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| Photo: Auto Züri West AG, Switzerland, 2015 |
Smartcitymakassar.com. --Makassar- Parking the cars is a routine. Searching for place to park, sometimes cruising for parking, takes time to find. This is also routine experience. However, do we realize that searching for a space, by cruising, and spending times for that, contributes to and plays role on development of future city, or well-known as 'smart city'? This question may not be well routinely tought.
One of the main problems of most big or growing cities is parking. Streetline, a future city transportation and design firm, described that parking is unsolved cities problems. Referred to Mark Delucchi of University of Carolina at Davis, Streetline explained that Americans spend as much to subsidize off-street parking as they do on Medicare or national defense. In most of big and growing cities, the need of curbside parking far exceeds the supply.
One of the main problems of most big or growing cities is parking. Streetline, a future city transportation and design firm, described that parking is unsolved cities problems. Referred to Mark Delucchi of University of Carolina at Davis, Streetline explained that Americans spend as much to subsidize off-street parking as they do on Medicare or national defense. In most of big and growing cities, the need of curbside parking far exceeds the supply.
The free or
cheap curbside parking in many cities makes the problem more complicated. Despite they are not free, the price several times
lower than off-street parking. Cheap or
free street parking encourages people to drive solo rather than carpool, car sharing,
walk, bike, or take public transportations. Therefore, there will be more people on the roads and more traffic
looking for parking. This causes traffic congestion, gas or fuel waste and
increased carbon emissions.
That the parking
should be abundant and free at most destinations is an old paradigm. This paradigm focuses on ‘predict’ and
‘provide’ in which it will bring to a cycle of automobile dependency. This
cycle depicts that the more dispersed parking developments will increase
vehicle ownerships. The increasing
ownership will demand new parking development. That is the way the cycle rotates.
(Riad Mustafa)
(To be continued)
