Saga City film on urban planning
This week we came across a film on the website of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute called Saga City. This short film is intended to show how our communities can tackle the challenges of urban planning and vehicle emissions, as well as learning more about the impacts of our current development patterns. The film is […]
Minimum parking to blame for LA’s commercial inefficiency
Thanks to Paul Barter’s Reinventing Parking blog, we came across an article this week that explored how the minimum parking requirements in Los Angeles have had a negative impact on street life and force property owners to use their blocks of land highly inefficiently. For us the clearest representation of how the minimum parking requirements […]
Is there a worldwide parking problem?
Following our recent post on Eran Ben-Joseph’s book, ‘Rethinking a Lot’, The BBC have also picked up on the story. They summarise some of Ben-Joseph’s key recommendations for improving parking lots to make them more ‘environmentally responsible’ and ‘aesthetically pleasing’ as follows: Better design. Citing Miami’s car park as a prime example, drawing on great design […]
Vacuum tube transport system
In one of the stranger articles we’ve come across this week, the concept of the Evacuated Tube Transport system, from design group et3.com, will see 16ft long capsules of humans traveling at around 6,500km/h and around the world in less than six hours. According to The Creators Project, the Evacuated Tube Transport features a range […]
Turning roads into solar panels
A US-based company has developed a concept prototype for a ‘solar roadway’ – a series of structurally engineered solar panels that can be driven on. < The concept sees roads literally replaced by the solar panels, which when linked together effectively serve as an energy grid itself. Any home or business connected to the Solar […]
…as Monorail’s planned demolition calls for higher line
Due to be demolished to make way for the redevelopment of Darling Harbour, Sydney’s monorail has seen significant debate over what should happen to the structure once dismantled. Landscape architect David Vago has drawn up a plan to take inspiration from New York’s famous High Line (see our blog post about the High Line here!), […]
Sydney’s Darling Harbour to be rebuilt..
The NSW government announced last week that the Sydney Entertainment Centre, Convention Centre and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour will be closed for three years while they are expanded or replaced under a $1 billion upgrade approved by NSW cabinet. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the precinct will be expanded with a view to […]
Display garages
A new type of garage is on sale from architects EcoSpace which turns the once humble and hidden away parking garage into the centrepiece of your back garden. The modular garage is designed to be a showroom for your car, with features like ambient lighting, floor-to-ceiling glazing and even modular storage systems available. Security is […]
Parking space squatting
An article published in the SMH recently explored what they considered a new phenomenon: parking space ‘squatting’, whereby drivers returning to their cars will sit in the vehicle to use their phones to talk, text or email. On the one hand, it’s upsetting the normal ‘order’ of things – with the driver expected to vacate […]
Music video with amazing intersection animations
Thanks to Andrew Morse, our resident Senior Traffic Engineer, we came across this fantastic music clip, called ‘Got More’, by a band called Eskmo. It’s a stunning animation totally created from footage filmed at a New York intersection. We highly recommend watching through as the animation becomes ever more Escher-like.
Parking in Miami keeps getting groovier
A new apartment block in Miami has elevators to take residents directly to their units whilst they are sitting in their cars. The $560 million tower is a collaboration between Germany-based Porsche Design Group and a local developer, Gil Dezer. According to the Miami Herald, after the resident pulls over and switches off the engine, […]
Volvo pedestrian air bags a hit
Volvo has recently announced a world first in the introduction of a new safety technology it calls Pedestrian Detection. According to ZDNet, it’s part of Volvo’s IntelliSafe system that, in the first instance, will brake sharply if someone steps in the way. If the car goes on to hit someone, an external airbag on the […]
Perth CBD cycling terminus to cater for bike boom
Perth’s bike boom has led to the proposal from the state government to provide a cycling facility featuring showers, lockers and parking for 500 bikes in the Perth CBD. The ten-year bicycle network plan, released by Transport Minister Troy Buswell, proposes to spend up to $10million in expanding existing bike paths and creating new paths […]
Shrinkable cars are all the rage
Following last week’s post about MIT’s ‘folding’ Hiriko City Car, scientists have unveiled a similar 2.1m ‘pod’ car that can shrink to fit into tight parking spaces. The car’s length can be reduced by 50 centimetres by the driver for those tight parking spots, and like the Hiriko, it also features wheels that can turn […]
Dynamic on-street pricing overview
We came across a video on the Parking Today site this week that explains how dynamic pricing for on-street meters works. Created by IPS Smart Meters, the company responsible for San Francisco’s SFPark project, the video features contributions from Donald Shoup, John Van Horn and many more. It’s a simple overview of how the technology […]
City of Sydney releases transport strategy
The City of Sydney released its ‘Connecting the City’ Transport Strategy document this week. It includes a wide compilation of figures and statistics associated with traffic and transport movements in and around the city. These statistics underscore the growing impacts on amenity, lifestyles and costs and reinforce why Sydney needs an integrated transport network. Naturally, […]
Townsville introduces greater minimum parking requirements
Meanwhile, in Townsville, the City Council has won a battle with the State Government to force developers to allocate more car parking spaces for multi-unit developments. According to the Townsville Bulletin, the council has approved amendments to the city’s planning scheme to require new developments to provide two car spaces for units of two bedrooms […]
Should car sharing be required in developments?
Fairfax media published an article this week exploring the range of benefits that a car share scheme is able to provide to residents, developers and councils of a city. The car-sharing model is one that’s growing rapidly in many countries, and reflects a shift in the way that people are using their cars. In recent […]
Parking Pods make it into the vernacular
An interesting article in this weekend’s SMH talks about parking pods and other kinds of pods, following the introduction of parking sensors to the Lane Cove area on Sydney’s north shore. If you are interested in words and word play, we would encourage you to visit the author (David Astle) on his website here.
Melbourne underground car park street art preview
Here is an update on Melbourne’s underground street art project we wrote about recently, as the project has started to take shape. Around 90 artists from New York, Paris, Amsterdam and Melbourne came together to paint over 8,600 square feet of wall space over the 3 levels of Emerald House in South Melbourne. Reminds us […]
What is ‘fair’ in the provision of parking?
Two weeks ago, the Boston Globe wrote an article about San Francisco’s SFPark, a pilot program of applying variable parking prices and putting Don Shoup’s market-based parking theories to trial. Whilst the article presents a good view of the program in general, the waters get very muddy when it introduces the concept of what it […]
Melbourne media agency brings art to their car park
The Melbourne car park of one of Australia’s biggest media agencies, Aegis, is set to undergo a dramatic transformation. Around 90 artists will contribute to what is set to become Australia’s largest exhibition of street art, with the graffiti works painted directly onto the walls of the car park. The contributing artists will hail from […]
Parking news review 2011
Another year, another summary. In what has become an annual tradition, we try and distil the key news and trends from the Wayfinding Forum blog. It’s no easy job, with just under 200 posts published every year… Parking rates and sentiment In 2011, Australian parking rates and the construction industry sentiment were inversely proportional. Sydney […]
Avoiding storefront crashes
We came across an incredible video this week caught on the CCTV of a car crashing through the front window of a store. Amazingly, no one was hurt other than a few scratches and bruises. Watch the video above and here. The International Parking Institute has recently published an article written by Mark Wright on […]
Australian Parking Convention 2012
The Parking Association of Australia has announced the 13th Australian Parking Convention to be held once again at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, on November 11 – 13, 2012. The program will be designed to appeal to a broad range of individuals working within the parking industry, as well as providing a number of […]
Tokyo cyclists get smartphone bike sharing
Whilst bike-sharing schemes are relatively commonplace in Europe, in Tokyo they are still a rarity, despite the fact that the Japanese are bike-crazy. The launch of a new bicycle-sharing service aims to change that, adding another layer of technological innovation to the existing model. The program, called Cosoado Cycles, not only places ‘cycle ports’ in […]
1111 Lincoln Road Miami continues to impress
This month’s Parking Professional magazine, published by the International Parking Institute, includes a four-page spread on the groundbreaking parking garage at 1111 Lincoln Road, Miami. From our perspective, we are impressed at the way the garage is commanding the attention of the artistic elite in Miami, as a venue for weddings and as an art […]
Which lane today?
A guest post by Andrew Morse, our senior traffic engineer. A question was posted on a Linkedin group recently asking “does the ‘Keep Right Unless Overtaking’ rule still apply in the US?”. This got me thinking about the situation in Australia, where like other countries that drive on the sensible side of the road, the […]
For heaven’s sake can we stop queuing through intersections?
A guest post by Andrew Morse, our senior traffic engineering consultant There, I’ve said it and I feel much better. Well not really because every day I am astounded by the number of drivers who think it’s perfectly acceptable to enter an intersection (typically on amber) knowing full well that they can’t clear the intersection […]
Canberra developers call for review of parking requirements
Following our recent post on the establishment of the Car Parking Advisory Committee to review changes to the car parking provisions (refer to our previous article here), Canberra is the latest Australian city to be reconsidering their minimum parking requirements. Developers are offering lower priced residential units and less traffic congestion in return for fewer […]