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!

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 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.

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 a little of the recent project in Perth’s Condor Towers. If you have an interest in street art and car park refurbishments you can see our post about Condor Towers here.

Below you can see some images of the Melbourne project thanks to the 12oz prophet site, as well as a short video below on the car park’s artistic progress. Amazing stuff!

We came across a beautiful mural in a private Sydney residence, which brings the car park to life; it seems a shame to put cars in it! See more below and on the Craig and Karl website here. 

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 announced another on-street rate hike, and Australian parking rates continue to be amongst the most expensive in the world; due to both policy and appreciation of the Australian Dollar.

The value of car parks continues to soar, with an off-street private park adding up to $200k-150k in Sydney, and up to $100k in Melbourne and $80k in Brisbane. It seems the lesson here is to invest in ownership of the space, not in parking your own car!

Meanwhile, the construction industry grows gloomier, with Davis Langdon’s quarterly sentiment monitor declining every quarter throughout the year, and painting an increasing negative outlook on the industry for the future. Gosh, we’re a miserable bunch.

Innovation and technology

In what is most likely the most significant event in the industry this year, the SFPark program in San Francisco was switched on in April, as the world’s first large-scale application of demand-based parking fees. Later in the year, Los Angeles also announced that they would trial demand-based parking fees, to commence in April 2012.

Unlike the sentiment monitor however, on the technology front it appears to have been quite the ‘appy year. Mobile technologies exploded throughout the parking industry in 2011, with apps launched for probably almost anything you can think of. There are now apps for reporting on the misuse of disabled parking spaces; find nearby parking stations, to connect people who want to seel their private off-street parking, show locations of electric recharging stations, probability of getting a parking ticket, remembering where you parked, finding available spaces, to play car parking games, and more.

Another technology to take note of for the future are in ‘near-field communications’, with Google announcing the launch of their ‘Wallet’ product (allowing users to pay bills by tapping their phones to a device); and the emergence of EMV credit Card technologies. Both of these will have a significant impact on how payments are made in our industry into 2012 and beyond.

Government regulation and policy

One of the biggest shifts in policy this year was around minimum parking requirements in inner-city buildings and constructions. Both Sydney and Melbourne led the charge, reducing the minimum required car spaces for new residential and commercial properties, and were followed by Canberra, Adelaide, Wollongong and more. It’s not just governments who see this as the future – apparently the users have also reduced their demand for inner city parking spaces, instead being replaced by increased demand for shower facilities and access to public transport.

Melbourne City Council has led the way with increased technological implementation and installation; this year introducing a number of automated technologies, including in-ground sensors, license plate recognition systems, pay by phone technology, and an electronic monitoring and enforcement system throughout Melbourne’s CBD and Southbank.

Around the country, Wollongong City Council introduced paid parking meters but repealed and amended much of their program, leading us to believe that they should have done their homework a little better before pushing go. Brisbane City Council expanded their on-street metered areas of the city and inner suburbs, and Perth’s announced that inner city churches were made exempt from paying parking taxes. Meanwhile, it was reported that the revenue from Perth’s parking levies were not being reinvested into public transport – the intended destination for these funds.

Politically, the NSW State elections saw a new government installed, with big promises to address transport issues in NSW. Sadly, (?) the No Parking Meters party failed to win a seat.

Transportation and planning

One of the key topics we explored in 2011 was the contrast between European cities and car policies, compared to Australian and American policies. We published a number of articles this year on how Europe is leading the way in moving their societies and cities from car-based to people based, instead investing in alternative means of transport and supporting infrastructure.

Car parking is integral to this process, however: a Parisian study found that most urban trips are influenced by the car parking conditions at their origin and destination; and a subsequent UK study found that effective parking management will provide impetus to shift drivers to more sustainable modes of transport; providing these options are available to them!

Back in Australia, congestion in Sydney in particular continues to increase, with six of the major seven roads to the city getting slower in peak hour commuting. Sydney’s main transport hub of Wynyard saw a lot of focus, due to both the Barangaroo development on the north-western edge of Sydney’s CBD, and the fact that the commuter hub is reaching capacity – for both the train lines and the bus lines.

Alternative and environmental transport

Whilst in 2010 we predicted that electric cars would be a key focus for 2011; it appears that this was shadowed by other non-car transport methods. For us, the most interesting news on electric cars this year came from lifestyle assessment studies published in May, examining not only the electric cars’ output, but the entire chain of powering electric vehicles from production to disposal, concluding that electric vehicles still have a long way to go to overtake the petrol-driven engines for energy efficiency.

Bicycling seems to have been the key focus for urban and transportation planners as an alternative transportation method in 2011. Most of the major (western) city centres have been investing in infrastructure to support bicycling. New York has led the way, implemented their bicycle lane infrastructre program to much press and attention, and it would seem, significantly increased demand. It has seen some teething problems in managing the balance between cars and bicycles, pedestrians and enforcement, but for the most part seems to be going well. London is also seeing significant success in their bike sharing programs, with the Boris Bikes scheme very popular and bicycling on the uptake.

In Australia, Melbourne’s bike sharing scheme was revealed to being significantly underutilised in June, with possible causes identified as pick-up points, poor weather, compulsory helmet laws, and a limited number of bike stations. It is still Australia’s leading city in terms of bicycle usage, and saw a significant police crackdown in June – trying to establish and teach bicyclists that they also need to obey the road rules.

Sydney opened their new dedicated cycleways in April, and has seen a significant increase in users since. We’ve also come across studies proving the health benefits of bicycling, with significant benefits for the population of cities with high usage. Aside from health, the new dedicated bicycle lanes have also seen apparent increased property prices for the houses on the cycleway routes, noted in Melbourne and Sydney.

Putting our bicycling money where our mouth is, PTC’s resident cycling nut Andrew Morse was very active this year, participating in the Sydney Tweed Cycle event in July, and blogged for us comparing the benefits of owning a bicycle to owning a Porsche.

Worth a mention

To wrap, there were some other ‘notable achievements’ in the industry we felt warranted a mention.

Congratulations to both Barbara J. Chance and Ronald Fleming were both named Parking Professionals of the Year.

The car parking structure at 111 Miami Road, Miami, has redefined architectural innovation.

We hope that Los Angeles residents and administrators are able to learn a lesson from LA’s ‘Carmageddon’, that ended up being just pure panic in a city that doesn’t realise it can’t do without a car for a day. 

And one of our favourite examples of parking enforcement for the year was watching the Mayor of Lithuanian capital Vilnius run over an illegally parked car in a tank. That’ll show them!

Over and out!

Thanks to all our readers for your interest and interaction with our blog this year. We hope that you’ve found it useful, inspiring, or entertaining! We wish all of our readers a happy holiday and we look forward to enlightening you in 2012!