Green Parking
Denver’s park-and-rides increase emissions, says study
Park-and-rides — parking lots located near transit depots where drivers drop off their cars and embark on public transit — are meant to limit car-produced pollution, but they may not be all they’re cracked up to be, according to a recent study. The study, “Are park-and-rides saving the environment or just saving parking costs?”, hails from the University […]
How the EU supports low-emission vehicles
After the cities of York and Manchester in the UK started rewarding drivers of low-emission cars, private companies caught on. Today, a garage operator in Rotterdam, Netherlands is now giving a 40 cent/hour discount to drivers of relatively clean vehicles. The garage operator, Interlink, checks license plates of cars to ensure that they produce under 100 grams of […]
How parking garages and lots can LEEP ahead and up their revenue
Parking garages and lots in the U.S. spend more than $6 billion on lighting alone. If their owners cut those costs, how much could they reap in revenue? A lot — or so the Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) campaign promises. The program offers advice about energy efficiency to owners of parking facilities, as […]
Madrid bases parking-meter prices on how much a car pollutes
Cars that pollute more will pay more for parking; cars that pollute less, such as electric vehicles, will pay less, say city officials in Madrid. The two-tiered pricing system will be the first of its kind, they claim. Madrid has been pushed to such measures because it regularly ranks above the EU’s average for pollution […]
Amsterdam to increase badly needed bike parking
“It’s not a war zone, but it’s the next thing to it,” Willem van Heijningen told the New York Times last summer. A railway official responsible for bicycle parking around Amsterdam’s main train station, Heijningen was lamenting the overcrowding that regularly characterizes not just the station, but the city’s bike lanes and dedicated bike parking. […]
Trending: Parking-garage condos in New York City
In a metropolis that simultaneously houses residents in abandoned subway tunnels while selling gift-wrapped mansions at price tags north of $100 million, it should surprise no one that old parking garages are now the thing in New York City. Prewar garages are being turned from grease-stained warehouses for cars to glitzy homes for eco-minded celebrities […]
Austin considers protecting owners of electric vehicles
It happens regularly in Austin: owners of electric vehicles (EV) pulling up to a charging station on public property and finding it occupied by a gas guzzler. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but there are only 72 spots in the city where EV owners can charge up. “Cars that are habitually in the space, […]
Beware “charge rage” at the workplace EV station
Last fall George Betak, then an employee at Yahoo’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, needed to be somewhere by 6 p.m. He planned to drive there in his BMW Active E but needed to first charge his all-electric vehicle. Problem was all of the charging stations that the company provided were occupied. Betak noticed that one […]
California cities meet smart growth goals by reducing parking requirements
More than a quarter of California’s 540 cities and counties are using parking reductions to facilitate mixed-use projects. The urban planning tool can take different forms—prohibiting developers of new multifamily residences or other building types from constructing new, off-street parking lots, for example, or requiring them to locate new, off-street, surface parking lots to the […]
Some electric vehicle charging stations cost as much as gas
At little more than 45,000 yearly, sales of zero-emission vehicles may be woefully anemic, but the charging stations that fuel them are doing brisk business. Miami-based CarCharging Group, for instance, has acquired four companies that boast networks of high-voltage electric vehicle charging stations, totaling 13,430 in all. CEO and founder Michael Farkas believes that the […]
Automated parking systems: a field guide
When Affirmed Housing Group – a low-income developer in L.A. – decided to build a parking garage for the new 60-unit Lotus Garden apartments, it was a huge challenge. To start with, the apartment’s location on a steep hill made a conventional underground garage impossible. Architects realized a semi-automated parking structure would be the perfect […]