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 affect the businesses property were a number of diagrams to designed illustrate this. From Mott Smith’s original article: 

A typical parcel of commercial land will be around 50 feet wide (15.24m) by 150 long (45.72m), or 7,500 square feet (just under 700m2) and is traditionally the perfect size for a small businessperson to build a shop and maybe even housing or office space above. Building right up to the front and side property lines would maximise land-use efficiency and pedestrian-friendliness is encouraged.

But onsite parking rules have made this sort of development nearly impossible. In Los Angeles, minimum parking requirements mandate four parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet of retail space. Using our example above, the largest store you could build on a typical property would be 3,000 square feet - less than half of what was possible before the parking requirements came into play.

For restaurants, the requirements are often even more stringent. In a city that requires 10 spaces per 1,000 square feet of restaurant, the largest building you could construct on a typical property would be 1,600 square feet - less than 25 percent of the potential build-out area before parking-requirements.

It’s a simple and easy to understand demonstration of why the minimum parking requirements in this instance are highly ineffective in stimulating demand. Paul Barter concludes his summation by answering his own question:

Is this relevant to your country? Yes! Don't let foolish parking policies destroy your older commercial districts like the United States did!

Following our recent post on Eran Ben-Joseph’s book, ‘Rethinking a Lot’, The Guardian 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 principles would be able to restore cities and spaces to be proud of, and should add joy to the routine of driving, working and shopping.

Using new technology. A wide range of technological developments are constantly improving parking lots; from robotic car parks to parking guidance systems; pay and display to pay by mobile phone.

Reducing environmental impact. One of the key impacts of the parking lot is the heat generated by the asphalt surface of the lots, contributing to the "urban heat island" phenomenon which makes cities warmer than surrounding rural areas. A range of solutions are underway to harness this energy, from covering lots with solar panels, to developing reflective asphalt, to creating energy by heating water running in pipes beneath the lots.

Using the space above. Either through car parks built underneath existing buildings and developments; or the construction of multi-level car parks; the smaller land usage reduces their impact significantly.

Digging up car parks. Some activists are even determined to go one step further, digging up car parks and celebrating the ‘rebirth of a new greenspace’, creating permeable space instead of paved lots.

Putting some numbers around his research, Ben-Joseph claims that there are an estimated 800 million car parking spaces in the US - one for every car – and amounting to around 9,104 sq km of land space. Covering this whole area with solar panels could generate enough electricity to power 11 million households for a month. Alternatively, he claims that covering 50% of this area with trees could remove 1,260,805 tons of carbon dioxide per year. We are not sure where the cars would go instead!

Read more on The Guardian’s site here.

Colliers International, in conjunction with Parking & Traffic Consultants, have released a white paper into CBD car parks in Australia.

The paper, entitled Australian CBD Car Parking – The Next Decade, examines the current trends and the expected future of car parks in Australia. With the number of car spaces in Australian CBDs increasing only marginally from 141,690 in 2006 to 153,400 in 2011, car parking is a finite product, with the supply of car parking expected to moderate over the next decade.

A key finding of the report was that the ratio of car parking to CBD workers is declining, along with the importance of parking relative to other forms of transport. Since 2005, proximity to public transport has remained the most important driver in attracting and retaining staff by tenants when choosing an office location and has steadily increased in importance over time.

Real estate and property yields for well-established commercial car parks are generally slightly above commercial buildings in the same price range in comparable locations, with a slight risk premium factored in to allow for increased uncertainty surrounding changes to Government legislation, casual parking as a discretionary spend which generally diminished in times of economic uncertainty, and a smaller market for car parking assets.

Parking & Traffic Consultants' own Managing Partner, Cristina Lynn, was a co-author to the report. Cristina said that with changes to technology and the cost of car parking on the rise, owners had to become more innovative in the services they provide. The benefits of new technology coupled with greater awareness of customer’s needs should ensure on going profitability and value maximisation for car park owners.

Click here to view the full white paper.

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 of different sized capsules that can carry cargo and people and uses maglev (magnetic levitation) tracks to whisk the human (and other) cargo along to their destination from speeds of 550km/h to 6,500km/h. In the video provided below they claim the tube system can be built for a tenth of the cost of a high-speed rail system, and can travel from the US’s East to West Coast in just 45 minutes.

Sounds like completely out of a science-fiction cartoon, but if it worked as it’s proposed it could be an amazing boon for transport and reducing the environmental impact of air and road travel.

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 having facilities that are equal or better than those in other Australian capitals.

New facilities are expected to include:

• An upmarket replacement for the Entertainment Centre with seating for at least 8000 people
• An increase in size of the Exhibition Centre from 25,000 square metres to 40,000 square metres making it Australia's largest exhibition space;
• A convention hall with capacity for more than 10,000 people which can host multiple events simultaneously making it the biggest such facility in the country.
• Dedicated banqueting facilities for 2000 people, almost double the current capacity.
• A hotel with at least 300 rooms

Meanwhile, the government has opened the door for residential apartments, shops and restaurants to be built on Darling Harbour parkland as part of the overhaul. State cabinet has approved a 66 per cent increase in the area of Darling Harbour where developers will relocate and rebuild exhibition facilities and public areas as part of an upgrade expected to cost about $1 billion.

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!), and turn the tracks into an elevated boardwalk and cycleway. His proposal would involve a three to five-metre-wide deck across the track, creating a 3.6-kilometre public walkway through the central business district.

The High-Lane, as he calls it, could be used by joggers, cyclists, office workers, parents with prams and tourists. The existing pylons would become vertical gardens and Monorail stations would be transformed into pocket parks, cafes and gallery spaces, taking around 12 to 18 months to build.

All the government entities remain non-committal regarding the project, with some scepticism and concerns given the proposed demolition to make way for the Darling Harbour redevelopment. 

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 taken care of with roller blinds, and the garages come with natural materials and insulation as standard.

At a cost of $70,000, the AutoSpace offers tailored, contemporary design to your specific needs - so you can have multiple cars, a workshop or office space built in. Perhaps a bed so you never need be away from your car for too long?

Near field communication (NFC) technology allows secure data to be transmitted from a device or object to exchange information or even conduct electronic transactions with a tap. The technology is already embedded in many chip credit cards, and mobile phone providers are moving to roll out handsets which are NFC enabled, allowing users to pay with the tap of a mobile phone. (For more information, refer to our previous Wayfinding Forum posts, ‘Mobile cashless payments by card and phone’, and ‘Google Wallet’s potential effect on parking industry infrastructure’).

Technology site ARN recently polled global mobile industry experts to find that eighty one percent expect that NFC technology will be widely used and adopted for mobile payments in two to five years time. Of these executives, 38 per cent believe consumer concern over security of personal financial information exchanged during mobile transactions is the leading obstacle to large-scale adoption of mobile payments.

They are not wrong, according to UK media site The Drum, which claims that research conducted by VoucherCodes.co.uk has found that most consumers don’t know about NFC technology, and 60% would avoid paying for goods and servies via their mobile even if they were able. A further 17% were interested in the technology but worry about how it works.

VoucherCodes has created a really interesting infographic which attempts to explain the NFC technology and quantify the results of their survey. You can view this in full size by clicking here or on the image below. 

The Southern Precinct project and expansion of Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport is part of a proposed program of investment by Melbourne Airport over the next five years. The expansion project is budgeted to cost in excess of A$1 billion.

According to MICEBTN magazine, Stage 1 of the project is focused on the area south of the existing T3 terminal and around the T4 terminal, and includes the phased development of:

• A new domestic terminal facility designed to cater for up to 20 million passengers per annum and an ultimate area of 35,000 square metres;
• 35 additional aircraft parking aprons and taxi lanes to accommodate future growth;
• Two new multi‐level structures for ground transport services, additional car parking spaces and access to other services such as taxis, shuttle buses and public transport and upgrading the airport road network to provide access to the new terminal precinct and also to support the future growth of Melbourne Airport over the next 30 to 40 years.

Stage One of the Southern Precinct project has an estimated cost of up to A$300 million, and is planned to commence in October 2012, with the new terminal open for operation by July 2014.

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, a robotic arm that works much like an automatic plank will scoop up the car and put it into the elevator. Once at the desired floor, the same robotic arm will park the car, leaving the resident nearly at his front door.

The glass elevators will give residents and their guests unparalleled views of the city or the ocean during their high-speed ride, expected to last 45 to 90 seconds. Residents will be able to see their cars from their living rooms.

The 57-story luxury tower will have 132 units. Smaller units will be allocated two parking spaces and larger ones will have four, with 284 robotic parking spaces in total, serviced by three elevators.