In Perth, the Motorcycle Riders Association is calling on the government to allow motorcycles and scooters to be able to park on public walkways in Perth city.

According to ABC online, they are calling for a trial policy similar to Melbourne, allowing motorcycles to park on footpaths and concrete public spaces, providing the vehicle is walked there, the vehicle is parked at least a motorcycle length away from buildings and the vehicle doesn't inhibit pedestrian access.

The MRAWA claims that the system would encourage motorcyclists to commute, which will ease traffic congestion especially at peak hour. In addition to this, they want extra free, all day parking locations to be scattered throughout the city.

Proposals are also under development for motorcycles and scooters to be permitted to use the emergency and bus lanes on Perth’s roads during peak periods.

The City of Perth, meanwhile, has ruled out any plans for footpath parking in the CBD, citing that 75,000 people walk into and around Perth’s CBD everyday; and that motorcycles parked in public spaces would cause obstruction to this free movement. Currently there is a report recommending an expansion and an additional 30 bays at the Mounts Bay Road parking lot due to go to council. If the report is approved, the Mounts Bay Road park will accommodate 102 motorcycles. 

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!

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. 

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. 

In Buenos Aires, a city where bicycle theft is rampant, the provision of secure parking facilities is almost as important as the supporting infrastructure.

The city is currently embracing cycling, under a scheme called “Mejor en Bici”, with a number of laws and construction projects designed to provide several bike parking facilities. Of these laws, perhaps the most significant is the obligation for all private parking lots to offer 8 bike spots for every 50 vehicle spaces, at a rate that can never be higher than 10% of the car parking fee.

According to TreeHugger, the private parking facilities offer a much safer environment than street racks, and will force the structures that rarely offer parking for bikes, to adapt.

On top of this, the government is also building 350 new bike racks across the city, with another 550 to be put to tender. They are also building parking facilities next to train stations, offering whole day parking for just one peso (about $0.25)!

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. 

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.

Perth’s bike boom has led to the proposal from the state government to provide a cycling facility featuring showers, lockers and parking for 500 bikes in the Perth CBD.

The ten-year bicycle network plan, released by Transport Minister Troy Buswell, proposes to spend up to $10million in expanding existing bike paths and creating new paths within a 15 kilometre radius of the city. According to WA Today, the plan is in response to a five-fold increase in the number of people cycling to work or for leisure in Perth: about 300,000 cyclists per month take to the roads and cycle paths across the city.

Among the 12 recommendations of the Government Plan is a proposal for a high-quality 'end-of-trip' terminus to provide parking for 500 bikes, showers and locker facilities which would operate on a fee-for-service basis. The government has suggested a feasibility study be carried out, and suggested the facility could be created by converting existing space within a multi-storey car park.

Meanwhile, the City of Perth is working on its own cycling plan, which will be released in June.

The full plan can be viewed on the WA Transport site here. 

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.