ICE District Block IJ | ?m | ?s | ICE District Prop. | Next Architecture

On the topic of parking, I wonder how much of our land space in the city of Edmonton is dedicated to it? It definitely has to be near the top of most noticeable landscape.
In some average US estimates I read that there are about 2.5 parking spaces per car - a third of those being parking lots - but it could be as high as 2 billion. In Houston, one thing I just read said there are as many as 30 parking spots PER VEHICLE but it could be as low as 8 - that's much more reasonable, haha
When you think that vehicles sit parked 95% of the time each day (mine is even higher) that is a lot of space we have to have just for our vehicles.
It's kind of funny that a huge rec centre like Millennium Place, where I used to go, has to have more than double the land space of the building for people to park. Or your typical grocery store is certainly smaller than it's parking lot.
I think Edmonton's city plan for our population to double to 2 million is to do it within the current land space we have. And that's in 30-50 years! Will be interesting to see that unfold. I know public transportation is key to addressing that but hopefully we see other shifts in terms of deprioritizing vehicles, too. For me, I'd prefer this kind of congestion on Jasper Avenue from back in 1945 than bumper to bumper cars - where people rule the streets! I bet business was booming for those Jasper Ave store fronts, too.
20210407_214253.jpg
 
Last edited:
^^

i think the generally accepted overall number in the us is 8 stalls per household. for some reason they tend to use households rather than vehicles. canadian cars per household is about 80% of us numbers so say 6.5 per household.

the city of edmonton has about 400,000 households which would mean 2,600,000 parking stalls. At an average of 300 sf per stall (allowing for drive aisles and circulation in addition to the stall) that amounts to roughly 18,000 acres which is probably overstating things substantially given how many of those stalls are stacked in parkades, under office buildings, apartment blocks and podiums, and under houses with attached garages etc. If we say that accounts for 35% of them, that leaves about 11,600 acres used for parking which is roughly 8.25% of the city’s total area of roughly 140,000 acres.

i’m not sure how accurate this but as an order of magnitude it’s likely reasonable. for perspective, 9% of the area of the city of edmonton is dedicated parkland and that doesn’t include private green space, undeveloped green field area and school yards etc.
 
TAS said:
Interesting forecast on future of parking lots.

Click to expand...
I don't really understand how this video reaches and says there will be no traffic in an autonomous future. Perhaps someone can explain it to me? From my perspective, traffic inflows to a stadium cannot be changed because that's just not how fluid mechanics work. You have too much of something trying to flow into a limited space at once and automating the system cannot change that. In fact, I would argue there's risk of organizing traffic making things less efficient.

Look at airliners. Back when I was negative 15 years old, you use to be able to load plans randomly. They changed this, and went to tiered loading (1st Class - Back to Front). This actually ended up being more economical for the airline but FAR less efficient then chaotic boarding. I'm sure there's videos on the matter somewhere.

What we are MORE likely to get, is a bunch of autonomous vehicle companies charging us per diem rates on vehicle usage. And those who can pay higher premiums will "skip the lines". While what seemed like a sensible and efficient idea, ends up actually causing more traffic for the masses.

Scheduling traffic is going to be a horrible idea.
 
Stevey_G said:
I don't really understand how this video reaches and says there will be no traffic in an autonomous future. Perhaps someone can explain it to me? From my perspective, traffic inflows to a stadium cannot be changed because that's just not how fluid mechanics work. You have too much of something trying to flow into a limited space at once and automating the system cannot change that. In fact, I would argue there's risk of organizing traffic making things less efficient.

Look at airliners. Back when I was negative 15 years old, you use to be able to load plans randomly. They changed this, and went to tiered loading (1st Class - Back to Front). This actually ended up being more economical for the airline but FAR less efficient then chaotic boarding. I'm sure there's videos on the matter somewhere.

What we are MORE likely to get, is a bunch of autonomous vehicle companies charging us per diem rates on vehicle usage. And those who can pay higher premiums will "skip the lines". While what seemed like a sensible and efficient idea, ends up actually causing more traffic for the masses.

Scheduling traffic is going to be a horrible idea.
Click to expand...
I think automation allows for less congestion due to the cars being interconnected - you end up with less bottlenecks of drivers speeding up too much and hitting their brakes creating the stop and go effect. Automation would look at the entire system and calculate speed required for the greatest efficiency at any given time within safe parameters.

I didn't watch the said video, but level 4 autonomy with vehicles should be a massive boon to alleviating congestion (note: not solving it altogether due to your point about fluid dynamics).
 
Some of the traffic science I'm adhering to is this: the efficient use of space is the core problem of urban transportation. And even with tech advancements (and electric vehicles), cars will always have a problem of geometry which trumps engineering - cars take up a lot of space per person. And when you have 10 cars lined up behind a red light, you might get all 10 of those cars through a 30 second green light cycle but no more. But you can get way more people walking across the street or on bicycles and mass transit through that same traffic cycle.

Cars in dense cities, for example, are not such a problem when only 20% of people are using them; it’s mass adoption of cars that makes them problematic to a dense city and it also limits other transportation options. Edmonton is not a dense city but because we have mass adoption of cars and relatively weak alternative transportation options, we still have issues of congestion.
If we don't want it to get worse we can either stop growing, widen our streets more or focus on helping more people get around using less space than cars require — through walking, cycling and mass transit.
 
Last edited:
TAS said:
On the topic of parking, I wonder how much of our land space in the city of Edmonton is dedicated to it? It definitely has to be near the top of most noticeable landscape.
In some average US estimates I read that there are about 2.5 parking spaces per car - a third of those being parking lots - but it could be as high as 2 billion. In Houston, one thing I just read said there are as many as 30 parking spots PER VEHICLE but it could be as low as 8 - that's much more reasonable, haha
When you think that vehicles sit parked 95% of the time each day (mine is even higher) that is a lot of space we have to have just for our vehicles.
It's kind of funny that a huge rec centre like Millennium Place, where I used to go, has to have more than double the land space of the building for people to park. Or your typical grocery store is certainly smaller than it's parking lot.
I think Edmonton's city plan for our population to double to 2 million is to do it within the current land space we have. And that's in 30-50 years! Will be interesting to see that unfold. I know public transportation is key to addressing that but hopefully we see other shifts in terms of deprioritizing vehicles, too. For me, I'd prefer this kind of congestion on Jasper Avenue from back in 1945 than bumper to bumper cars - where people rule the streets! I bet business was booming for those Jasper Ave store fronts, too.View attachment 311937
Click to expand...
 
I think part of the problem here is in the past we have torn down quaint older, smaller buildings downtown sometimes after they are let to become run down, sometimes due to promises to build something grand that have fallen through. Often these lots became very visible parking lots in certain areas of downtown, as the default use of lots no one is in a hurry to develop.

In reality, most new developments downtown incorporate underground parking, so parking need not intrude into nearby surface spaces and street side parking has been somewhat reduced over the last 5 to 10 years too. However, it also the lack of enough nearby retail within a walkable distance in the downtown area that keeps many people who live downtown into a somewhat car dependent existence. We spent most of the last 30 years without a decent grocery store between 97 and 109 Streets and no Shoppers Drug Mart does not quite cut it.
 
Other than marketability for tenants/users, there really is little need to put any parking in with most current developments as we have a very low usage rates.
 
IanO said:
Other than marketability for tenants/users, there really is little need to put any parking in with most current developments as we have a very low usage rates.
Click to expand...
for what reason other than marketability for tenants/users would you build/develop anything? that's the only reason there is.

why would you even think of not including something that is of value to those tenants/users (the one single component that no project can be successful without) if you want your building to successfully compete against those buildings that do provide them what they want?

other than marketability you say? there is nothing other than marketability.
 
... other than warming the planet and sustaining life, we really don't need the sun

... other than all the unemployment and hardship, the great depression wasn't really such a bad time

... other than the loss of life and damage to property, World War II was not bad at all

Oh please, enough with the obfuscation!
 
kcantor said:
for what reason other than marketability for tenants/users would you build/develop anything? that's the only reason there is.

why would you even think of not including something that is of value to those tenants/users (the one single component that no project can be successful without) if you want your building to successfully compete against those buildings that do provide them what they want?

other than marketability you say? there is nothing other than marketability.
Click to expand...

Multiple buildings use lots or parking options adjacent or connected.

It's more of an amenity than requirement for some and obviously a deal breaker for many.
 
I think what @IanO means with
IanO said:
Other than marketability for tenants/users, there really is little need to put any parking in with most current developments as we have a very low usage rates.
Click to expand...
Is that developers create new parking explicitly for the purpose of advertising and attracting tenants rather than an actual need for it. Not saying that we shouldn't fill the demand that exists, rather implying that too much parking already exists (which it does) and that developers create more unnecessary lots in order to be more appealing to more potential customers.
 
the unforeseen consequences of parking and other car-centric development particularly in North American cities are profound. Creating more of it and encouraging it's construction does nothing but dig a deeper hole than we're already in. One must not look any further than the chasms of sterile land that surrounds our own downtowns on most sides to see it. The city needs to de-incentivize parking and the first step to doing that is building a robust transit system. The Valley Line and other planned LRT expansions are a start but as they start to come to fruition, so too must the elimination of surface parking in the core. I would like to see the city start construction on the Warehouse Central Park as soon as the Southeast Valley Line is completed (Though this is unlikely). Also I just realized I've rambled about parking, transit and the Warehouse Central Park for four lines of text in the Block IJ thread (sorry I'm new).
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top