertheless, as parking charges in car parks with EPS are levied on a per-minute basis, if motorists exceed the grace period, they only need to pay for the actual duration of their parking in that car park.
I thank the Senior Minister of State for his answer. The reason for asking this is because we are seeing more of these schools in the neighbourhoods, due to the bus lanes as well as the congestion because of where the gates are positioned for the schools. More of them are building up within the HDB car parks. Generally, when the drop-offs happen, they are not all residents that live within that area. As a result of that, it creates even more congestion for the people who are living within the estates.
Hence, the question of whether we could increase that grace period. It is not so much because they would like to park there for a longer time. Generally, the bottleneck is within the car park, and they are being trapped.
I understand the Member's concern and many of us do receive requests from time to time on this basis. The grace period in and of itself will not solve the issue that the Member has highlighted. It is rather the arrangements for pick-up and drop-off of children and the elderly, in the case of Senior Activity Centres.
As I have said earlier, the reason why we set a uniform grace period is to strike a balance between the different users of the car park. We need to take into account the residents, other users of the car park, as well as those who come and drop off and pick up people. It is not possible to accommodate every group's request, although we try as hard as we can. Bearing in mind also that we have more than 1,500 car parks under the EPS system, as mentioned in my earlier Parliamentary Question reply. And so, some amount of certainty, predictability and consistency is essential.
Nevertheless, if there is an issue in particular estates, as I had said earlier, it is not primarily the grace period, I think it has got to do with the design of the pick-up and drop-off points.
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