Parking problem

We have changed our life style for 3 AUD/day.

We used to park on the street in St. Lucia during weekdays when we go to work. It is about 12 minutes walking distance to UQ. Unfortunately, the St. Lucia city council (ps. we are in UQ St. Lucia campus) decided to extend its street parking limitation in March 2009. It means that the area of 2P (2 hours free street parking) and/or 1P (1 hour free street parking) expands now.

If we still want to park on street during weekdays, we have to walk about 20-30 minutes to UQ. We both work in lab and it is very difficult to be able to catch the last bus (6 pm) everyday because some experiments should not be interrupted. We intended to purchase a annual all-day parking permit of UQ (~500 AUD/year) instead of a guarantee all-day parking permit (~900 AUD/year) to solve this problem.

The staff in UQ Transportation and Parking said that they do not offer annual all-day parking permit anymore. If we want to park in parking lot, we have to purchase a guarantee all-day parking permit, otherwise we have to spend 3 AUD/day to park in those causal street parking. The staff also mentioned that those causal parking will fade away in the near future. Hmmm, it is ~10 minutes walking distance from those causal parking space to our offices.

I am not happy about this. If UQ or Queensland government try to encourage people to take public transportation or bike instead of driving a car, they should try to provide better services (park-and-ride, free school shuttle as university in US, safer bike route, better bus/ferry schedule and/or discount ticket for commuter, etc) instead of just punishment.

There is one big street close to UQ (~8 minutes walking distance) is still free of all-day street parking. We decide to park in there. We came to that street at 7:10 am yesterday and only few spaces left. We came to that street at 6:52 am this morning and find more spaces, but many of them were filled up before 7 am.

I think that we will come to school early, then I stay in my husband's office to write or read something. I like this change based on 2 days experiment. I think it is because I fall asleep at night and think more clearly in the morning and the desk and chair in my husband's office is more comfortable for me to use computer.

Ha! I think we will go to bed earlier and wake up around or before 6 am now. Our life style has been changed due to this parking problem and 3 AUD/day. Maybe we will continue this.

March 18, 2009: we still keep this schedule. We get up around 6 am, eat breakfast and prepare our bag, leave home around 6:40 am, arrive that street around 6:52 am, then walk to my husband's office, and study or do some computer work for 2 hours before starting lab work. The only problem is that we fall asleep earlier at night on our sofa.