Parking World

But But But…

I'm speechless, but not really. Here's the scoop – The Mayor of Port Jefferson on Long Island in New York has ordered the enforcement officers to not ticket any cars in the city's lots if there are fewer than 30% of the spaces filled. She issued the order 90 days ago. Read about it here

 

So let's see – we have a parking ordinance, meters, signs and the like, but we aren't going to enforce the ordinance when the officers "feel" that the lots are less than one third full. Wow it's like the lotto. If you drive in and think that the number is down, hell, forget the meter. You aren't going to get a ticket. On the other hand, if you arrived to an empty lot at 10:45, and the local fish and chips shop decided to give away two for one and opens at 11.. You could get a ticket because the lot filled after you parked. The Mayor says she needs the officers to do other things.

 

Now the city did vote to have free parking during the "off" season and are putting signs up to make that official. In the mean time, as the local paper put it well "If you like to gamble and are good at estimating percentages, you might be able to save some coin when you park in Port Jefferson."

 

I think that what is going to happen here is that people will simply understand that they don't have to pay and when the city decides they need some money they will start to enforce again and the local folks will complain to high heaven. This mayor could find herself in a real parking pickle about three weeks after the legal 'free' parking goes away and tourists flock back to the area.

 

Inconsistency in enforcement is the beginning of parking disaster. This mayor needs to talk to Sandra in Whistler, BC to find out just how pissed off people can get when you mess with their parking.

 

Maybe if she had just kept it a secret. Although we all know that a secret is no longer a secret when you tell one person, and she had to tell the officers. Where do you think the Times Beacon Record heard this little tidbit? I wonder what other brainstorms they have going in the inner workings of the Port Jefferson city council.

 

Hat Tip: Dan K

 

JVH

But where do you plug it in?

(We welcome another blogger to Parking World blog, Simon O'Brien, former editor of Parking News in the UK. Here's his first effort. JVH

Copenhagen is focusing minds on the environment again. Which is why Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Renault and Nissan has stated that it "is the time" for the electric car.In a widely reported speech Ghosn gave two reasons for his belief . The first was was technological progress.

The second element is the price of oil. Noting that the cost of a barrel is $68 in the middle of a recession, Ghosn asked his audience whether anyone thought the price would go down. No hands went up. No argument so far.

But then come the logistics. Ghosn said car buyers with garages at home would be able to upgrade their electric outlets to facilitate an electric car's plug for around $500. In big cities, he predicted, electric companies will pay about $1,000 for devices resembling parking meters that can be placed along curbs to charge the vehicles. All well and good but Mr Ghosn seems to have forgotten that charging stations along the streets will require cars to park alongside, and that for a considerable period of time - overnight or all day usually.

This means more, not less, pressure for parking provision. It also means the return (for the two - charger and meter - will surely be combined) of the parking meter just at the time when the push is for mobile phone payments.  Will Councils be keen to reinstall a version of the technology they have just spent much time and treasure removing?

And of course there is the other consideration, that charging a vehicle makes it vulnerable. How many people will return to their electric cars in the morning to find them unplugged or worse?

All of which is not to say that Mr Ghosn is not on to something and that as technology inmproves, so the attraction of electric cars increases.

Simon

Its A Fact, Kinda

I have been to numerous conferences and read a number of articles recently where worthy greybeards have portentously announced, with great gravity, that “30-50% of cars in an area are searching for a parking space”.  The audience, including me, has gravely nodded their collective heads at this great piece of wisdom.  Then I engaged the brain; isn’t 100% of traffic searching for a parking space?  Of course some drivers know exactly where they are going and so the search is purely nominal, following a known route to a known destination but, assuming that the rest of the cars will not continue in motion to the end of time (11.52 am GMT 23^rd April 2065 in case you wanted to know) they are all seeking a place to park their car. Maybe not in “the area” but somewhere; and I think that it is reasonable to assume that there will be some level of search either to find the street space or the garage. 

So what the.... are they actually talking about?  I suspect it’s an issue of inadequate definition and what they actually are trying to say is something like a certain proportion of drivers try to find a place in an area where the parking is full (or unattractive because of price) and so they spend time circulating round and round the area until they find a vacant space (full) or a cheap space (price). Any clarification welcome, until then I will firmly put this “fact” in the “everybody knows so it may not mean anything” box.

How to Sell Cars or: - “if you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot make sure to put it in your mouth first.”

(PW columnist Peter Guest joins us on the Parking World Blog – Look for his brand of cynicism in upcoming blog entries. JVH)

In the UK we have a scheme, like your cash for clunkers, where if you trade in a wreck for a new car you get £2,000 off list. My daughter's car just scraped through its annual check; she had some money and so decided to get new wheels. I got to spend a day driving my daughter and the Gerbil her boyfriend, round the showrooms looking at motors and collecting brochures.

After a lot of reading and checking web pages and consumer sites we had a shortlist. I persuaded her that it wasn't a lot of use me test driving them for her (nice to know that she trusts my judgement) so off she went to drive a few. It was a choice between, the Honda and the Peugeot so to the showrooms to cut a deal.

First Honda man, the body language says I am doing you a favour letting you in here at all and the words were "you can have £2,000 off not a penny more and we have an agreement with the other dealers (illegal if it's true) so you won't get a better deal".

Peugeot man gave us coffee and £1,300 more discount on the special edition with extra goodies. Peugeot man is working 90 hour weeks supplying new cars. Honda man drinks coffee and looks out of the window.

Parking Lot Role Models

In my last blog, I exposed Hollywood's character assassination of the car park, and I suggested that the movie makers present the public with some positive parking lot role models. My editor has asked me what I think this role model would be like. Here are a few of my cinematic parking visions:

- Well-lit spaces that discourage suspicious characters from lurking in the shadows.

- Open sight lines that do not leave spaces for bad guys to hide.

- CCTV and other security measures to keep patrons safe and minimize the urge to hold gun fights or kidnap unsuspecting patrons on the premises.

- Speed bumps to discourage high speed car chases.

- Practical signage and markings that allow people such as Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer to find their car in under 30 minutes.

The Supporting Cast:

- Friendly and helpful car park attendants who do not resemble zombies.

- Valets who are conscientious, and do not smash vehicles into each other and do not take joy rides in customer cars, screeching the tires as they race out of the lot.

- Security personnel in attendance, not sleeping, with attention paid to what is happening on that CCTV screen just over their shoulder.

PG

More on Parking in the Philippines

The Philippine parking expo and conference held in Manila is over. The two days were filled with presentations from parking experts from Australia,the UK, the US and the Philippines. (Yes, yours truly was humbled to be surrounded by folks who actually knew something about parking.) 

I was impressed that the hundred or so people who attended really wanted to further their knowledge of the parking industry. Their questions were thoughtful, (and sometimes embarrassing to the speakers) they demonstrated their understanding and concerns, and frankly let it be known that they are starting down the path to an organization that will assist them in growing our industry in their country.

They asked me how I felt parking was handled in the Philippines. I was caught off guard a bit but am happy to comment here.

Parking controls as we know them in many countries don't really exist. There are few if any on street parking rules and those that exist aren't enforced to any great degree. On street parking needs political will to become a functioning part of their transportation program.

Off street parking is controlled by land owners and developers and is just beginning to take on technology to ensure that rules are followed and monies are collected. One or two developers are seriously looking at parking controls, the rest will come along when they see how beneficial these controls are to the firms that use them.

My guess is that if they form a parking organization, it will be able to assist in bringing information and guidance to Manila and its environs and that assistance will speed the growth of parking as an industry.

JVH

Philippine parking expo

We opened the event with a grand ribbon cutting, singing of the national anthem, and a singing of a solo that can best be described as a doxology. The Philippines is a very religious country (70 percent Catholic)

We were then regaled by a fantastic native dance show. About 20 young dancers from a local university in native dress and accompanied with original instruments. Just wonderful.

Mitch Ballesteros, CEO of the organizers, then welcomed us and the presentations began. The President of the local ASIS chapter is now speaking on garage security

There are about 7 companies that are exhibiting from the local fledgling parking industry. There are about 100 in attendance.

More later and some pix when I get back to the hotel and my computer.
Jvh

Lights, Camera, Parking!

Today I was talking about CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) with Barry Davidson, Executive Director of the Canada-based International CPTED Association, and we both agreed that car parks have been subject to character assassination in the modern media.

Have you noticed that parking lots in the movies and on TV are often the scene of car chases, gun fights, abductions, murders and other nefarious activities? In addition, people always meet in car parks when they are conducting some sort of illegal or immoral transaction, which often goes very wrong. Car parks have replaced the back alley as Hollywood’s preferred locale fatale.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of many movies featuring parking lot mayhem – Back to the Future, Heat, Terminator 2, The Bourne Ultimatum, Thelma and Louise. I think every James Bond movie has a car park scene. In Tomorrow Never Dies, Pierce Brosnan drives a car through a parking lot, remotely from the back seat, under a hailstorm of bullets, of course. The scene where a helpless victim is hiding behind cars in a parking lot with a bad guy in a close pursuit – and the victim looks under the cars to see the bad guy’s shoes – is a classic cinema stereotype. And the TV episodes that situate danger in parking lots are too numerous to catalog.

“When is the last time you saw a movie scene in a parking lot or garage that didn’t have spooky music going on,” says Davidson. “These are some of the things that any crime prevention or social planner has to fight against constantly, to break down the barriers we create in media.”

I think it’s time Hollywood presented the public with some positive parking lot role models.

Philippine International Parking Expo & Conference

Its coming next week in Manila. I'll be speaking along with a number of parking experts, including half a dozen from around south Asia, Europe and the US. I'll be blogging from there (and tweeting) so check back often and find out what's going on.

Gotta run, plane to catch

JVH

Pretty in Pink

Seoul, South Korea, is taking the phrase “ladies first” very seriously, with a new campaign aimed at making the city more “women friendly” which includes pink-colored priority parking spaces for women.

 

Parking is not the only aspect of the Women Friendly Seoul project, but from a parking perspective, the goal of the program is to create safer and more convenient parking options specifically for women. The project started over the summer and almost 5,000 public and private parking spots across the city are being painted pink.

 

Pink parking spaces with cute little pink dresses painted on them seems a bit trivial, and consequently this has been subject to some derision in the media. Getting past the superficiality of the parking space colors, however, the women-friendly spots are also designed to be wider, with brighter lights and CCTVs. In addition, the spaces are positioned closer to building entrances, which can also be a safety factor, especially late at night. Seoul may actually be on to something here.

 

The concept behind the program is that women have a disadvantage in Korean society and these efforts are meant to even up the playing field.

 

Reports coming out of Seoul seem to indicate that many Korean men are unhappy about the new parking arrangement.

 

James Turnbull, a writer and consultant on Korean gender issues and advertising whose blog appears at http://thegrandnarrative.wordpress.com, provides some insight as to why this might be the case.

 

“As for ‘ladies first,’ there is nothing like that in Korea, not surprising considering that Neo-Confucianism – which Korean is notorious for, even more so than its birth country of China – explicitly places women in a lower position than men,” says Turnbull.

 

“Probably more helpful to understanding any negativity though, is that being 99% ethnically homogenous (literally), then most Koreans are relatively unfamiliar with affirmative-action programs and/or preferential treatment for any kinds of minorities,” he adds. “So not being able to park because of empty pink parking space for women may seriously be the first time many Korean men have experienced being excluded like this.”

 

If the men of Seoul are against priority parking for women, however, this may be the best evidence in support of the program.