The last of the secret free parking spots is gone at my local park. I now have to pay $2 / hr to park. It doesn't bother me much but I have noticed I almost have the park to myself these days.

Would you stop going to a good location if you had to pay $2 / hr for the priveledge ?

As most of chapter 11 is urban lower mainland .... are you going to have a choice eventually? Seems everything is headed the "user pay" route. Are you talking about GP??? I would probably pay depending on the quality/proximity of an alternate site.

Here in CT we have to pay $15.00 a day or buy a season pass for $67.00 I chose the pass again as I go at least once a week. So I guess my answer is yes. And I think from videos your place is even better. But paying by the hour is BULL #@%$#!.

Sandy Hook Park entrance is $10 or $50 for a season
Island Beach Park $5

Most off time we have no choice and pay for those ...... not that many free kiting spots around here .....

A good session usually means 2-3 hour drive each way. With gas being almost $4 a gallon, I most definitely pay to play...:Ange09:

Cheesy Nahant this weekend. Free parking so far!! I'm going up Friday and Patrick is going up Thursday-Saturday. End Hijack.

I pay a $50 annual park pass. Well worth it.
Cheezy does anybody kitesurf the Hudson River? You also have some good lakes there but they are surrounded by trees.

Quote:

Originally posted by AD72 I pay a $50 annual park pass. Well worth it. Cheezy does anybody kitesurf the Hudson River? You also have some good lakes there but they are surrounded by trees.

Yes there is a yahoo group I believe "kites over the Hudson" but I think their launch site is an hour south of me. Yes on the trees "Hudson VALLEY" trees every where. Besides I am not ready to try water yet...

Wow, I'm starting to feel much better about my local spot knowing that others have to pay to ride. That sucks having to pay, but I would pay for a good beach location if there was good wind

Are they meters or a Put-Your-Money-Here, Stick-Thing-on-Dash boxes? Any option of an annual pass? We can get annual, city-wide passes here valid at any parking meter. Pricey though......stinks that it affects your spot. I know you don't have many options.

Question - when we flew into Van I saw loads of tidal flats all over the place. Are none of these accessible / rideable? Dad figured they're all probably quite mucky. (Come to think of it they're all probably too close to the airport.....)

Anyhow......it sucks.

Around here they jacked.....no, skyrocketed the meter prices all around the U of A AND instead of being free after 6pm and Saturdays and Sundays they were made 24/7.

You know.....cuz students have money to feed an overpriced meter or opt for the cheaper, expensive parking lot permit pass.

Grubbers.

You would pay at least four times that to drive to Garry Point. So two bucks parking, a buck for gas, and a five minute drive versus eight bucks for gas and an hours drive. Vanier seems like a bargain over the trip to GP.. If the wind at Vanier did not hoover so badly, it would be worth it.
Cathy says we will be paying at GP in the next couple of years. Gotta get used to it.
Macboy, most of those tidal flats are mud flats. The parts that are sand are not pounded by waves so the sand is loose. To top it off your gear and car smell like low tide when your done.
S

Most places I ride require an annual pass, or day pass. I just buy the annual, pays for itself after 10+trips.

If I had a sweet spot that charged a fee which aided in eliminating human obstacles......I'd pay.....

I don't have much area to fly in in the summer time up here and if paying a fee would open that up for me I would be all over it.

When winter hits I have acres and acres of prime flying area.......just can't fly there when the crops are growing in the summer time......

This is Vanier park and like Scudley points out , I pay for the convenience. GP is a pain to try and drive to after work . Erin has it figured out. She has rigged her bike to haul her buggy over the bridge !

It is so true about the gas bill. Hard to call myself Eco' friendly with my kite hobby. I put on 100 times the miles traveling to kite locations as what I actually kite.

Quote:

Originally posted by Bladerunner This is Vanier park and like Scudley points out , I pay for the convenience. GP is a pain to try and drive to after work . Erin has it figured out. She has rigged her bike to haul her buggy over the bridge ! It is so true about the gas bill. Hard to call myself Eco' friendly with my kite hobby. I put on 100 times the miles traveling to kite locations as what I actually kite.

You've got that right, BR!

I'm going to be putting that bike-kitebuggy-tow-rig to work this season! :wee:

Yes I would. All the places I kite at are free at the moment, but all require anything from a half an hour to four hour drive so petrol is the big cost for me. Down at my local beach (13th - which is a two hour drive) Mik333 made the comment at the end of a session that he thought he'd had a hundred bucks worth of fun. My last trip to Sandy Point probably cost me $200 in petrol and camping fees. If there was a charge for the beach, I guess I'd pay that too. SSHHHHHH.....don't tell the authorities I said that...

And let's not even consider the cost of the buggy and 18 or so power kites!!

Like others, if there was an annual pass option, I would get it. If there was a specific area that was huge without other people playing with dogs in it, it would be even better. Get someone to drop you off and wave at the parking attendant as you go by.

$2? Thats far less than we pay to park at Nahant and is only the price of a cup of coffee.

I know what you mean about paying to park where it used to be free. New Hampshire charges you to park at trailheads which when I was younger were always free. Pay to park where I want to hike/bike/ski?? NO WAY! But in the end there's no way to avoid it. Rocfighter is from Connecticut and was just telling us how they keep finding new ways to get you to pay for fishing that was once free.

Hey Sailors,

El Mirage, the famous dry lake bed in California's Mojave Desert, was free access for decades.
Hot-rodders came right after the war, with their jalopies and rails...
Motorcycles and Quads overran the place from the mid-80's on.
To the point that, by the late 90's, we avoided the place on weekends.
Just too much noise and too many bikers of various skills everywhere.

Then, around 2009, the BLM completed the cable fence around the lakebed and began a daily/weekly/annual fee-based permit.
Not cheap either...
Started at $9/day, $30/week, $90/year

Now it is $15/day as some were buying 2 of the 1 day passes (cheaper than the $30/week fee for the two day weekend)
AND the yearly permit runs Sept. to Sept. - regardless when you purchase it. No pro-rate.

My point in all this is simple...
The institution of a fee chased many of the casual users elsewhere.
Turns out most of the litter on the playa left with them.
Weekends are fun again.

The far end of Elmer's, where most of the wind-based craft sail, hardly sees a motorcycle all day.

Every year, gov't agencies, like the BLM, face budget cuts. They are also mandated to raise operating fees from within. Some, up to 20% of their district budget, comes from the users.

Our attitude has been that if the funds are used to maintain and protect the desert environment, while allowing responsible use... We are all in favor of the fees.

We got our lake bed back.
We retrieved a memorable place from being overrun.

Another reason to celebrate there the weekend AFTER Memorial Day.. June 1st, 2nd & 3rd.
Buggy Boogie Thang is happening at "the same ol' place" on El Mirage Dry Lake.

Just west of Victorville (on the I-15) and light years from ordinary...

So... fees... I see how they can work to our advantage.


Safen Up! Buggy On!

"Often wrong... Never in doubt"

the coreylama - Lord of Buggytown

I ride the S-bahn to Tempelhof, but up on the Baltic sea most beaches require a parking ticket from the automat. Gas is 4x as expensive in Germany btw.

at nahant i kited the last 5 days ,almost 1/3 into parking pass,kiting at nahant ....priceless.

I'd pay dearly if I had a primo spot to kite!