The Urban Traveller: Parking it Up!

Greetings Urban Passengers! In today’s blog we will be discussing parking within cities. Those of us who drive often complain of the issue of parking in cites. Since cities are densely populated and mostly active during the hours of 7A.M and 6 P.M due to the fact that workers and other citizens are moving throughout the city at this time. As a result of this we are faced with the issue of parking. Such issues stem from several reasons such as excessive auto-mobile use, expensive parking pricing, inconvenient parking options, inadequate information for motorists and in sufficient parking space.

In previous blogs we referred to the excessive use of auto- mobiles and as a result had some negative spill over effects. With many citizens using their own vehicles in order to satisfy their comfort needs, allowed them independent mobility. Due to this there have been an increase in the number of vehicles on the roads. Thus, there will be a greater demand for parking spaces. Finding the perfect parking space in the city is indeed a task. Given that urban spaces are developing at such a rapid rate does not make this task easier either.

Let us consider a citizen, driving through the city of Port of Spain or San Fernando in search of a parking lot. However, throughout this search this citizen can only see large tall buildings and business and after driving for almost thirty minutes he/she finally gets a car park located at a far distance away from their destination. Eventhough there are parking spaces, their locations are inconvenient and may sometimes have high hourly charge rates. Also, the majority of parking lots in cities are privately owned by organizations, workplaces and businesses for their customers and workers only.

Many planners and owners have realized that the high demand of parking space need to be provided, therefore they have now created parking spaces for public use and private use and even expanded upon the amount of parking spaces as seen in the image below.

Image of an expanded parking lot in the City of San Fernando

Other than expanding on parking spaces, issues related to parking can be addressed in the following ways:

11. Improving information for motorist by using or improving signs.

22. Different businesses can share parking spaces inorder to reduce the wastage of privatized parking space.

33. Promote public mixed used parking.

44. Locating parking lots close to businesses or streets.

55. Reducing the dependency on vehicles and encourage the use transportation alternatives which can reduce the demand for parking space and traffic congestion.