By Douglas Kruger
I’VE thought it through and here’s my proposal. Island politicians may shut down car parks to their hearts’ content. They can do it strategically, or they can do it on a whim. But only on one condition. In return, they must surrender one of the loos in their home. We do this in the spirit of “play stupid games, win stupid prizes”. There must be consequences.
Logistically, it plays out like this. The politician in question arrives home from a hard day’s diligently reducing infrastructure, to find a team of blokes in overalls and hardhats camped out on his doorstep. They march through the front door, detach his upstairs loo from its mountings, then march back out, waving politely and singing “Hi-Ho!” as they go.
Should said politician then rend his garments and wail, “But I’ll have nowhere to…you know…go!”, our response will be, “Ditto.”
And it’s one toilet per car park.
If they do it again, the hard-hats carry off the downstairs loo. Then the one at their neighbour’s house. This is followed by the cubicle at their nearest club, the facilities at the park, the urinals at their closest bus station and so on, radiating outward in an ever-expanding zone of knee-clenching inconvenience. Until they learn. Fair is fair.
Equally, we can establish a system of rewards for positive behaviours.
For every time a minister cuts the ribbon on a brand-new parking lot, he or she may choose a reward of their liking from the lucky packet. We could name the lot after them. Or hang their portrait on the wall. What else do politicians like? Chocolates? Cupcakes? Honours and peerages?
They just pulled the reduction stunt in Guernsey, and it’s gone down like a lead balloon.
Politicians closed an area that formerly hosted 150 parking spots, smack bang at one of the most popular beaches. They got the job done just in time for summer. Why? Well, obviously, so that some grass can grow…
No, really. Grown up people with ties and mortgages held a cabinet meeting, complete with minute-keeping and serious head nods. This was the conclusion they reached, and then they actioned it.
Islanders there are up in arms, and understandably so. It’s a funny thing when grass outranks people. Stranger still in one of the world’s most verdant regions. After all, it’s not like they’re valiantly preserving a scrap of precious greenery in a dusty African village. It’s grass. In the British Isles.
And while it may be overreach to quote, “green is the new red”, nevertheless, it points to an issue that refuses to die across the Channel Islands:
We…need…more…parking.
And we need it to be free, not a source of government revenue. The Island is too small, and Islanders have too few options, for every trip to be a politician’s business model.
I’ve said before that I favour going down. I envisage subterranean parking shared by several blocks collectively. Doing this would preserve sightlines, while exponentially increasing total parking capacity Islandwide. Add a few connecting tunnels, with slipway ramps at key places, and you also solve traffic flow on the Island. That means less idling, which means lower fuel bills. Oh, and something about happier environmentalists, if that features on your radar.
Ever been caught in the line of cars queueing for insufficient parking en route to a school? Such as, on the hill up to Janvrin? If you introduced parking under the schools alone, you could eradicate most morning congestion. Less time in traffic, more productivity.
And then, leaving your home, do you queue needlessly around three one-way streets, before even heading in the right direction? If apartment blocks shared communal underground parking, with exits on all sides, all that additional congestion would vanish.
Finally, if Victoria Avenue were at a standstill, imagine just taking the doppelgänger version running flush beneath it.
Yet despite appearances, I’m not actually proposing any specific infrastructure this week. It’s the thinking that needs to change. I’m proposing a system of incentives and constraints for those who dabble with the infrastructure.
Societies get more of what they incentivise. Equally true: they get less of what they disincentivise. So, let’s stop paying the salaries of ministers who shut down useful things. Who make it harder to go there. Who squeeze us all a little tighter, even as our numbers swell.
I’m only partly kidding when I suggest colourful punishments for such officials. European sentiments somewhat spoiled the party by banning the use of public stocks – as of 1872 in Wales, as it turns out – and some would argue that food dye in the shampoo or eels in a bathtub is overkill. And needlessly cruel to eels.
Still, here’s hoping the angry mobs in Guernsey cook and eat at least one of their offending politicians. Of course, we’re too civilised for that sort of thing in Jersey. But if it happens that close by, it could at least send a message. And once they’re a little nervous, we could do finger-eyes at our ministers: “We’re watching you…”
Until then, the toilet-confiscation approach strikes me as the most practical solution. It’s all about incentives and constraints. If politicians continue to receive their salaries after shutting down car parks, they might do it again. Impound their very throne, and they may be more hesitant, number one, and, number two.
So, while Guernsey politicians are literally waiting for the grass to grow…can we do better? Can we find clever and creative ways to actually increase our parking? The impact would be phenomenal.
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Douglas Kruger lives in St Helier, and writes books to keep himself out of mischief. When the seagulls aren’t shrieking, he records them too. They’re all available from Amazon and Audible.
