By Jamel Marquel Simmons, Jr.

Park-and-Rides, or facilities that allow motorists to park their cars early in their travels and continue to their destinations via bus or rail, are a very promising solution to the traffic congestion and parking issues that many cities face today.

If planned and executed effectively, vehicle use in suburbs would be discouraged in favor of public transportation. Suburban residents would then only use their automobiles for travel within their neighborhoods, not for traveling to their cities’ central business districts.  Park-and-Rides encourage multi-modal transportation (Zhao et al., 2012), or travel that incorporates multiple transportation methods in order to get from an origin to a destination. Examples include cycling to a bus stop or in the case of park-and-rides, driving a car to a bus or train station.

Although this form of transportation is less convenient, it is substantially greener since it always involves less vehicle use (Parkhurst, 1995). The potential benefits of this are numerous, and somewhat resembles a “top-bottom” approach. Freeing up major roads and highways in suburbs means alleviating traffic conditions in the urban areas they go through (Parkhurst, 1995). It also means less traffic and more parking spaces in city centers. Most parking spaces in city centers are utilized for long periods of time by long distance travelers and business owners.  The absence of suburban residents means parking spaces with higher turnover, or more parking spaces that are readily available. This then can result in more business since customers have more space to park their cars and can possibly park closer to businesses than before. There are some cities, such as Ithaca, where a common parking issue is that people park in places where they do not belong.

A lack of parking spaces in both residential neighborhoods and commercial areas results in a never-ending cycle of people parking far away from where their destinations and utilizing parking spaces meant for other people. Using the Collegetown neighborhood of Ithaca as an example, the Ithaca Parking director, Frank Nagy, spoke of complaints, at a planning board meeting, by residents and business owners that concerned them not being able to park near their homes and businesses. Their parking spaces were being taken by college students partying on weekends. The students were not finding parking anywhere else and were deciding to instead park on small residential streets and in front of local businesses. To deal with this, Ithaca has decided to make on-street parking more expensive to free up parking spaces and encourage people who should be parking in garages, like business owners, to do so. However, making parking more expensive is not the answer in this hard economic time. Park-and-Rides are.  So what does effective park-and-ride planning entail?

As Horner and Groves discussed (2006), the location of a park-and-ride facility is crucial in attempting to encourage motorists to leave their cars behind.  As Zhao et al. (2012) also noted, it is very difficult for some people to give up the convenience their car provides, especially once they are in the car already driving. Studies done by Horner and Groves (2006) show that using network based flow strategies to determine the most effective park-and-ride locations can be a useful tool for planners, although Zhao et al. (2012) disagreed, arguing that it does not accurately measure traffic flow. This method essentially attempts to intercept the most vehicles possible at the earliest parts of their journeys. Placing facilities near streets with high traffic flow is most preferable but placing too many in one area or along one rail line decreases the amount of gains made. Other potential park-and-ride motorists are missed and the amount of motorists in that particular area decreases to the point where not many more can be taken off the road.

Another to approach to park-and-ride planning is the concept of transportation serviceability or evaluating the potential travel costs travelers must weigh when they choose one form of transportation over another (Zhao et al., 2012). These travel costs include price, comfort, and travel time. Comfort is often an overriding cost that has the greatest influence on most travelers’ travel choices. People who are more sensitive to comfort are less likely to utilize park-and-ride facilities. Middle class motorists are the hardest to attract since they are often the most sensitive to comfort and very concerned about maintaining their middle class status; Zhao et al. (2012) suggest that automobile use defines the middle class and that transit use hampers that image.

The authors argued that making public transportation more comfortable will make it more attractive to middle class people, which will in turn encourage them to use park-and-ride facilities. However, as noted by both Zhao et al. (2012) and Parkhurst (1995), the farther a person lives from a central business district, the less attracted they are by public transportation. The price of travel is not an influential as comfort but nevertheless important. The authors discussed the influence of parking fees in central business districts on travel choices. The results of their study showed that when parking rates are high in downtown areas, the travel cost for traveling by highway is high, while the cost for traveling by rail and park-and-ride is not. This is important because this means that high parking rates will discourage car use and in return encourage people to use alternate modes of transportation (Parkhurst, 1995). Although, as I discussed earlier, making parking more expensive should not be the answer, it may be the only way to attract people who highly value comfort. Travel time is not as influential as the other two but the authors found that people who travel by highway are more affected by this cost then people who travel by rail. The reason for this is traffic congestion, which railroads do have not deal with to an extent. Zhao et al. (2012) and Horner and Groves (2006) agreed that for some people, high traffic congestion is enough to deter car use. Placing park-and-ride facilities near highly congested roads may be effective since it gives commuters an option to abandon their cars if the congestion becomes too much for them to bear.

Park-and-rides are an aspect of parking that has the potential to correct many of the mistakes planners have made in the past regarding automobiles. It can not only decrease automobile use but also encourage public transit use. It is also much more green and sustainable. However, in order for the benefits of park-and-rides to be fully realized, planners must plan them effectively, such as placing them in strategic locations that gives motorists the option to park their cars early in their journeys.

References

Horner, M. and Grove

s, S. (2006). Network Flow-Based Strategies For Identifying Rail Park-And-Ride Facility Locations. Socio-Economic Planning S

ciences,

Volume 41, Issue 3, September 2007, Pages 255–268

Parkhurst, G. (1995). Park And Ride: Could It Lead To An Increase In Car Traffic? Transport Policy, Volume 2, Issue 1, January 1995, Pages 15–23

Zhao, H., Yan, X., Gao, Z. (2012) Transportation Serviceability Analysis For Metropolitan Commuting Corridors Based On Modal Choice Modeling. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Volume 49, March 2013, Pages 270–284