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.

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?

The New York Times recently carried an article by Eran Ben-Joseph, a professor of urban planning at MIT and author of ‘Rethinking a Lot: The Design and Culture of Parking’. In it, Ben-Joseph shares his vision for transforming the parking lot into a space beyond simply providing parking availability and convenience.

He believes that the parking lot needs to evolve to include a variety of other uses, mitigate its effect on the environment and give greater consideration to aesthetics and architectural context.

Environmentally, parking lots come with costs – including increased heat from the exposed asphalt pavement, as well as water runoff from the impervious surfaces. A better parking lot might be covered with solar canopies so that it could produce energy while lowering heat, or may be surfaced with a permeable material like porous asphalt and planted with trees in rows like an apple orchard, so that it could sequester carbon and clean contaminated runoff.

Parking lots are also one of the most utilised outdoor spaces – public spaces that people interact with and use on a daily basis, and one of the few places where cars and pedestrians coexist. Better parking lots would expand and embrace this role, providing a range of public activities such as farmers markets and food stalls, contributing as much to their communities as great boulevards, parks or plazas.

Some great concepts, thinking and questioning of the role of parking lots in our society. Read more on the NY Times website here, or more on Ben-Joseph’s book here. 

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.

A recent post on the DC Streets Blog examined the economic effects of cycling, and specifically exploring the notion that an investment in cycling infrastructure generally will limit car parking.

The article quotes a few numbers, statistics and pieces of information around the economic benefits of the bicycle over the car. We’ve summarised some of the key points of the article below:

-        One car parking space can fit 12 parked bicycles.

-        Cyclists tend to shop closer to home more often – as car drivers are more likely to head to the suburbs or big shopping malls. According to researchers, only 16 per cent of household car expenses (expenditure when utilising the car) stay within the local community. 

-        Cyclists have an additional $6,000 to $8,776 available for spending that would have otherwise been spent on car registration, petrol and maintenance.

On top of the economic benefits listed above, there are a number of programs being implemented in the US that have seen significant boosts to the income of local businesses through encouraging cycling. Two highly successful examples of programs include:

-        Long Beach’s citywide bike discount program – where customers get better prices if they arrive by bike.

-        ‘Open Streets’ – closed to motorised traffic – has seen 73 per cent of visitors spend money in a restaurant or store on the route, and 68 per cent became aware of a restaurant or store that was new to them, according to research conducted by Washington University in St. Louis.

We did find it very interesting to see the cycling debate framed as an economic one, and the study provides useful statistics and case studies for those involved in planning or in considering the merits of promoting alternative forms of transportation. 

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 bonnet inflates to cushion the blow.

The external airbags will be part of the Volvo V40, which already has a number of handy features, like helping drivers stay in their lane, park assist capability to help drivers with reverse parking, and Driver Alert Control to warn when the driver is getting tired.

The only drawback with the external airbags is that they only work effectively at speeds up to 35km/h. However if it prevents injuries for pedestrians, it’s definitely worthwhile technology!

Below are videos showing the operation of the external airbags, and a second video on the Pedestrian Detection technology in general.