Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Looking For A Space To Park Your Vehicle??

By Cecily George


Nowadays all major cities experience massive struggles with providing sufficient parking to their residents. Persons who live in big cities know all too well what a difficult and time consuming task it is to search for and find a parking spot. Most important cities had to deal with the constant shortage of parking spaces, whether in garages or on the street. Furthermore, in most parts of most large cities, one has to pay for on-street parking on weekdays and Saturdays, whereas parking on Sundays is free.

It is very frustrating and stressful when it comes in the case of parking. Usually they will be complaining like : there are not enough spaces; spaces are too far away; parking costs too much; I did not know where to park; I couldn't find any parking so I had to double-park or park in an illegal spot; I thought I found a good spot but as it turned out I parked in an illegal spot; now I have a parking ticket / my car has been towed; I could not get a parking permit; and the parking staff at this garage is rude.

1. Parking services

Creating more facilities either by government- or private-owned is a common way to increase supply. These conveniences are undoubtedly expensive to build and keep. However, the price to enter and use a parking facility needs to be justified in consumers' eyes so that individuals will want to pay to park at a particular establishment.

Building more parking facilities adds too much cost. Also takes away the space which is available previously for building houses, offices or other businesses. City officials need to balance housing and business needs that it versus parking needs of their residents. Besides, officials and businesses must weigh carefully whether the new facilities will be used effectively, i.e., to full capacity.

2. Street Parking

Another way to increase supply is to increase on-street parking. Cities and local governments can design streets with parking lanes. Alternatively, officials can elect to convert some of the traffic lanes into parking lanes. Finally, officials can choose to minimize restrictions for on-street parking. As street parking is convenient, visible, and relatively inexpensive, it can help alleviate some of the parking concerns.

Inconveniences of adding more space for parking are clearly fewer traffic lanes which might lead to heavier traffic. The top 10 heaviest traffic cities in the United States are Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Boston and Washington, DC are already in. So, in the cities where the traffic is already an issue, there needs to be a careful balance struck between potentially adding to traffic by adding more parking.

Any big city should also devise best practices for both garage uses and street parking. For example, In Boston, most streets in the downtown area are equipped with high-tech parking meters, which are said to have increased revenue by about 34%, as fewer meters are expired. In the same way, in New York City, the Park Smart project introduced time-variable meter pricing (higher rates during peak periods and lower rates off-peak). This project has led to higher revenue and fewer expired meters. In San Francisco, SF Park, based on the same variable timing-pricing model or demand pricing, has proved to be successful as well.




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