Tag Archives: TPP-2014-10

Student Smarts

TPP-2014-10-Student SmartsBy Charnae Sanders

As is true on college campuses across the nation, parking has been and continues to be a big issue among students at Central Michigan University (CMU). With limited parking and a large student population, problems are expected to arise. Student Government Association (SGA) President Chuck Mahone says parking is one of the frustrations of being a student because of CMU’s sizable off-campus population.

“Parking is an issue because, of course, everyone wants to park where they want to park,” Mahone says. “We do have parking spots on campus in areas that people are not going to like, so eventually [drivers] get frustrated.”

When he ran for president of the SGA, the college senior listened to students’ perspectives on issues they’d like fixed. One of the major topics SGA hears a lot about is student parking.

In the past, SGA struggled to find a way to help students with parking issues, but there was only so much to do. Mahone decided he wanted to formulate an idea that would benefit students facing issues from tickets being blown off by wind or snow to late fees for tickets they never even saw.

“Some students would actually steal tickets from other students’ cars and put the ticket the other student got on their car,” Mahone says. “That way, when parking services came around, they wouldn’t give them a ticket, and the car that got the ticket was ticketed again. The first driver would also get a late fee on a ticket they didn’t even know they had.”

Those kinds of issues prompted Mahone to come up with an idea to take action. He has only received one parking ticket but says he thinks twice about wherever he’s parking because of CMU’s parking situation.

The Idea
Mahone met with a group of students who had similar problems when it came to receiving parking tickets. After hearing their discussion, he thought of potential solutions.

A big hurdle was trying to figure out how to approach the problem. He crossed potential solution after potential solution off his list before coming up with an idea that seemed logical and the most appealing choice for everyone involved.

“I was thinking how could we on the students’ end alleviate some of the parking issues such as, ‘I didn’t know I couldn’t park here,’ or ‘I didn’t know I had a ticket,’” Mahone says. “So, I was thinking something that would be very simple is if we knew when we did receive the ticket. That way, we would know when we’re in violation and we wouldn’t receive multiple tickets.”

The issues of parking may have been nothing new to SGA, but Mahone’s initiative was. Mahone thought the easiest solution would be for CMU’s parking services to send an email to ticketed students to let them know they received a ticket, where their car was, why it was in violation, and the fine amount.

Mahone knew parking services already had students’ email addresses in parking permit records, and the solution seemed like a no-brainer. He thought email notification of tickets would work well because students had the option to opt out from the email. After polishing up his plan, Mahone sat down with CMU Police Department Chief Bill
Yeagley to talk about the email initiative.

Cooperation
Yeagley says Mahone thought there might have been a good percentage of times people got multiple tickets on their vehicles.

“When he said that, I wondered, ‘How accurate is that?’” Yeagley says. “What are the numbers we’re looking at where that could occur? I didn’t know technologically if we could make this work or not, but when he said if we simply notify those folks when they get the ticket with the university’s email, that could take away any likelihood that they weren’t aware they were parked in the wrong spot. I found that to be a great idea.”

Yeagley put Mahone in touch with the right people at parking services who could put his plan into action. Mahone says the department was very receptive and agreed this was something it could do.

“I didn’t know the logistics of the system, but they said this is something they would have to implement,” Mahone says. “It did take time—a semester or so—to get everything worked out. They tried it out at the end of the year, and it worked successfully.”

Throughout the trial and experience, Mahone says he immediately got positive responses and emails from “congratulations” to “thank you.”

“I have heard from people who got emails after their tickets saying, ‘Whoa, it actually works. I’m glad it does what it say it does and it’s not messed up,’”
Mahone says. “So that credits parking services and the quality work they do.”

Mahone says the only negative thing he’s seen was a person’s comment in the university’s newspaper that was a good idea but won’t matter or help.

“I can understand if you’re pessimistic about it, but I personally think it will help,” Mahone says. “The system isn’t going to stop students from parking illegally, but it will let them know so they won’t get fined or another ticket or their car towed.”

The System at Work
Sophomore Anthony Cavataio says the new plan will benefit students and parking services. Cavataio says he checks his email five or six times a day and thought it was clever to have an email sent after receiving a ticket.

“A lot of students have their email linked up right to their smartphones, so when they get that email, it’s going to their phones,” Cavataio says. “A lot of people have their phones on them, so I think it’s going to be very helpful.”

The email notification system from CMU Parking Services was put into action at the start of the fall 2014 semester. This implementation marks an early accomplishment for Mahone even before his SGA presidential career began. Mahone was still a candidate running for president when he came up with the idea and presented it in front of officials. Now, as president, Mahone has already crossed this goal off his master plan of positive change.

“I just felt very blessed,” Mahone says. “I truly, truly do want to make positive change to the student body as a whole and this is something that truly makes a positive change to the student body as a whole … I felt blessed to be able to be who I was at that moment where I was able to help, even if it is in a small way. Even if it is letting them know they’ve got a $10 ticket and it’s keeping them from getting a late fee, I was happy I was able to do that.”

Mahone says he hopes the new system will help students manage their money while they learn from their experiences out in the parking lots.

“I hope it helps students financially,” Mahone says. “That’s kind of one of the biggest points of the system, for students not to get late fees or get another ticket … because the wind blew it off or it blew into the snow or someone took it. Then, they’ll know they definitely should not park there next time.”

Cavataio admits he received between 12 and 15 tickets during his freshman year on campus because he did not know the rules or what signs meant when it came to student parking.

“I would often forget about the tickets I did have, or I would get more than one at the time that I would have to pay,” Cavataio says. “So I think this would be a helpful reminder. I wish I had that during my freshman year.”

Mahone offers advice to other students looking to make similar changes on their campuses. “Before I came to Chief Yeagley, I definitely looked at different avenues,” he says. “I looked at things that would be buyable, and I definitely crossed a lot of things off the list until I came up with the system. So do your research and know what you’re saying before you go to the correct people. Also, have the courage to go to the correct people. Don’t think that it’s all going to fail. If you do fail, don’t look at it as failure. Look at it as you just found another way to not do it right and try again.”

Charnae Sanders is a junior online journalism student at Central Michigan University. She can be reached at charnae.sanders@gcmag.org.

TPP-2014-10-Student Smarts

A Robotic Revolution

TPP-2014-10-A Robotic RevolutionBy Wes Guckert, PTP

A report recently issued by the United Nations highlighted a global trend: More than half (54 percent) of the world’s population lives in urban areas. This trend isn’t expected to slow anytime soon. In fact, that number is forecast to rise to 66 percent by 2050. By 2030, the world is projected to have 41 ­mega-cities with 10 million residents or more. By comparison, there were 10 mega-cities in 1990 and 28 in 2013.

The U.S. is experiencing similar growth in urban centers, reversing a trend that started more than 100 years ago. This summer, Brookings Institution demographer William Frey examined 2012 and 2013 population growth figures from America’s 51 largest cities, comparing and contrasting the growth of those urban centers to their suburban areas. What he found wasn’t surprising given what the rest of the world is seeing: city populations are growing faster than those in the ’burbs. Not surprisingly, some of these cities include New York, Seattle, Denver, and Washington, D.C.

What does all this have to do with parking? More people means more demand for premium land within a city. This will continue to make land in urban settings more and more costly, and developers will continue to look for more ways to accommodate more people into urban centers. Automated and robotic parking garages accommodate twice as many vehicles in the same space as conventional parking.

Asia and Europe have been using this technology for the past 20 years. Robotic parking is a tested and proven solution. The technology for robotic parking uses the same technology and philosophy that Amazon, FedEx, and UPS warehouses use to maintain automated efficiency and organization.

Additionally, data show that in the not-too-distant future, our urban centers are going to have to accommodate more people—many more. Planners, developers, and government officials need to consider this shift and plan for it now.

Saving a Space
The ability to park vehicles door-to-door and bumper-to-bumper allows robotic parking garages to save significant amounts of premium space. A developer can build robotic garages using 30 to 50 percent less land than needed for a conventional garage with the same capacity. That means twice the number of parking spaces can be accommodated in the same volume of space. It also means land acquisition costs decrease substantially. That additional land can be used to develop retail, office, and residential units, which are more profitable ventures.

To put it in perspective, a 90,000-square-foot office building (three levels of 30,000 square feet per level) on a four-acre parcel would require 297 surface lot parking spaces (based on 3.3 spaces per 1,000 square feet). In such a scenario, the combination of the office building and the surface lot parking encompasses the entire four acres. An automated garage can achieve 300 spaces in a fraction of the footprint, and 2.39 acres of land can be saved if the garage is built directly under the building. If the garage is constructed behind the office building, 1.77 acres can be saved.

Why is this? Robotic garages use narrower spaces than traditional parking facilities because there is no need for drivers to get into and out of cars. Also, the ceiling can be lower in these garages as pedestrians do not have to be taken into consideration, vehicles can be parked inches away from each other, and there is no need to incorporate stairwells, elevators, or ramps.

Environmentally Friendly
Beyond actual land use, robotic garages mean fewer car emissions and reduced fuel consumption; cars are turned off as soon as they enter the parking bay. No longer do cars idle for long stretches of time when a sporting event or concert is over, nor do they need to drive up and down ramps, which also contributes to air pollution. In robotic parking garages, fuel savings average 83 percent, while toxic substances in the air drop 68 percent for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), 77 percent for carbon monoxide, and 83 percent for carbon dioxide (compared to conventional parking systems), making them much more environmentally friendly.

Robotic parking garages are so much better for the environment, in fact, that there is an opportunity for additional LEED points when developing a robotic garage versus a standard ramp garage.

Safety Increases
Robotic parking garages eliminate the need for drivers to walk long stretches to a vehicle. In an automated parking garage, the driver simply drops off the vehicle at a drive-in entry cabin. When returning to pick up the car, the driver waits in a pick-up zone for his vehicle.

Because there is no access by the public to the vehicle storage area, the risk of theft or vandalism is non-­existent. As a result, the driver experience is comparable to a high-quality valet parking operation in which valet runners are replaced with efficient automated technology.

Without having to deal with pedestrians, strollers, shopping carts, or bad drivers, dents, dings, and scrapes are practically eliminated.

Case Study
Recently, The Traffic Group undertook a 24-hour study of an automated parking garage located in a suburb of Baltimore, Md. The purpose was to obtain very detailed and precise information on how the parking garage operated, specifically relating to inbound and outbound conditions, trip generation rates, and drop-off and retrieval time.

The process included placing five video cameras in the garage—one at the main entrance to the 520-space garage and one each at the four loading/unloading bays. The video cameras recorded for 24 hours before the data were reviewed.

During the 24-hour period, there were 197 occurrences of vehicles being dropped off and 204 occurrences of drivers picking up their vehicles. The data showed that the average time for vehicle retrieval was 3 minutes, 27 seconds, while the average time for vehicle drop-off was 2 minutes, 1 second. It was also discovered that there was rarely an occasion when more than one person was waiting to pick up or drop off his car. This garage has four bays, each able to accommodate 100 vehicles.

The results show that in an urban situation, even with 357 apartment units and 520 total parking spaces, the trip generation rate for a parking garage is significantly lower than what has been reported by the industry in years past. Additionally, the average drop-off and retrieval time is in line with what has been reported at other automated garages on both the national and international basis and is generally in line with the retrieval and drop-off times reported by manufacturers. Clearly, automated parking works and it is a technology whose time has come.

Varieties

Depending on the facility, robotic, automated, and mechanical parking all use a variety of technologies. The first type of parking system is the lift & slide, which is for smaller garages, accommodating 15-50 cars at a time. Robotic parking, a second system, does not have a limit on the number of cars it can service. The largest robotic parking facility in the world is located in Dubai. It is also known to be one of the most luxurious. The third type of system is robotic parking valet. This is the most economical when servicing a minimum of 200 cars.

Retrofitting Existing Buildings
Even older, existing buildings can be converted into robotic parking garages; it’s not just best in new construction and development. Cities are filled with old factories, warehouses, and other vacant buildings. These facilities are ideal for conversion into robotic parking garages. Retrofitting and giving new life to these older buildings will provide two to three times the amount of parking, and costs are minimal because no major rehab work needs to be completed and the technology can quickly and easily slide in. The front of the building can even be saved and turned into restaurants and shops for increased revenue opportunities.

Other typical robotic, automated, and mechanical parking works well for hospitals, universities, and office buildings. In addition to urban residential buildings, restaurants, and retail, these types of facilities often bring a high volume of people, most of whom have vehicles to park.

As the population continues to grow, robotic parking now offers city officials, planners, architects, and developers a real-world solution that saves space and money, is environmentally friendly, and is much safer for citizens. With the range of solutions available for both new development and redevelopment, what’s not to like?

Wes Guckert, PTP, is president of The Traffic Group. He can be reached at wguckert@trafficgroup.com.

TPP-2014-10-A Robotic Revolution

A Smarter Parking Solution

TPP-2014-10-A Smarter Parking SolutionBy Graham Arndt

A new smarter parking initiative at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, illustrates that meters are no longer the must-have item for paid parking. Curtin University’s pay-as-you-go (PAYG) parking system is the first of its kind to be introduced into Australia and possibly the world. The system successfully replaced antiquated student permits and provided an easy, safe, equitable, and sustainable alternative.

The unique smarter parking solution allows motorists to pay for parking in real time using a phone or any internet-enabled device while it offers different rates for different user types and different access options. The package incorporates integration with legacy staff and student information systems, bay-finding signage, and license plate recognition (LPR) technology. Once registered, a user simply starts and stops his parking session using a phone, smartphone, tablet, or computer.

The PAYG parking solution was implemented to replace the student permit parking system, which was manual, paper-based, and inflexible. It also did not meet the needs and requirements of students, who were dissatisfied for a number of reasons:
Students who purchased a permit at year or semester start were not guaranteed a parking bay.

Part-time students thought permits were very expensive (they paid the same as full-time students).

Students complained that it took a long time to find a bay and various university departments complained that time was consumed having to deal with this emotional issue.

Goals
The aim of introducing PAYG parking was to make parking more equitable to all motorists who attend the university and eliminate the common misconception of “I have bought a permit, therefore I must be provided with a parking space.” One of the goals of the PAYG parking solution was to improve bay availability. The notion was that when motorists pay for the actual time parked, they become conscious of costs and don’t leave their car parked on campus for the day. This encouraged bay turnover.

Before implementing the change, parking was the lowest ranked by students of all university services. With the introduction of the smarter parking solution, student satisfaction with parking has risen from 32 to 42 percent—the highest it has ever been. The change is also evidenced by the uptake of 19,000 users in the first year and the lack of complaints about fee structures and bay availability. In addition, 97 percent of students now pay less for parking than they had previously. All of the strategic and operational objectives were met. The project solution was 70 percent cheaper than the original budget for a project that provided an old-fashioned outcome.

Implementation
The smarter parking project commenced with the assembly of a multi-disciplinary project team to examine the business requirements and determine a strategic brief. An expressions-of-interest process was held to allow suppliers to demonstrate their offerings, where it became clear that there was no parking payment hardware able to read student and staff ID cards, determine the appropriate charge, and charge different rates for different classes of user.

A meeting at a Parking Australia networking function created an opportunity for one of the vendors to demonstrate his smartphone solution. At this time, it was apparent that smartphone solutions were geared toward local government parking, which did not demand fee and user differentials. The team realized a partnership was required to customize available smartphone technology to address all of Curtin’s needs.

A tender process was implemented for a pay-by-phone solution that specified the provider must supply integrated, multi-device technology. The solution—­provided by CellOPark Australia—has been operating smoothly for 18 months. The technology was customized to suit the specific needs of a university without compromising its ability to be used in other situations. The solution combines three formerly disparate technologies to deliver a unique, contemporary parking solution that is easy to use and administer:

Input from student and staff information systems is used to validate the type of user, which is then used to determine tariff.

Bay-finding signage systems receive data from the PAYG system, count the number of parking bays available, and display this information in high-visibility locations.

An automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system that receives data from the PAYG system to automate enforcement was deployed. ANPR cameras are mounted on the back of patrol vehicles, and the system alerts the officer to noncompliant vehicles. This component is provided by Sensor Dynamics.

Work to implement the new system was undertaken during the summer break, so there was no inconvenience for users.

How it Works
Innovation and creativity led to a unique solution that includes technology enabling motorists to pay in real time for parking while it offers different access options, including pay-by-phone, pay online, and pay-by-app.

Once registered, a student simply starts and stops his parking session with his phone.

The ANPR system reads registration plates on vehicles, checks with the database for payment, and instantly alerts the enforcement officer of noncompliant vehicles.

The smartphone solution saved Curtin in the order of $1 million in capital expenditure on meters, as well as an estimated additional $300,000 per annum in operating costs that would have been incurred with the installation of new and additional meters on campus.

The flexibility to choose the better transport mode on a daily basis encourages use of public transport and other means of commuting to campus. This is a more sustainable model than those based only on meters.

Bay-finding signage reduces congestion, and time spent hunting for available spaces.

Challenge and Benefits
The major challenge to overcome was long-standing parking habits that needed to change. Motorists used a legacy system based on paper permits for many years. The project involved changing to an entirely new concept of paying by technology, in which motorists have to pay for the parking they actually use. The smarter parking solution replaced a tradition. It was not merged or phased-in because such an approach would have retained the disadvantages of the permit system.

The parking experience at Curtin University improved in a variety of ways and now offers the following advantages:

  • Easy to use and simple for students to access and control anytime, anywhere.
  • A fairer and more equitable system. Students only pay for the time they choose to park on campus.
  • Financial savings. Students who only come to campus part of the time don’t subsidize parking for full-time students (this benefit affects most students, as even full-time enrollments are generally not on campus all day, every day).
  • Students can decide on a daily basis if they want to walk, ride, catch public transport, car share, or drive their own vehicles depending on their individual needs. The archaic permit system locked users into paying for parking on a semester basis, regardless of their individual needs. Now, they only pay for the hours they actually park on campus.
  • The prominent bay-finding signage flashing the number of available bays reduces frustration and wasted time for students, with the added benefit of pollution savings as users don’t need to continuously circle around on the hunt for a bay.
  • Enables carpooling and cost-sharing.
  • Increases the turnover of bays and likelihood of drivers finding a bay.
  • Eliminates the need to introduce arbitrary, inequitable, and potentially expensive methods of reducing demand for parking.
  • Reduces exposure to fines while making enforcement operationally simple with the ANPR system.
  • Improves safety by removing the need for cash in parking facilities.

The university expects that students will continue to benefit from the flexible and fair parking technology as described into the future.

The university also gains from the advancement, both from a financial and reputational perspective. First, Curtin would have required about 100 meters to service the 3,744 bays available for students. Meters are expensive to install and require significant maintenance to stay operational. The new system would cost less than the additional operating costs of a traditional meter solution. Another financial advantage is that the increased availability of parking stock will result in deferred capital investment in car parking.

Delivering a contemporary parking solution protects and enhances the university’s reputation.

Lastly, the flexibility to choose on a day-by-day basis about the best transport mode will encourage use of public transport and other alternative means of commuting to campus. This is a more sustainable model that offers environmental benefits and helps the state government planning commission, which seeks our cooperation to reduce peak traffic volumes.

Going Forward

Following the success at Curtin University, the smarter parking solution has already been deployed in other campuses around Australia with many more looking at giving the benefits and convenience of this solution to their motoring public.

Graham Arndt is director of operations and maintenance at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia and a member of the Management Committee of Parking Australia. He can be contacted at g.arndt@curtin.edu.au.

TPP-2014-10-A Smarter Parking Solution

Looking Into The Crystal Ball

TPP-2014-10-Looking Into The Crystal BallBy Bill Smith, APR

The installation of the original parking meter in Oklahoma City in 1935 represented the first time a technology was introduced to improve parking management. But we can hardly call that the dawn of parking’s Technology Age. After all, the parking meter served as the zenith of technological advancement for more than 50 years. It became a ubiquitous symbol of parking, and it was the most important tool for managing parking behavior and collecting parking revenues.

When the meter was introduced, parking was a decidedly non-technical industry. There was no access and revenue control equipment, no automated gates, no computerized management systems—no computers at all, for that matter.

Indeed, the industry has seen extraordinary advances in technology since automated access and revenue control and pay-on-foot technologies were first introduced in the early ’90s. These technologies revolutionized parking and set the stage for the development of a wave of impressive new technologies in recent years, including credit card payment systems, parking guidance systems and single-space sensors, mobile parking payment and other driver-friendly apps, and cloud-based parking management suites.

Revolutionary Change

“There have been many important advances to parking technology, but in the last five years, the most dramatic change has been the deployment of credit-accepting meters,” says David Cummins, senior vice president of parking solutions for Xerox. “They are a huge convenience for customers, and they’ve also boosted revenues for parking owners and improved their overall systems. This has been the most seismic of the technological improvements.”

In addition to the obvious customer-service advantages of credit card payment systems, these technologies also dramatically reduce the risk of lost revenue through employee error and theft. Of course, credit card payment doesn’t come without some risk. There have been a number of well-publicized credit card data breaches in recent months, which led to the release of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which places a considerable burden on parking operators accepting credit card payments to secure their environment, infrastructure, policies, and procedures for processing and storing cardholder data.

“The next significant development in credit card processing will be the introduction of Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV) Integrated Circuit Card Specifications in 2015,” says Walker Parking Consultants’ James Maglothin. “The rollout of EMV will bring a liability shift, making entities that accept credit card payments liable for fraudulent transactions when they don’t comply with EMV standards.”

Another game-changing technological advance has been the introduction of mobile pay applications duringthe past few years. According to Laurens Eckelboom, executive vice president for business development, ParkMobile International, no technology has had a greater effect on the parking industry.

“Mobility trends and developments have been pivotal for the parking industry in terms of being able to find parking and pay for it,” Eckelboom says. “Mobile payment has been a game-changer in terms of user experience and functionality by changing the way we pay and the way we receive and send information.”

According to Eckelboom, mobile payment first began to gain a foothold in Europe around 2000, but didn’t really catch on in the U.S. until the first smartphones were introduced in 2008. Mobility technologies will continue to play a leading role in parking as new apps continue to be introduced, map functionality and GPS technologies continue to improve, and data networks continue to be enhanced. As our phones keep getting faster and smarter, they become increasingly useful as parking tools.

Mobile technologies are so important today because smartphones are omnipresent, according to Tim Flanagan, principal of Sentry Control Systems.

“Mobile phones aren’t just for paying for parking,” Flanagan says. “Parkers can use their phones to find their cars when they’ve forgotten where they parked, connect to loyalty programs, gain access to a parking facility, and find open parking spaces. The opportunities are only limited by the imaginations of app developers.

“Mobile technologies are also allowing operators to manage their facilities more efficiently and parking equipment providers to offer better services,” Flanagan continues. “For instance, operators can use their tablets to gain real-time information about occupancy rates and user behaviors. And equipment providers can use the same technologies to monitor the performance of the equipment they sell and service and manage their parts inventories. Diagnostics and repairs that in the past might have taken days or weeks can be handled today in a matter of minutes or hours.”

Looking to the Future
As exciting as parking’s Technology Age has been so far, the future holds much more in store. We appear to be on the front-edge of a wave of technological innovation and improvement that will transform parking—and transportation overall.

“The future of parking revolves around the connected vehicle,” Cummins says. “In a few years, all of our cars will have vehicle infrastructure communications and will be connected to the grid. Our cars will be able to communicate with traffic technology and recommend which routes to take to avoid congestion and reach our destinations more quickly. They will also take us right to available parking spaces and automatically pay for the exact amount of time we need to park.

“Connected vehicles will offer much more convenience for drivers,” Cummins continues. “They will also offer major benefits to municipalities and private parking owners because they promise perfect compliance with parking regulations. Theoretically, parking violations will become a thing of the past, and cities won’t suffer from enforcement gaps.”

According to Cummins, the connected vehicle is far from a pipe dream. He points out that the technology will be available in less than two years but that implementation will likely take more than a decade because it will require the installation of significant infrastructure and privacy concerns will need to addressed.

Eckelboom predicts an even more automated driving experience.

“You as a driver will be able to tailor your personal preferences to your journey,” he says. “Your car will take you to the closest parking space to your destination, and then park itself. When you are ready to leave, you’ll be able to ping your car and it will come and get you. Google and other companies are even working on self-driving vehicles that will drive themselves on roadways and highways, which would maximize flows and reduce accidents.

“We will also soon see wearables that will let us instantly communicate with our vehicles, public transportation, and parking infrastructure,” he says. “Parkers in Europe are already using smartwatches to begin and pay for parking sessions.”

Of course, tomorrow’s technological advancements won’t revolve solely around vehicles. In fact, experts think that the next five years will see the introduction of important new cloud-based systems and space-­centered technologies.

“Space-centric technologies like single-space sensors will continue to grow in importance,” Flanagan says. “Not only do sensors provide important benefits to parkers by guiding them directly to open spaces, but they also promote sustainability by eliminating the need for drivers to circle city blocks or floors within structures searching for a parking space. We are already seeing the introduction of solar-powered sensors, which provide additional green benefits and cost less to operate.”

“Also, it won’t be long before everything is web-based,” he continues. “All revenue and control, parking guidance, and enforcement equipment will be Internet-enabled, recording data on safe and secure cloud systems. Cloud-based equipment will provide instant access to any type of data that operators or enforcement officials may need at any given moment.”

Maglothin agrees that single-space guidance systems will continue to grow in prominence over the next few years, as will the continued transition to universally cashless transactions.

“We also anticipate a growth in pay-by-plate as the accuracy of license plate recognition technologies continues to improve,” Maglothin says. “These are both part of the movement toward completely automated parking operations over the next decade.”

Adopt and Adapt
The rate at which new parking technologies are developed and introduced is mind boggling. Ten years ago, few parking professionals could have foreseen the rise of mobile applications. Fewer still would have seriously entertained the idea of self-driving vehicles. However, today we take mobile technologies for granted and autonomous cars are just around the corner.

During the next decade, we will undoubtedly see many more technological advances that will make parking more convenient and easier to manage than ever before. The trick for parking owners and operators and their service and equipment providers will be to put themselves in a position to fully take advantage of new technologies.

“Change is happening so quickly that parking organizations run the risk of seeing their equipment become obsolete much sooner than they anticipated,” Flanagan says.
“As parking organizations obtain new equipment, they need to make sure that it is future-proof, and can be adapted to add new features or integrate with complementary technologies. This is the only way to protect an investment in technology and make sure that it will continue to operate at its best for years to come.”

Bill Smith, APR, is principal of Smith Phillips Strategic Communications and a contributing editor to The Parking Professional. He can be reached at bsmith@smith-phillips.com or 603.491.4280.

TPP-2014-10-Looking Into The Crystal Ball

Mixed Use Dreams

TPP-2014-10-Mixed Use DreamsBy Per Linde

Frank Lloyd Wright designed gorgeous houses. Frank Gehry dreamed up amazing concert halls and museums. An architect known for incredible parking garages? They’re few and far between, but an architectural competition that challenged participants to design just that might have found the industry’s future stars.

Combo Competitions, launched in 2013, organizes international ideas competitions mainly for architects, although designers of any other field are welcome. Participants are encouraged to focus on ideas, as projects are judged as much by their underlying concepts as by their aesthetics.

A frequent competition participant, I grew tired of the similarities between design competitions and wanting to bring something new to that world, decided to do so by founding a brand new competition website. Combo Competitions was born, and simply put, the main driver is to promote proposals where everything comes together to form a whole larger than the sum of its parts.

With today’s possibilities to create amazing renderings and images, it is easy for participants to invest most of their effort into a final image to seduce the jury, giving less priority to the thinking behind the project.

To shift emphasis back toward well-­advised concepts, without taking away from the importance of appearance and presentation, Combo Competitions introduces an additional element to the competitions: the briefs always ask for something extra in addition to the main requirements. Whether this is another structure, a new function tied to the main one, or something completely different, is up to the competitor to decide, as long as it adds value to the project. This presents an opportunity to push the participants’ creativity even further, while urging the judges to give all aspects of a proposal equal consideration.

When considering options for the organization’s second competition, the idea of a parking garage quickly became a major contender. Equally ubiquitous and neglected from a design standpoint, there is a major discrepancy between the role it plays and the credit it gets. The parking garage could be seen, for lack of a better reference, as the stepchild of the urban fabric. And while warehouses (the other traditional stepchild) are mostly located in desolate industrial areas, parking garages by their very nature have to be located where people are.

There is a huge reliance on vehicular transport (of either people or goods), but the link between the two is often forgotten. As a result, anything relating to traffic is considered in a perspective of maintaining, rather than improving. Cheaper is better.

Of course, this is true not least for structures such as public parking garages, which are still sometimes seen as a necessary evil. In architecture, adding large structures on smaller budgets very often equals negligent design, which, in turn, becomes an eyesore for the general public. Sometimes the thing that receives the least interest really deserves the most attention.

The competition that ended up being called Poor But Beautiful wanted to look for solutions to this problem. How can a parking garage be integrated with the surrounding streetscape and serve a greater purpose for all those not using it to accommodate their car? How can a garage be a welcome addition to an area instead of a large chunk of concrete to be passed as quickly as possible? Rather than designing yet another concert hall or library—the buildings architects often dream of—the main challenge here was to turn something frequently neglected into something celebrated.

The Competition
The brief read as follows:

Goal: The challenge of the competition is to design a multi-story parking garage in the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Area in Manhattan, New York City. The structure should house at least 250 parking spaces.

Twist: In addition to car parking, the design should also integrate a secondary function. This can be virtually anything, from a bowling alley to a house for abandoned dogs, but it should be clear how and why it contributes to the overall design and/or the surrounding area.

Further considerations
: Being a parking garage, participants are asked to strive for excellence in design and function, without relying entirely on potentially expensive materials and solutions. The design should benefit everyone—from a fictional client to the general public—via the actual user.

The site was located on Manhattan, in the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Area. With redevelopment already going on, it conveniently tied the brief together with a plausible location.

Around 70 submissions were submitted from around the world, with a slight prevalence of entries from the U.S. Proposals ranged from basic to futuristic and modest to outlandish. The jury finally agreed on three winners along with three honorable mentions, each ingenious in its own way.

Parking Tower
The winning submission, Parking Tower by Jonathan Benner and John Bassett, offered a secondary function in the form of a roof garden and farmers market. However, it was the approach to design the entire structure to allow for a sense of grandeur during parking that really won the jury over. It clearly showed that looking back is sometimes the way forward. Rather than relying on gadgets or social interaction, focus lies on simply offering an elegant transition between two modes of transport. In earlier times, structures such as this were devoted to railway travel and created grand gateways for arriving into cities.

From the proposal: “Like many American cities at the turn of the century, some of New York City’s most iconic monuments of that time were designed as gateways to the city: the Brooklyn Bridge, Pennsylvania Station, Grand Central Station. A visitor passing through each of these corridors would immediately be struck by a sense of awe at having arrived in spaces as soaring and grand as these were, either in the great hall of Grand Central or walking beneath the towering Gothic arches on the Brooklyn Bridge boardwalk. In many cases, the scale of some of these spaces was exaggerated to imbue them with a quality of splendor that was befitting a metropolis as cosmopolitan and symbolic of progress as Manhattan was at the turn of the century.

“Respecting the tradition of some of these structures, we envision a parking garage that could act as a similar type of gateway that would elevate the pedestrian experience from car to street level. Once through the thick colonnade, the pedestrian is separated from the vehicular traffic and finds him/herself in a completely open and voluminous stair open to the sky above. We intended this space to be as generous and grand as possible to counter the predominant parking garage layout which isolates the stair core in a tight, dark corner of the garage. In this way, the path down or up is as exalted as the gateway spaces of the turn of the last century.

“The play between the slender floor slabs and the heavy top is beautifully designed and the visualizations show a very believable structure—engineering and architecture melt together. Its overall appeal is strengthened by the fact that it does not rely on technological feats like car elevators—keeping all fictional running costs to a minimum. Presentation-wise everything is very well tied together and helps conveying a feeling of grandeur.”

Park Your Soul in Heaven
The second place winner, Park your Soul in Heaven by Pedro Martins, Ana Santos, and Miguel Pereira, bases its concept on the fact that many large cities no longer have room for cemeteries for their citizens.

From the proposal: “There are four indisputable facts creating a quandary about the disposition of human remains: a rapidly increasing population, urbanization, a finite amount of land, and the certainty of death.

“‘Every year, globally, more people migrate to cities and live in increasingly close quarters, which creates a premium on finite land. This premium on real estate often makes the use of land for the interment of the dead inefficient, if not wasteful,’ says Christopher Coutts in ‘A Lifetime after the Baby Boom, a Burial Boom,’ The New York Times, October 2013.

“Like it is unconceivable to imagine a city without cars, it should also be unimaginable to conceive a city without its dead.

“A big part of us was already born in the city and, as referred in the article, will most certainly die here.

“Aren’t we allowed to linger in the city, where we lived our lives, forever?

“If there isn’t enough space for both the living and the dead and their cars, then an efficient metropolitan solution should be proposed. The concept featured establishes the relation of the proportion of soil occupied by cars and graves (and cemeteries) and concludes that a vertical growth could be a beginning.

“This is a more indirect comment to the use of cars today—it relates to cars and urbanization on a much larger scale, and over a longer timeframe by drawing on the notion that cars have, by being a crucial part of how modern cities are shaped, forced cemeteries out of cities. Additionally, it makes an interesting point in times when traditional methods of burial and memorial, using vast areas of land, are coming to an end as the world population (and numbers of deceased) continues to expand: a new vision for commemorating our dead is required. Park Your Soul in Heaven helps to place this in a context that prevents it from coming across as morbid and sets up a dialogue about dealing with death in the future. While the two programs are physically separated from each other, they are tied together not only by their theoretical relation, but also through their uncluttered and contained design, where the columbarium distinguishes itself with a softer, warmer feel.”

The Community Actuator
The third prize winner, The Community Actuator’ by Manson Fung, revolves around a more down-to-earth social aspect, the local area and day-to-day life, providing room for small businesses, communal gardens, and the like. A refreshing touch here is that the symbiosis between cars and people that is offered is actually dictated by the people’s needs, rather than an interest to maximize parking spots, which enriches both parties.

From the proposal: “Community Actuator reconceptualizes the parking structure from a private singular enterprise to a multivalent public service provider. By using a programmable robotic parking system, the Community Actuator not only efficiently stores cars for individuals, but also contains much-needed urban public spaces that are activated by the infrastructure stored within the system. Community Actuator is a new way to recast an urban infrastructure as a flexible and adaptable purveyor for public services.

“The approach of treating all spaces in the same manner would lead to the composition of the building changing over time—based on how the tenants decide to utilize the compartments—and by doing so puts a finger on the possibilities/issues with the vast areas (in central New York City) that would become available if the car gave way to other uses.”

Looking back, there were a lot of very interesting ideas about parking, allowing for a socially sustainable Manhattan where cars and people could continue to coexist. But what made the winning entry stand out was the fact that it embraced the car rather than hiding it behind a secondary function. It makes a lot of sense: regardless of its negative impact on the environment, the automobile will not be disappearing from our cities in the foreseeable future. And because it plays such an important part in everyday life, why not celebrate it? This is exactly what a great parking garage should do.

Per Linde is an architect and founder of Combo Competitions. He can be reached at info@combocompetitions.com.

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Changing Perspectives

TPP-2014-10-Changing PerspectivesBy Rob Ley

Eskenazi Hospital was established in the 1850s in Indianapolis to treat soldiers with smallpox. It has since become one of the largest hospitals in the Midwest and primarily cares for low- to medium-income patients.

A few years ago, the hospital began construction of a massive expansion. Included in the new campus is one of the largest parking structures in the Midwest—it alone is more than 1 million square feet in size. Hospital officials were very aware of the challenges, aesthetic and otherwise, that are created when designing such a large parking structure. A decision was made early on to engage the most public face of this new parking structure as the host for a large-scale public art installation; this decision was part of a larger initiative to commission and incorporate many art pieces into the new hospital complex.

The Process
Urbana Studio was commissioned by the hospital to develop a design that would be interactive and visually engaging, while working within a variety of pragmatic considerations that included:

  • The façade had to allow for the natural ventilation of vehicle exhaust in the structure.
  • The façade was to be designed in such a way as to not impede traffic flow within the garage.
  • The façade was to be durable and able to withstand large daily and seasonal temperature and weather swings (UV resistant, corrosion resistant, etc.).
  • The façade needed to be able to withstand up to 90 mph winds.

With these requirements in mind, our studio began to work through various concepts. We were commissioned to design and implement the fabrication and installation in August 2012.

The Concept
We initially developed the concept of the “May–­September” installation from active camouflage techniques, and then worked through the design development drawings. Camouflage was conceptually interesting initially because the main purpose of the façade was to provide an intense visual screen for what is otherwise an ordinary parking structure. As the project progressed, the interest in camouflage evolved into an approach that would create a very large, dynamic, interactive element for the city.

Instead of using an actively kinetic approach with all of the inevitable maintenance and longevity concerns that accompany those types of projects, we worked toward one that capitalizes on the fact that most viewers would be moving, themselves—walking, biking, or driving. Thus, the design ultimately became something that offers a degree of variability of color and form as one passes by the project. The awareness of this, interestingly enough, occurs whether someone is directly watching or catching a glimpse out of his periphery of vision.

The effect of a field of 7,000 angled metal panels in conjunction with an articulated east/west color strategy creates a dynamic façade system that offers observers a unique visual experience, depending on their vantage point and the pace at which they move through the site. Pedestrians and slow-moving vehicles in close proximity to the hospital experience a noticeable, dappled shift in color and transparency as they move across the hospital grounds, while motorists driving along West Michigan Street experience a faster, gradient color shift that changes depending on the direction they’re traveling.

Installation
We worked on the design and built physical mock-ups in our studio for about six months. Custom software written specifically for this project allowed us to develop several design approaches while simultaneously keeping track of material requirements and budgetary results. To keep the project within budget, the design was developed using a modular panel system. The 7,000 panels that define the art façade are 12 inches high by 18, 24, or 36 inches long. This resulted in a 100 percent efficient use of material with zero waste as the 48-inch by 144-inch metal plates were processed.

The method of attachments throughout the façade was also thoroughly reviewed, as 21,000 bolts were required to attach all the panels. It was decided early on to use a T-slot extrusion system for the main vertical structure to mitigate the need to drill tens of thousands of holes to fasten the colored panels, while allowing for adjustability of the panels as needed.

Once the system for attaching the colored panels to the main structural vertical extrusions was finalized, we worked out a system that would break the entire façade into 50 self-contained assemblies, each approximately 12 feet wide by 25 feet tall. This allowed major assembly to occur in the fabricator’s facility and for easy trucking of each assembly to the site. After these assemblies arrived on site, they were lifted with a construction crane and placed in the prescribed location on the façade. During this process, large U-bolts were used to hang each assembly to the preexisting tube steel frame on the parking structure exterior. Using this method, the entire installation was completed in eight days.

The Result
Now that the project is complete, I’m not sure if it is going to be seen as a painting or a sculpture—maybe it’s best to call it a façade. The colors went through many iterations and a lot of back and forth. The color scheme is quite simple as the west-side panels received a deep blue color, while those to the east received a golden yellow color. The angles themselves create the illusion of different hues. The operation or performance of this piece relies on the gradual shift of one contrasting color to another; the exact colors and the resulting vibrancy injected into the city are different during each season.

I like to investigate what it means for something to be interactive or responsive to the viewer in a lot of my work. In some projects, this has been explored through technology and cutting-edge performative materials that can bend and flex like muscles. In other works, optical conditions, such as moire, have contributed to a sense of movement and kinetics. This piece addresses interactivity in another way. It is static as a piece, though it was conceived as a device that would radically shift or gradiate from one condition to another as one walks, bikes, or drives past it.

I particularly like that despite its size, understanding that it is changing (or shifting) may be something that happens the fifth or 10th time one drives by, as it may only be something you notice in the periphery. Once noticed, I hope it is something people then begin to look forward to as they approach.

My intent was to create something in the built environment that would help contribute to the identity of an organization or even a city, while at the same time providing an experience for the community to anticipate and look forward to experiencing over and over again.

For more information on “May–September,” visit urbanarch.com.

Rob Ley is founder and principal of Urbana Studio and creator of the “May–September” art installation. He can be reached at ley@urbanarch.com.

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Don’t Be Afraid Of The Bully Pulpit

TPP-2014-10-Don’t Be Afraid Of The Bully PulpitBy Bill Smith, APR

In my April column, I talked about the power of publicity. It doesn’t matter what type of parking organization you represent—an owner, operator, institution, supplier, or consultant—publicity can offer extraordinary reach. It can raise your credibility as an authority, make prospective clients and strategic partners aware of you and your expertise, and help disseminate important messages to key audiences.

Still, while most professionals recognize the potential benefits of publicity, many still shy away. This is particularly true when it comes to being interviewed by a reporter, which can be unnerving. I often see it with my own clients. They sometimes hesitate because they are worried they’ll say the wrong thing or be misquoted and look foolish.

Successful Media Interactions

In spite of the potential risks, you shouldn’t avoid using the media to promote yourself and your organization. The benefits of good publicity are too valuable. Instead, you should learn how to work effectively with the media.

Here are a few basic tips for ensuring interviews are successful:

  • Don’t wing it. The worst thing you can do is assume you can make it up as you go while speaking with a reporter. For starters, make sure you know what the reporter wants to discuss beforehand. If you are contacted directly by the reporter, ask him or her what the article is about, and then give yourself sufficient time to consider the subject before the interview.
  • Develop talking points. Put your most important points down on paper so there’s no chance you’ll forget anything significant. The talking points don’t need to be in complete sentences—in fact, you don’t want to sound like you’re reading from a checklist. Even when you are sitting down with a reporter face-to-face, it’s ok to bring some notes with you. When the interview’s concluding, just pull out your notes and tell the reporter you want to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything important. Good reporters will go out of their way to make you feel comfortable.
  • Practice. If the interview isn’t happening right away, take a few minutes to practice. Have a colleague or your PR team play the part of interviewer and ask questions. This will give you confidence in your ability to answer and help you develop a rhythm you can take into the interview.
  • Relax. If you are nervous during the interview, that will come across and you won’t do a good job of conveying your expertise and ability. While there’s certainly the chance that you will come across a contentious reporter—particularly if the story is about crisis or controversy—most of the time you’ll be dealing with journalists who don’t have agendas and who are just looking for useful information for their readers or listeners.
  • Follow up. After the interview is over, give the reporter some time to digest what you’ve said. Then contact the reporter, either by email or phone, to see if there’s anything more that he or she needs. You may be asked for clarification about something you discussed or even follow-up questions. You may also be asked for a photo of yourself (a headshot) or a picture illustrating something you discussed.
  • Build a relationship. When you do follow up, work to build a personal rapport with the reporter or editor, and establish yourself as a useful source for future stories. Journalists want sources they can count on and with whom they enjoy working. Developing a personal connection is key to establishing yourself as an expert source.

Don’t be afraid to accept interview opportunities—or to pursue them. Publicity is a great tool for promoting yourself and your organization, and if you prepare properly and follow these few simple rules of thumb, you should be able to ensure that your experiences with the media are successful.

Bill Smith, APR, is principal of Smith-Phillips Strategic Communications and contributing editor of The Parking Professional. He can be reached at bsmith@smith-phillips.com or 603.491.4280.

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Placemaking Defined and Redefined

TPP-2014-10-Placemaking Defined and RedefinedBy J.C. Porter

The Green Garage Certification Standard was recently released, and with it, parking professionals were introduced to a new language that may be unfamiliar to some. If you have not yet had a chance to purchase the new certification standard, I highly recommend you do so through the Green Parking Council (GPC, an affiliate of the International Parking Institute).

The rating system is divided into four sections: management, programs, technology, and structure design and innovation. Three of the four sections will be familiar to most parking professionals, but the section on programs may include some new industry language taken from urban planning, transportation demand management (TDM), and other specialties.

Placemaking
Placemaking is how the garage interacts as a business entity within the community. What opportunities exist for placemaking? You can contribute to an economic or municipal development organization, create a public meeting space for community members to use, or support local artists. You may also create an area for food trucks, add green space and living walls to the garage, and provide access to the garage for local sporting events, youth activities, and other neighborhood gatherings. The idea is that the garage becomes more than storage for cars—it is transformed into a place for people. And not just patrons on their way in and out but also as a place for people to gather and meet—a destination or neighborhood landmark.

TMAs/TMOs
Transportation management associations (TMAs) or transportation management organizations (TMOs) are member-controlled, nonprofit, private organizations that provide transportation services in a particular area. They are generally public-private partnerships primarily consisting of area businesses with local government support. The garage owner or operator can provide support and information to its patrons about alternative transportation programs and strategies by joining these local organizations.

Access to mass transit can be more challenging if the garage is not located next to a bus stop or light rail station. Working with the local transit provider, you may be able to see if your location is a possible option for a new transit stop, which will provide another option for your patrons. Having transit stops located near your garage also helps provide a last-leg option for patrons who choose to park in your facilities and ride public transit to their final destination or run errands during the day.

Sharing
Carshare is an all-inclusive rental program that allows commuters to rent a vehicle by the hour. Providing parking spaces for carshare vehicles adds more options for garage patrons to use, whether they drive their own car, ride public transportation, or ride their bike. A rideshare program is a carpool or vanpool program that helps reduce costs to the commuter and reduces single-occupant vehicles on the roadway, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Providing parking for rideshare programs helps organizations in or around your facilities meet their commuter option goals and introduces a new type of customer to your garage. Moreover, drivers will be more likely to patronize your garage on the days they do not use the car share.

Bicycle parking in or around a garage provides options for bike commuters and vehicle commuters or building tenants to store bikes for short trips or last-mile commute options. Bikeshare is the ability to rent a bike by the hour to use for short trips without having one’s bike in the area. Having a bike rental program is a viable option if there is not a bikeshare in your community and you want to offer the convenience of providing a bike to your patrons so they do not have to bring their own bicycles.

Providing these extra amenities helps set your facility apart from others. You will create a more loyal clientele because you are seen as part of the community, and it also assists you in getting one step closer to your garage becoming a Certified Green Garage.

J.C. Porter is assistant director, commuter services, parking and transit service, at Arizona State University and co-chair of IPI’s Sustainability Committee. He can be reached at j.porter@asu.edu or 480.965.8157.

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Not Just Cars Anymore

TPP-2014-10-Not Just Cars AnymoreBy Joe Balskus

As a transportation engineer and being relatively new to parking in the last decade, I have learned that the worlds of parking and mobility are merging into a new paradigm. Mobility includes parking but is not defined by it. The principles of Complete Streets are mainstream, and we no longer plan only for cars but also for pedestrians, transit riders, and bikes.

I’m a triathlete who has designed Complete Streets projects, along with parking facilities and garages, so this intersection of transportation and parking comes at a perfect time—one that also intersects with my turn as a New England Parking Council (NEPC) board member and that group’s rebranding as a parking and transportation organization.

Biking and Transportation
The NEPC held its University Forum focusing on transportation and parking at Yale University in June. There, the design of the urban or university environment to accommodate all modes of transportation was discussed with many local municipal and university transportation and parking professionals. The forum was purposely held at Yale University, a League of American Bicyclists bronze-certified Bicycle Friendly University, where the mixing of bikes and transportation is personified by Director of Sustainable Transportation Systems Holly Parker, who led the forum.

Holly is doing great things at the university to further increase bike riding around the campus and the city (see the September issue of The Parking Professional for more on Yale’s program). Outside New Haven, there are numerous examples where bike and car parking are interlinked. Whether it’s by having bike lockers at a transit station parking garage or bikeshare stations at parking garages, co-locating cars and bikes provides a direct modal connection for commuters, visitors, tourists, and employees.

An example of successful bike parking at a transit station garage is Union Station in New Haven, which enables train riders to New York to ride their bikes for the first leg of their journey. In New York City, one in 10 Citi Bike stations is within 100 feet of a subway stop and nearly three-quarters of bikeshare stations are within a quarter-mile of a stop.

Bikeshare programs have been an overall success, replacing trips that would otherwise have been taken by car or taxi. At the moment, there are approximately 40 bikeshare systems in the U.S. Naturally, these bike parking locations are most heavily used in dense urban areas—locations where parking facilities intersect with demand for minimizing footprints on the urban landscape. Interestingly, bikeshare and bike rental programs are thriving in the northern states as well, but the West Coast cities have some catching up to do.

Standards
You thought you knew all there was to know about parking for cars? There are similar standards and designs for parking bicycles. Stall size, aisle width, locking and other security options, and short- vs. long-term parking features are all important considerations. There are also bike lockers for locations in colder climates. Design constraints are certainly much less critical for the lighter, two-wheeled transportation mode than for cars, but given the resurgence of bikes, the number of bicycle parking spaces that must be provided per square foot of new construction is among the guidelines some cities are asking planners to consider for bike parking facilities. Leading the way on these guidelines are the urban American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

Many in the parking industry have already heard the beat of the sustainability drum to reduce parking in urban areas. While some may see this as a potential threat to the parking industry, we need to embrace it. Where we are removing car parking, we are adding parking for other modes. Bike parking can share the space with parking garages and allow the parking industry to be sustainable, connect transportation modes, and enhance mobility.

Joe Balskus is director of traffic and parking for Tighe & Bond, Inc., and a member of IPI’s Consultants Committee. He can be reached at jcbalskus@tighebond.com or 203.712.1100.

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