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.

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 7-day pass, and $9.95 for 24-hour access. But the city of New York has plans to make sure the Citi Bikes are accessible to New Yorkers "of all income levels". A program is being developed, according to the web site, so that qualifying New Yorkers will be able to purchase a reduced annual membership for $60, payable in quarterly instalments.

It’s very interesting to see a commercial entity come on board to run the bike sharing scheme, as inherently they will be running it to set out to make a profit. However the scale of the investment and reach of the infrastructure is more likely to change behaviours than a small investment. Watch this space to see how it performs!

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.

A recent paper published by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics has quantified an ongoing trend in Sydney – that drivers are driving less every year than the year before.

Since 2005, the average number of kilometres driver per year has been on the decline. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in 1965, the average Sydney resident drove about 4000 kilometres a year. The figure advanced steadily past 6000 kilometres a year, by the late 1970s. By the mid-1990s, the average Sydney resident was driving 8000 kilometres a year. And by 2005, driving kilometres had crept up to about 8400 a quarter.

Since peaking in 2005, they have since slipped back to 1995 levels and are likely to stay for the next decade or so. The report shows that Sydney residents drive less than those in other capital cities. Residents in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth drive closer to 10,000 kilometres a year.

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 (like ending a parking tax rebate for residents of Manhattan, and adding a taxi surcharge on cab rides south of 86th Street) could raise as much as $1.2 billion annually, Schwartz argues  — money that would then be spent on improving transit and roads.

The money raised would then be used to reduce transit fares and to launch new transit lines — particularly bus rapid transit — in the outer boroughs where transit service is poor. He’s also proposed a number of pedestrian and bicycle bridges leading onto the island.

New York’s politicians are not enthusiastic about the plan, however, claiming that they will not have the political support to pass a congestion tax program. But with New York Times’ opinion editorial page getting behind the congestion plan, perhaps this may have a strong influence on public perception of the tax – particularly if the benefit goes to public transport and mass transit. 

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 Roadway receives the power and data signals that the Solar Roadway provides, with the aim of becoming an intelligent, self-healing, decentralized, secure power grid.

An electric road allows electric vehicles to recharge anywhere: rest stops, parking lots, businesses and homes. Furthermore, it will reduce a significant usage of asphalt – a product made from petroleum itself, further reducing dependency on oil.

As you can see in the video below, the biggest challenge that the solar roadway faces is driving on glass – however from our interpretation of the video it seems the challenge will be more shifting our attitudes towards driving on glass than the supporting science behind it.

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.

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. 

Car parking faces a continuing squeeze in downtown Auckland streets, following a 20 per cent reduction in spaces over the last five years. Auckland Transport says 843 street parking spaces have gone since 2007, leaving 3417 bays compared with 4260 previously.

According to the NZ Herald, the trend is set to continue as more CBD streets are turned into "shared spaces" – used by cars, bicycles and pedestrians. The business association ‘Heart of the City’ considers the lost spaces a necessary price for improving central Auckland’s urban environment, putting more emphasis on the need to build a better place for people, not just for traffic.

Auckland Transport claims a 26 per cent increase in patronage on key central bus routes, such as the inner and outer link services, since these were re-designed last winter. This is a trade off in return for a 20 per cent reduction in parking.

Cars are still a major consideration and access method for many, with cars last year bringing about 34,500 people into central Auckland each morning compared with 36,500 who arrived on buses, trains, ferries, bicycles or by walking.

The recent Queensland State election saw public transport policy as a key point of the campaign and an important issue for voters. The win for Labour has resulted in the first of their election promises becoming a reality: free travel after nine journeys a week.

To commence from July 1, the scheme will see commuters qualify for free travel after nine paid journeys a week. According to the Courier Mail, commuters stand to save as much as $667 a year from the policy. Other promises made that will benefit commuters include more frequent day services on the Ferny Grove line and a reduction in public transport fare increases.

Labour’s key public transportation policies included:

• Commuters will qualify for unlimited free trips after taking nine journeys on the bus, train or ferry in any given week, costing $55.7 million over four years.
• $19.15 million boost to the Translink Station Upgrade Program over three years, taking the investment to more than $137 million.
• $39.9 million to fund 95 new road upgrade projects over three years.
• $28 million for a North Brisbane Cycleway, secure bike parking spaces and regional cycling initiatives.

We definitely think that the tenth trip free policy is a good one for encouraging public transportation usage; provided that the public system works and is reliable!