Cedar Point will keep parking price at $8

They've made the price of parking around $7.41 now to cover the tax. That means the city gets about 59 cents. If parking was 8 bucks still, the city would get about 64 cents.

My complaint with parking is that if the park only parks 1,000 cars a day, they make 7410 dollars. There about 140 days in a season. So that's over 1 million dollars a season in parking fees alone. That is DEFINETLY on the conservative side. They don't spend even 30% of that on the parking lot. So taking into consideration we pay admission, it is simply a matter of a park ripping us off, because they can.

In cities and downtown areas, charging for parking is reasonable and expected. Land cost much more in downtown areas, and most of the time, the companies that have buildings in downtown areas do not own the lots/garages. Someone else does, so of course they are not going to buy/lease/rent these plots of land, where land is very expensive, just so you can have free parking. These folks wouldn't be able to afford to have the land to let you park on if they didn't charge money for parking.

Parks on the other hand own the land anyway. PKI has some 300+ acres of land. Anyone parking in PKI's lot is parking there for one reason, to spend a day at PKI, not spend money at some other business. I can easily see parks charging for parking. I have no problem with that. But it should be very close to what it cost them to pay attendants and lot maintenance. It would also keep out the people who need a free place to park for one reason or another.

Eric

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"I'm hoping to see if any dead people will be my friends." - SS

Yes, it seems like a lot of money, but take into consideration that the revenue that it generates pays for not only the attendents, but the tram drivers, (and all of the associated costs of running said trams), the cost of lighting the lot at night, the libility premiums, plus all of the normal expenses of maintaining a paved surface of that size. Now before you say "what about that disclaimer on the back of the parking ticket?" they still maintain insurance on all parts of the property. It's the cost of doing business. People who drive there and use the parking lot can pay, or everybody whether the drove there or came in a bus or shuttle can pay for your parking at the main gate.

I've paid $5.00 to $8.00/hr to park in "duntun" Pittsburgh, which is cheap compared to cities like New York or San Francisco. When you park at the Point you are paying a dollar an hour or less. What's the beef?

"My complaint with parking is that if the park only parks 1,000 cars a day, they make 7410 dollars. There about 140 days in a season. So that's over 1 million dollars a season in parking fees alone."

Ouch - I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but doing some quick guestimations and calculations based on how much Sandusky thinks they're going to make off the parking tax ($600,000), I'd have to say Cedar Point is parking more on the order of 6,600+ cars per day. Of course this is an average, but I'm sure they park 1,000 cars on a rainy May weekday. On weekends it's in the neighborhood of 10,000 because the main lot holds 10,000 and the overflows and Soak City lot can squeeze in another 2,000 or so.

Someone over at GTTP said that CP is going to be taking Sandusky to court based on all the taxes they're being charged, not just the parking tax. I'm not sure if this is true, but I think that CP probably feels they've been paying more than their share for a good while and they are tired of Sandusky taking advantage of it. Say what you want, but Cedar Point's guests do not cost Sandusky 25% of its budget. Especially, as Jeff said, when those guests are coming during the summer. Road maintenance costs in this part of the country are peanuts in the summer compared to the beating that winter puts on them. Also, let's not forget that Cedar Point maintains the Causeway (and the Chausee?) with their own money. In addition to this, they have their own police force. Sandusky is left to maintain a small chunk of Cleveland Rd between Butler St and the Causeway (one could argue down a bit further toward Huron due to CP traffic coming off at Rye Beach Rd), and about a half mile of 250. CP is right is saying that they are overtaxed and Sandusky has a lot of balls saying that they are not already adequetly compensated for the wear that CP guests put on their infastructure. The question is if CP can do anything about it or whether its just something that's unfairly legal that they'll have to deal with.

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

Well at least my parents will be happy. :)

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Corey
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Intamin, the cadillac of roller coasters.
MF-19

I HEART OHIO

Just because it's two dollars cheaper than some parks, that makes it rational?

Wonderful Matt! You took a part of my essay and chopped it down so that you could respond to something that I didn't really say. Go one sentence past what you quoted and you'd see that I said: "That is DEFINETLY on the conservative side." I also said if the park *only* parks 1000 cars per day. I was merely trying to show how ridiculous the profits on parking fees are. I know all too well they make a hell of a lot more than 1 million dollars a year on those parking lots. But do they spend even 30% of that on the lot per year? Doubtful, since the lot doesn't look like its been paved or had anything done to it in years. Same with the causeway.

But my other point still stands. Cedar Point and other parks are providing parking so you can visit and hence spend money in their park. So yeah, it is the cost of doing business. Comparing it to downtown parking is absolutely off track. Private owners usually own and maintain those lots and garages. The lots are not owned by downtown business so their customers can shop and work for them. Like I've already said, I have no problem with parks charging for parking. It keeps out the freeloaders. But it should be closer to what they spend on parking lot maintenance, and what it cost them to "run" the parking lot. Any significant profit on an amusement parks parking lot is just a situation where they can rip us off and make money off of us, simply because they can.

CP has trams??? I've never seen 'em.

Eric

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"I'm hoping to see if any dead people will be my friends." - SS*** This post was edited by eric.walton 4/20/2003 11:22:47 AM ***

I wasn't disagreeing with what you were saying, just giving you and the others a little more insight into the real numbers. If anything I was more or less supporting your point that parking money is big business for parks. If Sandusky is going to take $600,000, that means CP is pulling in $7.5 million per season on parking alone. I agree with you - a large portion of that is pure profit.

Would I like to see free parking? Heck yea. Who wouldn't? :) I agree with you about parking fees being a kick in the balls to people who are coming to spend money in your park in the first place. People probably get inside the park and have more of a tendency to hold back on spending since they were taken for $8 to park before they even paid for their tickets!

As for CP's trams - they used to have them, but they haven't since at least before 1998. I'm sure someone knows the year they disappeared.

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew
2003 Magnum Crew

Carpool.

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YOUNGSTOWN 2010

You want to talk about insane parking? Every place around Camden Yards and the Baltimore Convention Center was $15 this weekend. That's nuts.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Pray that your country undergoes recovery!" - KMFDM

Sorry Matt, but your "Ouch - I hate to be the bearer of bad news" right after my snippet kinda threw me off. On a side note, Homey G. just spent 28 dollars to park at his ******* hotel! THAT'S INSANE!

I wouldn't find free parking a turn off or anything, but in reality there IS is a need for it. Freeloaders, pavement, attendants etc. But making some sort of insane profit off of parking is not acceptable. Oh well, it'll just go higher and higher regardless of my feelings......... ;)

Eric

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"I'm hoping to see if any dead people will be my friends." - SS*** This post was edited by eric.walton 4/20/2003 10:59:26 PM ***

Loew's in downtown Philadelphia. 28 bucks plus 2 bucks for a tip, then 2 bucks to retrieve the car in the morning. 32 bucks. My butt is still sore.

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Is it the real yellow or the yellow that they had on the coaster cars??

eric.walton said : "They don't spend even 30% of that on the parking lot. So taking into consideration we pay admission, it is simply a matter of a park ripping us off, because they can"

Being as familiar as I am with the breakdown and the costs of Cedar Points Traffic Operations from two previous years working closely with them I can assure you that you are wrong. To prove it I will use information available online to break it down for you.

50 Traffic Directors / Toll Cashiers for the season - $400,000
Manager, Full time - $60,000
Lot Maintenance (not including the causeway or roads which CP also pays for) - $1.5 million
Total supply costs (I can break it down if you wish) - $1.1 million

Overall total costs - just under $3 million
Assuming average daily flow of 6,600 cars per day ($7.4 million Revenue) thats 40% costs right there. That doesn't include the costs for lighting the lot every day, maintaining the tollbooths, or vehicles assigned to the department. It also assumes that EVERYTHING is rounded down. Thank you, for your comments but I hardly feel that you can justify the price gouging that you claim. If so use numbers.

Oh just so you know I rounded down hourly wages as well as the number of employees. This also doesn't involve the costs of completely repaving the entire main parking lot over the course of the next four years.

John
*** This post was edited by JohnDubya 4/23/2003 3:21:37 PM ***