Shoppers stuck as a frustrated driver said he queued for nearly four hours to leave a city centre car park. The motorist, who wants to remain anonymous, said he tried to leave St David’s car park in Cardiff at 4.45pm on Saturday but could not get out until 8.30pm.
The man had been in the centre shopping with his partner and their one-year-old baby before returning to their vehicle parked on level seven of the multi-storey was one of many shoppers stuck that day. He said it was immediately clear that it would take some time to leave due to queues of traffic reaching the highest levels.
He described hearing other stressed and angry drives shouting and beeping their horn. He shared pictures and video showing stationary queues of cars lined up throughout the car park from the bottom level all the way to the top. He said the queues did not disperse until the issue was resolved and traffic slowly dispersed from 7.30pm.
He told WalesOnline: “We went to leave at about 5pm, paid our ticket and went up to the car. We could see it was quite busy from that point. We were on level seven, parked furthest away from the exit. We could see the queue was huge so we decided to go for a coffee and get our one-year-old son fed, bearing in mind it was a Saturday night and Cardiff was starting to get rowdy.”
When the family returned around 45 minutes later, the driver said nothing had changed. He noted seeing that certain cars had not moved at all during the time they left for coffee. “There was even a couple watching Netflix in their car because they were fully committed to being there for a long time,” he said.
The man said they struggled to even reverse out of the parking space due to the backlog of traffic, however were let out after explaining to the person behind them in the queue that they had a baby with them. However, he said it took another two hours until they left.
During that time the driver said he felt “helpless” and walked outside the car park to see what was causing the issue. He explained: “As you go into St David’s two, you can turn right at the Admiral building [on to David Street]. Before you turn into that you come by the [Utilita Arena] and there there were ‘no through road’ signs, so they were trying to tell people it’s a dead end.
“But all the traffic was going to that dead end, realising they couldn’t get anywhere. because they didn’t pay attention to the signs, [and turning around]. So because of the traffic coming from the Admiral building, the car parks, and the people who were turning around, it started backing up the car park. Because the volume of the car park is so high, any delay causes massive queues of shoppers stuck up the spiral.”
He observed how car park staff continued letting people into the car park despite the issue, which he said exacerbated the issue. He said: “People on level six and seven couldn’t get out anyway because everyone below them were on the spiral and not letting them in. Then, because they were letting more people in, people on level one, two or three were maybe popping in for a bit of food and getting out before the people on the higher floors.”
The shoppers stuck in the queue said he queued for nearly four hours to leave a city centre car park. The motorist, who wants to remain anonymous, said he … said the situation only eased at around 7.30pm when police officers blocked off Mary Ann Street near its junction with the A4160. This prevented people accessing the blocked road on David Street. “This was far too late,” he said. “Bearing in mind there were a lot of people stuck with children and families. There was someone on our floor with a six-week-old-baby.”
WalesOnline has contacted St David’s and South Wales Police for comment about the shoppers stuck in the car park.
