Wow – Transportation is the new buzzword in parking – I was looking over the program for the New England Parking Council conference to be held the second week in April and out of 12 presentations, fully six deal with transportation – and if you remove the producer from “Parking Wars” touting his program, a clear majority of the speakers are holding forth on Transportation. Now I realize the theme of the conference is parking and transportation but to me this means our industry is beginning to understand that we are part of a larger enterprise.
There is no parking facility that is not connected to transportation, whether it’s at an airport, train station, bus terminal, or shopping center. Once you get in to your car and drive out of the parking lot, you are on a street, freeway, toll road, or avenue, all part of the transportation infrastructure. Just try to build a parking deck somewhere. You will have transportation planners all over you considering demand, traffic flow, and the like.
I do understand the need to consider transportation, but we don’t need to forget that good parking management, facility design, security, lighting, and the business of parking needs to be stressed. If we don’t, who will.
JVH
