Paying for your parking via an app promises ease and efficiency. But we are entering a bargain with unclear terms around data privacy and public revenue.
US cities are starting to reform laws that required developers to provide minimum amounts of parking. But there’s more they can do to loosen the auto’s grip on downtowns.
Canada’s zero-emissions vehicle sales target will need hundreds of thousands of EV charging points to be installed in homes, workplaces, retail spaces and along highway corridors in the coming years.
As many cities grapple with the housing crisis, some places are rewriting regulations and finding creative ways to repurpose these hulking masses of concrete that suck up valuable real estate.
When Buffalo, New York, changed its zoning code so that developers no longer had to provide specified amounts of parking, space was freed up for public transit and people.
Roadsides have long been reserved for parking cars, but the pandemic led to many experiments with other ways of using scarce and valuable public space. We can put it to better and more flexible uses.
The global trend is to free up valuable city space by reducing parking and promoting other forms of transport that don’t clog roads and pollute the air. Australian cities are still putting cars first.
Australian cities have a glut of parking, even as politicians move to protect parking spaces or promise even more. There are better ways to keep congestion manageable and our cities liveable.
The Commuter Car Park Fund announced in the budget sounds big, but is likely to create only around 30,000 extra spaces – a marginal benefit for Australia’s 1.2 million daily public transport users.
An increase in the use of self-driving cars will change parking infrastructure in cities, and hopefully result in more colourful character neighbourhoods.
If cities had backed their active transport goals with investment in adequate cycling infrastructure we might not be having the arguments about dockless bikes ‘littering’ public space.
Looking back through all Melbourne’s strategic plans from 1929 onwards, it becomes clear that the 20th-century legacy of car-centric planning and its focus on parking is still deeply entrenched.
Cities around the world are starting to rethink the vast areas of land set aside for parking. The convergence of several trends likely will mean this space becomes available for other uses.