THAT trip to shop or run errands on Orchard Road is setting back motorists more in parking charges nowadays.

A Straits Times check of 20 malls on the shopping strip revealed that parking fees during off-peak hours on weekdays have gone up at 18.

Just over a third of the 18 carparks are charging between 10 and 20 per cent more.

While the jump is bigger at some, there are also places where weekday, off-peak fees have stayed about the same.

The most expensive places to park are Tangs Plaza and Wheelock Place, where leaving your car for three hours will cost $9 before 5pm on weekdays.

Prices are not uniformly high along Orchard Road. It is four times cheaper to park in Plaza Singapura, for instance. Three hours there costs just $2.25.

Tangs Plaza is the only mall on the strip that charges by the minute, so motorists pay for the exact amount of usage.

At other carparks, the rates are calculated in blocks of between 15 minutes and an hour.

It can make a difference.

Housewife Ong Lee Lee, 55, for example, found she will be charged $3.50 for an hour and five minutes at Tang Plaza. If she parks at Ngee Ann City down the road for that length of time, she will pay $3.84 for a block lasting 1-1/2 hours.

Parking charges at most carparks rose with the upping of the goods and services tax by 2 percentage points last year, say carpark operators.

But the jump has been by more than 2 percentage points - by a whopping 36 per cent in one instance.

Cairnhill Place takes the dubious honour as that carpark. Leaving your car there for three hours before 5pm on a weekday now costs $8, up from $5.90 just two years ago.

Back in 2002, the nondescript-looking carpark was the best-kept secret among motorists looking for lots in the heart of Orchard Road: It cost just $3 for three hours then.

Its operator, Wilson Parking, which runs 50 carparks islandwide, declined comment on the price increase.

One reason for the general increase, explained Metro Parking managing director Tyrone Lopez, is rising costs.

Rental rates for carpark spaces, as well as manpower and equipment costs, have gone up. He declined to say by how much the figures have risen in the recent hike.

Metro Parking operates more than 80 carparks, including Shaw Centre, where Sunday and public holiday rates are now marginally higher. Its weekday rates have stayed the same.

Centrepoint, for example, still charges $1 for the first hour and $1.20 for the subsequent half hour, to encourage off-peak and weekday shopping, said senior centre manager Tan Hwee Cheng.

But higher carpark charges elsewhere have come at a time of higher petrol and electronic road pricing costs, putting the squeeze on motorists.

These factors have pushed public relations account director Carolyn Tay, 43, onto public transport. Meeting clients in Orchard Road three times a week costs her about 20 per cent more each month. She now takes the train if she needs to be there for more than an hour.

Others have resorted to waiting for the best deals. Housewife Celeste Lee, 43, for instance, is willing to wait up to half an hour to snag a lot in the open-air Urban Redevelopment Authority carpark in Grange Road, where coupon parking costs $1 an hour.

She blew more than $30 a week on parking alone for her twice-weekly trips to Ngee Ann City for yoga, the gym and her children's art classes.

But parking in Grange Road can be hellish on a rainy day, she said, especially with her two children and shopping bags.

She added: 'I guess you either pay for the convenience or put up with getting wet... I'd rather get wet.'

juditht@sph.com.sg