Surrey Hills Station carpark: Illegal parking damaging cars
Drivers are being left stuck in a jam by the many drivers choosing to park illegally at Surrey Hills railway station carpark. And while inspectors are said to monitor the carpark, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of them.
East
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Large-scale illegal parking at a train station carpark in Melbourne’s east is leaving law-abiding drivers with damaged cars and others boxed in, unable to get their cars out.
Commuters struggling to find a park at Surrey Hills railway station have taken to parking illegally, often leaving cars parallel along the back of the carpark’s middle row of spaces.
While drivers parked in the row are able to drive out the front of the spaces, drivers in the back row are left to try to squeeze out in a very reduced turning space.
Gemma Coenen, who uses the carpark every weekday, has had to leave her car overnight at the station five times this year because she has come home from work and been unable to drive it out. “It’s just such a tight fit,” she said. “There’s always people struggling to get out of the parks.”
Her car has been repeatedly scratched and knocked by other drivers trying to squeeze out of the parking space next to her car. “My car is so damaged from parking at the station,” she said. “I’ve got scrapes all down my car.”
Ms Coenen said in the several years she had been using the carpark she hadn’t seen any parking inspectors, and people had continued to disobey the sign saying parking was only permitted in marked bays.
“People just generally park everywhere,” she said.
Hamish Moffatt, of Surrey Hills, who walks past the station, said he’d noticed “about a third of the cars are in unmarked spots”.
“There would probably be outrage if they tried enforcing marked spots,” he said.
Ms Coenen said the station carpark was always full before 7.25am, with with no available nearby street parking.
Department of Transport spokesman Ben Cuzzupe urged the community to obey signs at the station and park correctly.
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He said authorised officers patrolled the station and would issue fines to people parking incorrectly.
But when Whitehorse Leader repeatedly asked for statistics about how many people had been fined at the station carpark in the last year, they were not provided.
Mr Cuzzupe said the station’s parking situation would be evaluated in planning for the Union Rd level crossing removal, which will involve a rebuild of the station, scheduled to occur before 2025.