Car sharing: data shows it may be working
The city of Hoboken, New Jersey, introduced a car sharing scheme over two years ago; based on the assumption that they would create parking spaces by taking them away. According to the New York Times, 42 of the city’s roughly 9,000 on-street spaces were allocated to the car sharing program upon inception. Survey data shows […]
Los Angeles may reduce parking requirements for businesses
Los Angeles councillors have backed an ordinance that would allow real estate developers, landlords and business owners to reduce the number of parking spaces to be supplied their buildings and projects. According to the Los Angeles Times, the action represents an effort to breathe new life into tanking business districts and drive new housing construction […]
Mayor turns his parking space into a park
A nice story this week that perhaps takes some inspiration from the annual Park(ING) day. The mayor of Ithaca, NY, Svante Myrick, has given up his car to join the estimated 15 percent of the city’s residents who walk to work. According to the Grist List, the mayor is entitled to a reserved parking spot […]
Charges for disabled parking in the US
From our vantage point, we see many stories about the misuse of disabled parking permits in the US. This week, we came across the experience in Arlington County, where they have done away with free parking and now charge a uniform fee for all users. According to The Washington Post, the decision was made based […]
Now we know what to do with those old meter posts!
An interesting article appeared in July’s edition of The Parking Professional (official publication of the International Parking Institute) which follows the results of a 2008 competition set up by New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) in partnership with the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum for a unique NYC bicycle rack. The objective of the […]
Technology and innovation key trends in IPI survey
The 2012 Emerging Trends in Parking Survey from the International Parking Institute (IPI) has seen increased demand for technology-related innovations account for half of the top ten trends in today’s $30 billion parking industry. Among these trends include, cashless, electronic, and automatic payment systems; real-time information about parking rates and availability via mobile apps; and […]
Pango mobile parking service launches in US
The Israeli-founded app “Pango”, designed to help with city parking and cruising, has launched in the US, together with their first so-called ‘smart garage’ in New York. Once users install the app and create their account using their license plate number and credit car details, they are able to search for participating parking stations. On […]
Urbanized: A must see for all Urban Designers (real or otherwise!)
Urbanizedis a feature-length documentary about the design and development of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers. According to the film’s press release, over half the world’s population now lives in an urban area, and 75% will call […]
Ohio State University leases parking operations to QIC
Ohio State University has moved ahead with leasing their parking operations to Australian company QIC and US partner LAZ Parking, in a 50 year contract deal worth US $483 million. According to the Star Tribune, the university pushed the plan as a way of providing cash flow at a time of declining public funding, with […]
New York car space expected to sell for $1m
An undercover car parking space in Manhattan is expected to sell for over $1 million, according to the New York Post. The garage is twice the height of an average space at 4.5m high, meaning that the owner could install a car elevator and allow two cars to be parked at the one time. The […]
New York explores private deal for parking meters
New York City is exploring the possibility of privatising the running of its 39,000 parking meters, currently researching mistakes made by other cities and exploring potential bidders. According to the Wall Street Journal, NYC officials are motivated in part by a belief that a private company could help alleviate some of the well-known frustrations of […]
Washington DC approves plan to expand ‘performance parking’
A council committee in Washington DC has approved a plan to allow city officials to manage the demand for parking spaces by adjusting parking prices, taking inspiration from San Francisco’s SFpark program. Under the plan, city officials would be able to adjust parking meter rates, length and times of operations, parking fines and residential parking […]
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 […]
Sustainability in parking
Sustainability and ‘green’ parking solutions have received a lot of attention in the media of late, with this blog in particular giving the cause solid support. And whilst sustainability has predominantly focused on the environmental aspects of maintenance and responsibility, it’s important to remember that long-term sustainability also encompasses other aspects: economic and social dimensions. […]
Citibank sponsors NYC’s bike sharing system
In New York, Citibank have announced that they are sponsoring and commercialising the bike share system. To be renamed Citi Bike, the system will be 100% privately funded with 600 stations and 10,000 bikes in Manhattan and Brooklyn. According to TreeHugger, Citi Bike’s pricing is listed as $95 for an annual pass, $25 for a […]
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 […]
Congestion pricing in New York in consideration
Former New York City traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz is proposing a plan that would toll the East River Bridges of New York, while lowering tolls on other, non-Manhattan bound spans in an effort to both reduce congestion and give the city’s transit system a funding boost. According to Transport Nation, these tolls and other fees […]
Space fillers: the dynamics of airport parking
Airport car parks are huge business, with major airport hubs seeing car parking producing around $80 million to $100 million of revenue each year. Recent results from the 2012 ACI Airport Economics survey shows that car parking now accounts for around 7% of global airport revenues and is the second biggest source of non-aviation related […]
The cost of parking in America
During the 2012 Intertraffic conference, the American based National Parking Association released their fourth annual Parking in America report. The study measures monthly, daily and hourly rates in cities throughout the United States and Canada, including parking facilities in hospitals, hotels, educational institutions and airports. It also documents rate trends in downtown parking areas and […]
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, […]
Pay by phone may now become a reality
The NSW government has recently changed legislation for on-street parking, paving the way for the introduction of ‘phone parking’. After registering their details with a third party operator, drivers would then either use a smartphone application or call a toll-free number to send their car registration details to the system, advising of their arrival in […]
Incompetent bike thief caught on camera in NYC
We came across a great video this week on TreeHugger, showing a hooded bandit’s unsuccessful attempts to steal the handlebars from a locked bike in New York. Watch the video below.
US transit lanes changing to paid permit lanes
In and around Atlanta, a new scheme putting a price on convenience is being introduced as a way to manage traffic congestion. According to the New York Times, transit lanes are now able to be accessed by solitary motorists, on a user-pays model. In addition to the usual occupants (car pools of three or more, […]
US town residents to build an off airport parking facility
Residents of Decatur in Indianapolis, US, have received approval to open a paid parking lot near the local airport, with revenues going to the community rather than the airport authority. The private group of residents were successful in defeating strong opposition from the mayor’s office and the airport who claimed that parking is not the […]
California gets more transport sharing options
The residents of two major cities in California have recently seen the introduction of car sharing and bicycle hire operations, thus increasing their choice of transport. In Los Angeles, the US’s largest car sharing network, Zipcar, has recently opened for business, placing over 125 vehicles throughout the city. The ‘car capital’ of the US is […]
NYC tests parking sensors
The NYC Department of Transportation is piloting a program in the Bronx that uses in-ground sensors to monitor the location of available parking spaces. The pilot’s aim is to test how the sensors survive the harsh NYC winter, standing up to a variety of factors including snow plowing, daily street sweeping, underground utilities, electromagnetic interference […]
SF’s variable parking not having the intended effect?
According to an article published on the Greater Greater Washington site, the variable pricing component of the SFPark program in San Francisco is not having the intended effect. Even with higher rates, the more popular blocks still fill up, and other blocks remain under-filled, even at low prices. The City has just implemented another meter […]