Second report from Andy in Shanghai attending the International Parking Association meeting and the Parking exhibition in the Chinese City.
If you think car parking can be a problem……
In Shanghai, public transportation is king (ferries, buses, subway) but the two wheeled vehicle comes in a close second. Bicycles, mopeds and scooters are everywhere. It is not unusual to see a family of four on a scooter (Father driving with a child in his lap and mother on the back seat facing backwards with a second child in her lap). Being that this is such a popular form of transportation it is vital to make sure that these vehicles do not get piled up anywhere. While it is not typical to have to pay to park a bicycle there are some locations where people do have to pay. In the Yuyuan garden district (very high tourist area) there is a parking area for bicycles and scooters that has a
parking officer
that collects a fee from everyone who wants to park there. I have no idea exactly where the parking fees go but I do have to say that Shanghai is one of the cleanest cities I have been to in my entire life.
Super Brand Mall
While this is the direct translation for this very upscale mall in Shanghai it probably sounds better in Mandarin. The mall has 10 floors of shopping paradise and being the intrepid reporter that I am, I decided to check out the parking garages. The cost is RMB$10 per hour (approximately US$1.50) with a maximum of RMD$40. All parking is underground within the footprint of the above ground part of the mall. But when I entered the parking area I realized that the underground parking structures also included mechanical parking structures as well. This allows for there to be 7 parking spaces in the area where there is only floor space for 4 parking spaces (cars are lifted above each other). It does mean that the mall has to employ a parking person who can operate the machinery but labor is not a problem in Shanghai. It looked to be a fairly nice operation where they could increase their capacity without having to give up mall space. The other amazing thing I noticed when I looked into the garage, there were no cars, even though there were probably 4,000-5,000 people in the mall at the time I was there (it was a slow Monday afternoon, I was told). Maybe they were all in the other garages (the mall had 4 different garage areas).
AVH
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