/ MOBILITY & TECH
Another Approach to March Madness By Brett Wood, CAPP, PE
W
ITH THE SUDDEN AND NECESSARY DECISION to cancel March Madness this year,
we were all left with a bit of a bracket-shaped hole to fill over the back half of March. With no current basketball to escape to, perhaps a review of previous tournaments makes sense; many of the all-time great games are available online. But this March, I spent a little time with another tour down memory lane of previous March Madness moments with the annual Streetsblog USA parking crater challenges.
Parking craters are large surface lots that take up an inordinate amount of space in otherwise dense downtowns.
If you’ve never seen this amazing spectacle, during the course of several weeks, the team assesses competitions between some of the North America’s best parking craters. What’s a parking crater? Well, in their words, it’s simply large surface lots that take up an inordinate amount of space in otherwise dense downtowns. The presence of these surface lots deadens walkability, breaks connectivity, and lessens the viability of mobility, transit, and pedestrian investments. Their most recent version of the competition took a unique turn, where they evaluated the most improved parking crater. The improvements showed a more right-sized approach to parking, with a reliance on multiple modes of transportation to support community access, resulting in a higher density of development, people, and activity. It’s an urban planner’s dream!
10 PARKING & MOBILITY / APRIL 2020 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG
It got me thinking about a concept I’ve been discussing with cities throughout the U.S. the past few years: the surface parking exit strategy. As we continue to think about how our downtowns, communities, and campuses will be shaped by the advent of new mobility solutions and the imminent changes coming from autonomous vehicles, we too often rely on advanced design concepts or technology solutions to drive change. The surface parking exit strategy takes a much more straightforward and simple solution. Instead of trying to redesign the way we create new space or leverage technologies to move demand around, the approach simply says, “Let’s limit new parking capacity, create shared access opportunities, and strategically remove spaces that are overcommitted or overbuilt.” A general set of rules for the application of a surface parking exit strategy typically includes: ■ Managing private parking supply to create public supply. A great example is the approach being implemented by the City of Sacramento, Calif. The city has essentially become a parking operator for private parking owners, integrating spaces into a city-branded system and promoting a more efficient use of spaces. This approach lessens the overall amount of parking needed by unlocking underutilized spaces and promoting better balance within the system. ■ Creating incentives and funding resources for the centralization of parking. These could include development incentives, fee in lieu of parking, or creation of management districts that help to persuade new developments to take part in the shared
SHUTTERSTOCK / PAVEL L PHOTO AND VIDEO
Exit Strategy