Most of the cities were designed long before people ever had cars. Thus the city cannot handle them. Some were well designed but people were never had enough money to buy cars for their own so it never was a problem (Moscow / China) till now when they started to allow people to own cars and the people can now afford to buy them started using them.
Chicago / NYC they went high density housing & businesses in skyscrapers - so it will NEVER ever match space to people and parking will always be a problem.
And you think parking in Chicago is bad? Pish posh. 19 cities have it worse according to a global parking survey released by IBM.
The survey assessed parking in 20 cities around the world based on the following: longest amount of time looking for a parking place; inability to find a parking place; disagreement over parking spots; percent of parking tickets received for illegal parking; total number of parking tickets received.
The results show that in seven cities parking is an absolute nightmare. Here they are in order from the worst:
1. New Delhi, India
2. Bangalore, India
3. Beijing, China
4. Moscow, Russia
5. Shenzhen, China
6. Paris, France
7. Milan, Italy
The following graph shows where the rest of the cities rank:
Here are some other interesting notes from the survey:
-Six out of 10 drivers have abandoned their search for a space at least once in the past year.
-One in four (27 percent) respondents self-reported being involved in an argument with a fellow driver over a parking space within the last year.
-Drivers have spent an average of nearly 20 minutes in pursuit of a coveted spot.
-Thirteen percent of drivers in Nairobi reported driving around for more than one hour for a parking spot within the last year. On the other end of the spectrum, citizens in Chicago (28 percent), Montreal (24 percent) and Stockholm (24 percent) fared much better, finding a spot in less than five minutes.
“Clearly, drivers worldwide are facing frustration and pain, not only during the daily commute, but also when searching for a parking spot,” said Vinodh Swaminathan, director of intelligent transportation systems at IBM, in a statement. “It’s easy to see how this parking ‘pain’ can impact productivity of citizens and economic opportunities in a city. The ability to combine transportation information being collected with a better understanding of their citizens’ parking needs can help cities not only better match parking supply with demand from commuters, but also better anticipate and avoid gridlock and make significant inroads to reduce congestion.”
One solution to parking woes might be new technology that connects parking information to your mobile device. It can literally show you where parking is available in real time. Check out this SmartPlanet video to see how it works.
Photo: lisacweir/Flickr
