Self-driving cars, QLINE and bikes could leave parking lots empty
Urban planners learn early that there can never be enough parking. It’s one reason American cities, including Detroit, disfigure themselves with so many ugly concrete parking garages. And it’s why historic buildings often fall to wreckers when a surface parking lot appears to offer a more lucrative revenue stream.
Most proponents of autonomous vehicles predict we’ll need a lot fewer parking spaces in the future because driverless cars will not need to park at all, except at night. Rather, they will roam around during the day, seeking new passengers or running errands instead of sitting empty all day in a lot or deck.
From an urban design standpoint, it could be a blessing if demand for parking goes down. But don’t expect it just yet. If anything, recent trends have pushed up — rather than reduced — demand for parking in Detroit and in suburban downtowns.
One reason: Employers responded to the squeeze of the Great Recession by reducing their real estate costs. They did that by packing more workers into the same size or smaller building footprints. In effect, that meant more parking needed for the same old buildings.
But at some point, the coming of autonomous vehicles and alternative means of transit may turn that tide. And so some architects and city planners are beginning to grapple with what that means.
One intriguing possibility: Architects will design parking decks in the future to be convertible to housing, office space and other uses as the need arises. It’s not such a strange idea. Cities have long since converted old factories and warehouses to loft housing.
But converting parking decks to new uses will mean building them in new ways. For one thing, the slightly sloping floors of most parking decks (allowing rain and snowmelt to flow toward drains) will have to be flat to accommodate potential new uses. Ceilings will have to be higher if we expect people to live there one day.
Then, too, office and residential uses tend to carry more weight than parked cars, so the parking structures will have to be designed stronger. And architects will have to think about leaving room for mechanical ductwork and windows, even if a garage may not be converted for many years.
So it’s reasonable to hold off on celebrating the end to parking’s hold on urban design. Parking may represent a vast waste — by some estimates, most cars are parked 95% of the time — but let’s not forget that people get possessive about their parking spaces as with few other things.
As the great mid-20th Century architecture critic Lewis Mumford once observed, “The current American way of life is founded not just on motor transportation but on the religion of the motorcar, and the sacrifices that people are prepared to make for this religion stand outside the realm of rational criticism.”
Additional information on new garage designs that incorporate space for housing: It’s Time to Think About Living in Parking Garages
