Parking World

The Cart Before the Horse

My last two blogs, posted on November 24, covered the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of Mumbai, which is building seven underground garages. I mentioned that I like the business model as a concept, but I also noted that the public is not going to use the car parks if there is free parking available on the streets of Mumbai.

One thing that keeps bothering me about this: why is the BMC spending the money to build car parks, and ignoring the underlying problem that will ultimately undo any positive impact of the car parks? The bottom line is that the underground garages will not solve Mumbai's serious parking problem, unless the Mumbai authorities first put an end to the free-yet-illegal street parking. It seems that they are putting the cart before the horse.

Is the BMC unaware of this problem or are they simply ignoring it? Ashok Datar, founder and chairman of Mumbai Environmental Social Network points out that it is a complicated social issue that the BMC may be avoiding.

"They will have to worry about issues of governance, policing, marking and mass scale fining to people belonging to upper classes – which is not done," Datar notes. He also notes that expensive car park construction projects are appealing to the people who are making money, such as high-priced international consultants. "When more money is to be spent, everybody is happy," Datar says. "I am not insinuating, but I can't find any other answer."

Datar explains that if the BMC would only examine the usage of car park projects built for the Inox Cinemas and Warden Road in Mumbai, they would see proof that the public opts for free street parking over pay parking lots.

"Isn't it tragic that they don't know – or pretend not to know – the current usage of such high-cost projects such as Inox and at Warden Road before pushing for very large investment projects based on the same or similar business model?"

Free Parking is in our Genes

In his excellent blog below, Pete quotes Ashok Datar who says building off street parking won't work if people can park for free on street. He channels Don Shoup almost word for word.

In India, as in the US and Europe, that "birthright" of free parking is ever present. I always joked that it was in the governing documents of a country, whether a constitution. the Magna Carta, or the treaty of Lisbon. However Pete's post has had me rethink that position. It must be in the Human Genome.

JVH

Is Free Parking a Birth Right?

In a recent blog, I reported on the new approach by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of Mumbai to build seven underground parking lots, and let the contractors maintain the lots and keep the revenue for 30 years. In the blog I made it clear that I support this approach in theory, however, I should mention that there remains one major barrier to success.

"A lot of people are opposing this model, as car owners won't use such a facility unless the policing and rules are strict – which nobody believes the Mumbai government has the guts to do," says Ashok Datar, founder and chairman of Mumbai Environmental Social Network, who points out that the cost of the initial construction of the seven proposed underground car parks will be borne by the public. Understandably, the public is not going to support funding the construction of car parks that nobody is going to use.

"People don't use such high cost parking islands when elsewhere one can park free or at a low rate," Datar says. "People think that free parking is their birth right."

It is a matter of supply and demand, and as long as free street parking is available in Mumbai, even though it may be illegal, most drivers will choose the free parking if the enforcement is not there. The new underground lots will be empty, and will not help alleviate the city's serious parking problems.

"In a highly congested city like Mumbai, there should be very few areas in the city where free parking should be possible or permitted on road," Datar explains. "To improve the compliance, we need to supplement the system of ticket fixing on the car, advising direct payment of fine – ranging from 300 to 1000 rupees – through the use of IT in a dedicated bank account. This will reduce corruption and towing, and increase the chances of getting caught several times. This will be a perfect deterrent."

"Substantially reducing free parking and making users of road space pay a fair price will automatically encourage good behavior," Datar concludes.

Pete Goldin

Automated Garages

The number of garages of this type is creeping up. According to consultant who knows about these things there are eight of them currently running and six under construction. We have a complete story and list in our upcoming PT edition that will be delivered in January.

Those numbers aren't too shabby considering that except for two, they have virtually all been delivered in the last two or three years.

There will be a sidebar on that story about the automated garages finished and under construction in the United Arab Emirates. There is one finished and two or three more in various stages of completion.

JVH

Dubai to Convert Parking Lots to Grass

Read all about it here. The folks in this second of the Emirates want to go green, literally. They are planning to take all the parking surface lots in the city and cover them with grass. I wish them all the luck. They will need it.

Not to be completely negative on the subject, but my experience, somewhat limited I agree, tells me that this is a gargantuan task. It will require a lot of engineering, replacement of topsoil, grading, reinforcement, fertilizer, cutting, and the like. Of course this shouldn't be much of a problem in a country where they build islands in the shape of palm trees and have the tallest building in the world.

However, I wonder at an alternative. Why not plant trees? They would take less water and maintenance, provide the "green" feel the city is chasing and more importantly SHADE to help in those 50c (140F) summers.

There is something else. Those Bentleys, Ferraris and Rolls Royces have a lot of torque. That power on the rear tires has a tendency to tear at the pavement. What will they do to grass, even the reinforced variety?

JVH

Mumbai Going Underground

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) of Mumbai, India, is pioneering a radical business model for car parks that it hopes will rapidly increase parking capacity in the region – however the new concept is being met with some push back by civic authorities.

This summer, BMC unveiled plans to build seven underground multi-level parking lots in south Mumbai – which would double existing capacity in the area from 700 to 1,400 spaces. The underground parking is meant to replace current above-ground car parks, making more room for traffic and pedestrians in this commercial center.

"The cost of building – which works out to over 2.5 million rupees per space – will be entirely borne by BMC," explains Ashok Datar, founder and chairman of Mumbai Environmental Social Network, who was also consulted by BMC for the underground car parks. "Then the operators will charge the rates - about 15 rupees per hour - to cover only operating costs."

The Mumbai civic standing committee has attempted to block progress on the underground car parks several times. It all comes down to the contractors, which the committee believes have been chosen unfairly. What seems to bother the committee most, however, is the BMC's unorthodox business model for the car parks, which will allow the contractors who build and maintain the lots to keep the revenue for 30 years. After this period, the lots will revert to BMC ownership at no cost to the BMC.

The BMC counters by pointing out that this is not a scam; it is a way to rapidly increase parking capacity. BMC says it is not economically feasible to maintain the parking lots on its own, so handing the responsibility – and the revenue – over to the contractors may be the only way to get South Mumbai the parking capacity it desperately needs today.

In a blog in August and a full article in the October-November issue of Parking World, I covered some of the challenges of parking in India, and specifically in Mumbai. This city needs to take some new approaches to solving its extensive parking problems, and unless corruption can be proven with regard to these specific projects, the BMC should be given freedom to experiment with non-traditional economic models that work.

 

Pete Goldin

 

 

I’m glad this is working out so well

GM is reporting that it lost "only" $1.2 billion in the third quarter, showing that as a sign of progress. This after the US government swept in, fired its CEO, forced it into bankruptcy, cheated its bondholder, and shored up the company to the tune of $52 billion. The Chief Financial officer says that the uptick in revenues and down tick in losses can only be used as a harbinger of a "trend" because the accounting procedures used don't meet the test of normal accounting practices. In addition:

The company also says it will begin repaying $6.7 billion in U.S. government loans with a $1.2 billion payment in December. It could pay off the full amount by 2011, four years ahead of schedule, but the money will come from funds loaned by the government.

Is there anyone out there that thinks that this company can possibly survive? Particularly since the United Auto Workers now own a large part of it.

Sort of reminds me of when Arthur Skargill, leader of the coal miners in the UK, demanded a mine be kept open. The problem was there was no coal left in the mine. He didn't care.

Just think. If GM had gone under a year and a half ago, the other car companies would be picking up the slack, most of its workers would be working for them, and its assets would have been sold to companies that could actually make cars at a profit. But no. It's just too large to fail. It would seem to me that one of the requirements of "coming out" of bankruptcy be that the company must operate at a profit. But then, that's impossible. With its legacy retirement program problems and untenable union demands, it has no where to go. Its competitors have either cut better deals with the unions (Ford) or are non union (virtually everyone else except Chrysler). Their costs are much less than GM. I guess GM plans to lose money on every car it sells, but make it up in the volume.

Wow!

JVH

Only in the Big Apple A Baghdad by the Bay nominee

The wizards in the New York City city council have passed a new law that gives five minutes grace to parking meters. I know, I know…

Let me attempt to parse this for you. If you buy 60 minutes on a parking meter, you get 65. Fair enough, I guess. So if the enforcement officer sees a meter that has expired what is he/she to do? The only thing they can possibly do is assume the meter expired a nano second before they glanced at it and then wait five minutes before writing the ticket. Of course when the driver came up, wouldn't they say that the officer had been "pushing" the time and then it only ran out a few seconds before.

As correspondent Mark put it so well:

Has anyone ever heard of somebody getting a ticket for anything other than being "two minutes over the time limit"?  It ought to be interesting to see how they're going to enforce this one.  The only way I can see to make it work is to program the meters to give 5 minutes grace on the front end, otherwise who's to say when the 5 minute grace period began or ended?

This is close to the most boneheaded idea that politicians have come up with yet. It can't be enforced. It will only add to the already mass confusion in the city streets of the Big Apple. And when the locals in New York find out that it makes no difference in the number of citations that are being written, they will double their calls to their local councilfolks.

The City council president:

"Just don't issue these tickets so quickly," he said. "It is not wrong to have a heart and not get people at the exact moment."

Mayor Bloomberg's comment:

"Whose watch are you going to use?" he asked. "I think something that is explicit, so there are no arguments, is in everyone's interest."

Another nominee for the coveted "Baghdad by the Bay" award, given periodically to those cities that just can't get their parking act together. Another law that will make no difference, cause chaos, and not be enforced.

JVH

Function Over Form

Is too much attention being paid to the aesthetics of car park design today? Even in our own magazines, Parking Today and Parking World, we reward this behavior by featuring the coolest looking parking lots on the covers. Although I am a fan of cutting-edge designs, my recent interview with Mace Group, the designers of the massive parking lot at the new Mirdif City Centre shopping mall in Dubai, reminded me what the priorities of car park design should be.

"Our most important consideration when designing the mall car park was ease of use," says Mark Kennedy, Project Director of Mace Group. "The hard work should be in designing and constructing the car park, not using it. To have a great looking structure in place and an eye-catching interior may be desirable, but it's no good if people can't find their way around easily."

"We want to make sure that our customers only walk a short distance to get into the mall, that their vehicle is easy to find and that the entrances and exits are clearly marked," Kennedy continues.

The parking at Mirdif City Centre provides capacity for 7,000 cars spread over an area of 272,000 square meters. The mall is expected to open in 2010, but the car park is more than 90% complete.

"Once inside the car park, provisions have been made for 17 mall entrances to lead shoppers into the mall and the signage is a simple mix of color-coded levels and row numbers to assist in easy recall of where their vehicles are parked."

Kennedy also notes that ease of use starts with access and egress to and from the parking lot. Parking at Mirdif City Centre offers 12 entries and exits that lead visitors in and out of different levels of the car park.

While aligning car park design to the look of the building is not a bad idea, aligning the car park to the functionality of the build seems like a great idea.

Pete Goldin

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