I was browsing in our Facebook page and came across this article which indicates that after a study it was found that plenty of parking existed in a certain area of Lancaster, Wi. My guess is that if you do such a study almost anywhere you will find the same.
I think time of day and day of week may have to be taken into consideration, and certainly there are times and days when some areas are jammed, but consider one mile long stretch of Third Street in Los Angeles.
This is an area that is lined with trendy restaurants and shops. There are also dry cleaners, drug stores, and the usual compliment of other merchants that occupy most neighborhoods. Friday and Saturday nights are jammed. As is Sunday morning for the brunch crowd. How can there possibly be enough parking as there are very few off street lots and the local residential neighborhoods are full of residential permit only streets.
The answer is that during the time that these restaurants need parking, many of the other stores don’t. There is parking behind each store that is used by employees during the day, but empty at night. The bank on the corner has an underground parking area that is empty after 5 pm. That new building across from “Toast” has a roof full of parking that is unused.
The problem is that most merchants don’t want the liability of the public parking on their property when they aren’t there. The solution: have on street valets cut deals with the merchants and park cars in these areas. At least another 300 spaces are made available at the very times they are needed.
JVH
One Response
At SpotHero, we’re working on a solution for this very thing 🙂 Right now there is a disconnect since the parking spaces exist, but no platform to facilitate the efficient use of the spots that already exist. What if this could be automated online and the facilitations and connections made through an online reservation system?