The Case for Tearing Down Park-and-Ride Lots

[202_Cyclist]

My girlfriend and I took Amtrak up to Stamford, CT, three weeks ago. The station has a large structured parking garage in an otherwise pretty walkable suburb. It seems like it would make a lot of sense to design and engineer the stations to be able to support housing above the parking garages, even if housing is not immediately planned. Land around stations is more valuable and there is a scarce amount of land within a 5-15 minute walk of the stations, so it is usually wasteful to use this scarce land only for parking.

Additionally, by partinging with a developer to transfer the air rights over structured parking, transit agencies can partially offset the signifiant cost of building these garages. I think for the Silver line in Northern Virginia, the structured garages on Phase II are expected to cost between $200M - $300M per garage.


The Case for Tearing Down Park-and-Ride Lots

By Eric Jaffe
Jun 11, 2014
City Lab/The Atlantic


Image courtesy of City Lab.

"Calgary is planning to remove all but 500 of the 1,750 park-and-ride spots at its suburban Anderson light rail station, and gradually convert the space into a mixed-use development. This angers some regular commuters, of course, but local officials have stayed firm. Responding to the concern a couple weeks ago, a local councilman said massive park-and-ride lots simply run counter to the city's growth strategy:

"We have recognized as a city that we have to grow differently — we have to grow up, not out — and the places we start doing that is around transit stations," he said. "The fact that we've surrounded a transit station, which is the ultimate in walkable, with a sea of parking just doesn't make sense any more."

Debates about the merits of park-and-ride facilities crop up in metro areas all over the country. They're not always about tearing down a lot; sometimes they're about deciding whether to build one (or how big to make it) in the first place. And they're not just reserved for big car-oriented suburbs; New York City mayoral candidate Joe Lhota suggested adding park-and-ride to remote subway stops last fall..."

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/201...e-lots/372558/

[chrisvfr800i]

Calgary is planning to remove all but 500 of the 1,750 park-and-ride spots at its suburban Anderson light rail station...

So the 1,250 people that currently use those parking spots just go f#ck themselves? Maybe they can just ride their bikes to the train station, which should be a joyful experience in Calgary for half the year.

[Wizened Variations]

A very interesting thought without a clear cut answer.

A few considerations:

A) Large parking lots around light rail stations hit a ridership plateau, based upon parking availability.

Large parking lots surrounding light rail and commuter rail stations tend to fill up during business hours, then become about 50%+ vacant during other hours. Therefore, the ridership per stop tends to flatten out, once the parking becomes full during work days.

B) Large parking lots at light rail stations, block out close in pedestrian friendly commercial, retail, and, higher rise residential development.

In order for ridership to grow, more light rail stations need to become destination stops, where system riders can use localized shopping and entertainment venues outside the urban core.

Development, IMO, needs to be designed in significant part to evolve into pedestrian friendly based stops, rather than car based stops.

C) Good site layout can accommodate both park and rides and pedestrian friendly ridership gaining development.

Park and rides can be placed on one side of station, and, commercial development encouraged on the other.

Portions of park and rides can be stacked.

Park and rides can be placed further away from the station, with free shuttles (proof of ridership required) that can transport car users to their cars.

D) Mini shuttles can be used to cover a couple of kilometer radii surrounding rail stations and pick up commuters close to their residence.

***********
Winter in Calgary is serious business and demands new thinking concerning integrating POVs and light rail transport in the suburbs. In other large cities in comparable climates, large residential blocks are often built 300 to 500 meters away from stations. Maybe a mix where one quarter of land is developed intensively or possibly using air rights closer in might be an approach to deal with reducing the pain of walking 300 meters in -25 C with a 30 kph wind.

[Mikemike]

Originally Posted by chrisvfr800i

So the 1,250 people that currently use those parking spots just go f#ck themselves? Maybe they can just ride their bikes to the train station, which should be a joyful experience in Calgary for half the year.

Cycling in Alberta IS a joy. But they could also buy a place in the new TOD, carpool to the P&R, or take the existing, and hopefully improving Feeder bus system. This isn't some exurb with no other transit.

1250 people is about 32 additional buses during peak hours, enough to take 5 existing 15 minute frequency buses up to every 10 minutes. That's significant.

[northbay]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

A very interesting thought without a clear cut answer.

A few considerations:

A) Large parking lots around light rail stations hit a ridership plateau, based upon parking availability.

Large parking lots surrounding light rail and commuter rail stations tend to fill up during business hours, then become about 50%+ vacant during other hours. Therefore, the ridership per stop tends to flatten out, once the parking becomes full during work days.

B) Large parking lots at light rail stations, block out close in pedestrian friendly commercial, retail, and, higher rise residential development.

In order for ridership to grow, more light rail stations need to become destination stops, where system riders can use localized shopping and entertainment venues outside the urban core.

Development, IMO, needs to be designed in significant part to evolve into pedestrian friendly based stops, rather than car based stops.

C) Good site layout can accommodate both park and rides and pedestrian friendly ridership gaining development.

Park and rides can be placed on one side of station, and, commercial development encouraged on the other.

Portions of park and rides can be stacked.

Park and rides can be placed further away from the station, with free shuttles (proof of ridership required) that can transport car users to their cars.

D) Mini shuttles can be used to cover a couple of kilometer radii surrounding rail stations and pick up commuters close to their residence.

Interesting. Here, the SMART commuter rail line seems to make a good balance, and utilize some of those points. While most stations will have park and ride lots, they are relatively small, most less than 150-200 cars off the top of my head. In addition, there will be many shuttles. Of course bus routes are supposed to be rerouted as well. And they are slowly building a bike/pedestrian pathway that will eventually parallel the entire length.

The point is to get people out of their cars and to make stations more pedestrian friendly. It's definitely a balance.

[Centropolis]

we have too many park and ride lots here, or at least too much underbuilt real estate around LRT stations.

[BrownTown]

Wouldn't a better solution just be to have tall parking garages instead of surface lots like the one shown? I'd imagine a 10 story parking garage could easily hold enough cars while still having a small enough base to allow plenty of transit oriented development as well.

I don't really see why parking and other development have to be mutually exclusive. Like the article said, build it up. Hell, you can even build it down. My college had a 7 story underground parking garage. Something like that would take up no surface space since it come be designed with residential on top although it's obviously a little more expensive.

At any rate, you can't just expect people to walk from the suburbs to the train station, if you want riders from the suburbs you have to give them a place to park. Cutting out parking just forces those people to drive downtown to park which means more parking garages downtown and your overall density isn't actually getting any better.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by chrisvfr800i

So the 1,250 people that currently use those parking spots just go f#ck themselves? Maybe they can just ride their bikes to the train station, which should be a joyful experience in Calgary for half the year.

People are entitled to have convenient access to parking at urban rail transit stations? If so, just think of all the people the NYC MTA is telling to go f#ck themselves by not providing lots of parking access at every subway station.

Overall, attracting riders through TOD is a much better strategy than by providing parking since people living near transit have the opportunity to live car free and use alternate forms of transit other times of day not just during the weekday commute. Park-and-ride transit may be better than driving the whole distance, but it's still the lowest order in terms of transit options.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by northbay

Interesting. Here, the SMART commuter rail line seems to make a good balance, and utilize some of those points. While most stations will have park and ride lots, they are relatively small, most less than 150-200 cars off the top of my head. In addition, there will be many shuttles. Of course bus routes are supposed to be rerouted as well. And they are slowly building a bike/pedestrian pathway that will eventually parallel the entire length.

The point is to get people out of their cars and to make stations more pedestrian friendly. It's definitely a balance.

I'll agree it's a balance. But SMART is building a capacity limited train system - their parking lots don't have to be so big in the first place.

Calgary three light rail vehicle trains has 180 seats, and holds twice as many (360) standing. (60 seats, 120 standing per vehicle). That's a total of 540 passengers per train.

SMART two vehicle train will have 140 seats, and will consider any one standing as over capacity. A single SMART train holds about a third as many passengers. With at least twice as long headways, the system capacity at least is six times less. Meaning it needs six times less parking.

They're two entirely different types of rail services. We shouldn't be using them directly for comparison purposes.

[northbay]

Originally Posted by electricron

I'll agree it's a balance. But SMART is building a capacity limited train system - their parking lots don't have to be so big in the first place.

Calgary three light rail vehicle trains has 180 seats, and holds twice as many (360) standing. (60 seats, 120 standing per vehicle). That's a total of 540 passengers per train.

SMART two vehicle train will have 140 seats, and will consider any one standing as over capacity. A single SMART train holds about a third as many passengers. With at least twice as long headways, the system capacity at least is six times less. Meaning it needs six times less parking.

They're two entirely different types of rail services. We shouldn't be using them directly for comparison purposes.

You're right. They are definitely two different beasts. I was mentioning SMART mainly because I wanted to provide an example of what I think is a good balance, along with some ideas they are utilizing.

A concept that transcends mode: If you build a lot of free parking, people WILL drive.
Make parking/driving difficult, and people will seek alternatives. Provide convenient/reliable alternatives to cars and people will take them. For example, I will be going to The City on Wednesday, but I plan on taking the ferry instead of driving to avoid the hassle of traffic and parking. Of course, I will be driving to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal, and parking. But when SMART is running, I could take the train (the Cotati station is a short bike ride from my house).
It's funny because the Larkspur lot is almost always full, forcing parking on the streets. There is talk of putting a garage there, but I'm not sure how far along that is. This is exactly what we're talking about. Since there is going to be a train connecting to the ferry people won't be driving there so more parking isn't needed right? Or is it that more parking is needed to accommodate SMART passengers not ferry-bound? The logic seems to work both ways, thus the need for BALANCE?!

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by northbay

You're right. They are definitely two different beasts. I was mentioning SMART mainly because I wanted to provide an example of what I think is a good balance, along with some ideas they are utilizing.

A concept that transcends mode: If you build a lot of free parking, people WILL drive.
Make parking/driving difficult, and people will seek alternatives. Provide convenient/reliable alternatives to cars and people will take them. For example, I will be going to The City on Wednesday, but I plan on taking the ferry instead of driving to avoid the hassle of traffic and parking. Of course, I will be driving to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal, and parking. But when SMART is running, I could take the train (the Cotati station is a short bike ride from my house).
It's funny because the Larkspur lot is almost always full, forcing parking on the streets. There is talk of putting a garage there, but I'm not sure how far along that is. This is exactly what we're talking about. Since there is going to be a train connecting to the ferry people won't be driving there so more parking isn't needed right? Or is it that more parking is needed to accommodate SMART passengers not ferry-bound? The logic seems to work both ways, thus the need for BALANCE?!

My experience with light rail, bus, and park-n-rides boils down to the reality that people who use park-n-rides at large bus stations or steel rail stations do so for 1 or more of the following reasons:

A) Park-n-ride users want to avoid paying downtown parking lot fees.

B) Park-n-ride users want to avoid the grinding stress (indirect costs) of the morning and evening freeway and downtown road commute. Such users often are willing to take a longer time to get to work, in exchange for lowered stress levels.

C) Users are car owning idealists.

D) Users of the very limited secure bicycle storage provided at many park-n-rides (bicycles need either to be watched by a person or secured in a lock box in the US (particularly if other public transportation users notice that the same bicycle is there Monday through Friday between the hours of X and Y. My wife has a bicycle stolen and, after recovering, the bicycle was severely vandalized).

Basically, park-n-riders are either idealists or people out to save a buck. My observation is that there are far more saving money oriented idealists than idealists.

Consequently, the appeal for TODs, IMO, should be aimed at those that want to save money, either through living in close proximity to large bus stations or steel rail stations, and/or by providing the public transportation user convenient, transportation cost saving, retail and entertainment venues.

I think, at least in the RTD world in Denver to this point, neither group receives much attention. We are still in the phase where building ridership short term appears to be more important than building ridership medium and long term. But, as demand for use increases with the continued decline of the middle class, this tendency eventually will be addressed.

[pdxtex]

any examples of a repurposed park and ride which is now some kind of TOD? portland has alot of park and rides id love to see turn into some kind of residential tower with retail down below.