As I dread driving in the traffic of Washington, DC next week, I dream of when traffic congestion will be a thing of the past. The transport revolution now underway will mean a lot less vehicles, a lot less pollution and a whole host of better uses for parking spaces. See Why Downtown parking garages may be headed for extinction:
“Urban parking lots are dead or dying, and how we use the curb is changing,” said Rich Barone, vice president of transportation for the Regional Plan Association of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The RPA released a report in October urging cities to “get ready” for autonomous vehicles. It predicts that by 2045, 70 to 90 percent of all cars in major urban areas could be autonomous.
Parking in downtowns is going to “morph from being big massive surface lots and garages to much smaller areas configured for pickup and drop-off of autonomous vehicles,” Barone said. “Cities will be more walkable, more people-friendly, and there will be more space for parks and other amenities.”
Joe Schwieterman, a professor of transportation at DePaul University in Chicago, agrees. “The whole view of the function of streets has had a metamorphosis,” Schwieterman said. “It’s made us rethink the opportunity cost of plopping a parking garage in prime downtown property.”
Whatever will we do with all of these? Many have already figured that out.
See: Vertical farming offers solutions to food scarcity. Now we are thinking.
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