On May 6, 6:40*am, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 01:18:33 on
Wed, 6 May 2009, Tony Polson remarked:

First, the car park is small, and is invariably wedged (and beyond) by
mid morning. *Second, the trains are very slow - there are an awful lot
of stops between Hillingdon and central London.

I used to park at Ickenham - the next station up the line - having
arrived via the M40. As an end-to-end time it's not bad compared to
driving. The next place up the A40 it's worth using is the Hyde Park
car-park (not far from the A40 if you use the shortcuts near Paddington
Station, rather than Edgware Rd). But it'll still be half an hour from
there to Westminster, and the parking fees are quite high.

City of Westminster council refer to it as the Marble Arch/ Park Lane
car park, as it has two entrances. Their webpage on it is here -
prices are, as you say, pricey:
http://www.westminster.gov.uk/carparks/marble_arch.cfm

Depends where in Westminster one is headed, but it could be a pleasant
walk through Green Park and St James' Park (and poss a bit quicker
than half-hour). The other options would be to head to Bond Street or
maybe Green Park for the Jubilee line into Westminster, or take a
frequent 148 bus from Park Lane which goes via Victoria along Victoria
Street to Parliament Square where it then heads across the river.

Regarding getting off the A40 (the Westway) - there's ways of doing it
and ways of not doing it, additionally these ways differ according to
whether or not the congestion charge is in force / whether or not you
want to avoid the CC zone.

Regardless of this however if you're coming west along the A40 and
want to head south to Marble Arch / Park Lane and beyond, one should
pretty much always take the so-called "Paddington slip" off the A40
(which IIRC is signposted "Ring Road South"). Once you're off the road
here it's a question of whether you continue direct along Westbourne
Terrace to Lancaster Gate (though the CC zone) or otherwise travel via
Edgware Road, which is a 'free road' that cuts through the CC zone, as
is Park Lane and the whole of the Inner Ring Road.

Continuing along the A40 will mean you end up on the Marylebone Road,
which has limited opportunities for turning right into (though they do
exist, but I can't remember where), and these right turns will lead
you into the CC zone. It's not possible to get off the A40 on to the
top of Edgware Road directly - you will instead be conveyed on the
Marylebone Flyover (properly called the Harrow Rd Flyover) over the
top of Edgware Road and onto Marylebone Road.

This helpful PDF from TfL outlines all the various permutations for
getting on and off the A40 avoiding the CC zone:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/roadusers/...AccessMaps.pdf

Of course this will all be largely irrelevant from some time in 2010
onward when the western extension of the Congestion Charging zone is
scrapped (though the central area CC zone south of Marylebone Rd will
remain) - a retrograde step IMO (coming from a somewhat retrograde
Mayor) but that's another discussion - point being that in the mean
time, if you want to come off the A40 and park at the Marble Arch/
Park Lane car park (or indeed just drive to points south) then there's
absolutely no need to pay the £8 congestion charge for the privilege
of driving little over a mile in the CC zone when you can avoid it
quite easily.

I guess I should be saying that one could avoid adding to the
congestion and pollution and could also save oneself the hassle of
driving into central London by doing 'The Right Thing' and making use
of a public transport option.