Here in Seattle, there is a mix of park and ride and high density residential. It is a balanced approach and suitable for a region that will never not be suburban and that relies in suburban approved tax levies and car registration fees to both expand and maintain the network. It has been made abundantly clear to sound transit: if you're going to tax car drivers, you will provide park and rides or you will fail at the ballot just as they did when they tried to get urbanite only plans. Transit dependent development is still happening around stations, so it is finally defeating the idea you cannot have a parking structure and residential co existing. We see this already working extremely well at Lynnwood, Northgate, shoreline, and mount lake terrace. Seattle also has massive convention centers and three major stadiums within walking distance of its train lines. On weekends when there is a game, park and rides are full of, you guessed it, suburbanites enjoying the parking and rail they approved in their taxes and sold as a benefit of why they should vote yes to perpetual taxation if they are within the area. None of this comes to the disadvantage of transit dependent residents as the garages are stacked or underground so the actual footprint leaves plenty of room for all kinds of other buildings. The parking structure also serves as bus turnaround for feeder lines and connections from local agencies. Seattle often calls these transit centers, not just park and rides, to indicate that they serve both suburban users with cars and car free users. Isn't it nice when we can put the debates aside and realize, oh, let's make transit work for EVERYONE. Lastly, the idea we need to recoup the investment in parking garages is as silly as the idea we need to recoup the investment of the trains in fares. As I mentioned Seattle isn't running an investment to see a return. The cost was passed to taxpayers at the federal or local level depending on the mix of grants vs loans. Maintenance will always be a tax burden. Fares or parking fees are not expected, nor should they be expected to break even. It is the same for roads, bridges, ferries and so on. What is it with this idea we need to recoup parking but not everything else? Doesn't make any logical sense. Public infrastructure never directly returns the money to tax payers. Its a cost. And since you'll be taxed until you are no longer alive, it is not a cost that is ever expected to be recouped.
I completely agree. Park 'n rides are solving a different problem than transit oriented development. Also, the cost of building a park 'n ride for $200k is nothing, compared to 2 bus drivers. 2 drivers would not be able to serve that many passengers. Also, the lot is able to serve during stadium events and recoup revenue. I swear: urbanists are turning me into a car advocate. We just need to use lots judiciously.
Counterpoint: in Vancouver we don't really bother with park n rides much. There are some, but it's pretty rare to see anything new include that in the plans. Instead, we almost exclusively push TOD and feeder buses in suburban areas. And I'd say it works, because we have much higher ridership than Seattle does, despite a smaller population. Suburban areas getting small urban cores around stations almost always improves them and makes the buses more useful too, as residents can also go there to get services from the businesses around the station. Very much the Japanese ekimae kind of idea. It works well.
A good thing about parking lots is they can be repurposed easily, can be residentials, commercial facilities or multi-level parking garages, depending on future demands. So starting with park and ride stations is not so bad IMO especially in car centric suburbs. However, I think such stations should have at least small convenience stores nearby or inside stations so that railway company can make money from rent and kick start commercial activities around stations.
Very true! Parking lots can be rezoned and redeveloped in no time! Another interesting idea I've seen is that many park-and-ride stations in the suburbs hosted community events of that neighbourhood, allowing people to come together and create destinations for transit trips!
I think that the Utah Transit Authority did a pretty good job with their park and ride program. The largest parking lots were either in far flung outlying areas or in areas that were in distress, but anticipated to in the future see revitalization, with the parking lot essentially acting as a temporary service until the area was ready to be redeveloped into a higher and better use. Also, the stations essentially always have direct access to the street with the parking being behind or to the side (or in one case completely separate from the station). I don't live in Salt Lake anymore, so I don't keep up with all the redevelopment, but at least two stations have seen more than half of their parking converted into mixed use housing... something I'm sure the transit authority saw a decent return on investment on purchasing that land.
1. put the parking behind the station so entering from the sidewalk is easy 2. don't put the station out in the middle of nowhere unless its exclusive purpose is as a park n ride and/or a transfer hub between different agencies and modes 3. BIKE PARKING!!!!!! lots of it with secure monitored buildings. nobody wants to leave their bike chained to a ground staple in a dark corner or random concrete island that nobody is looking at for 7 hours while they're off somewhere else.
Most park and ride lack shared use paths with bike lanes, rail and busway lines. They will be useful with those two modes of public transits. Will encourage them to use public transit.
Where I live now I ironically think doesn't make enough use of park and ride. There are a lot of places with very large parking lots with a lot of excess parking that they don't need, that are already adjacent to bus stops, that our transit agency could very easily negotiate permission for transit riders to park there. Obviously, redeveloping those excess parking areas into something more useful would be ideal, but as something that can be done essentially overnight to make more use of the space and drive transit ridership, we could do a lot worse. Hell, half of the parking lots that I'm thinking of are already used by people doing park and ride without permission, who just risk it, so there is obviously some latent demand for it. Especially given how limited, and expensive, parking is at our local university, they'd probably fill entire buses with college students alone taking advantage of it. Then again, that might be a large part of why they don't go to the effort to make it official and don't encourage it, because parking fees are way too big of a revenue source for the university and the university has a lot of sway in city and county politics. It's the same reason that most airports in the United States don't have very good transit access. When the cheapest parking (which requires taking a shuttle bus back onto campus anyway) is $84 a semester and most parking garages/lots charging $269 a semester, it's no wonder the university doesn't want students using alternative means of getting to and from campus.
@@morethantransitt Actually, that's not true. The volume isn't relevant. It's the place where the volume comes from. If it is cheaper to just build a parking lot near a station, then let drivers park there instead of the stadium. If all stations have no parking space, then we can use empty lots with a shuttle to the station.
Here in Seattle, there is a mix of park and ride and high density residential. It is a balanced approach and suitable for a region that will never not be suburban and that relies in suburban approved tax levies and car registration fees to both expand and maintain the network. It has been made abundantly clear to sound transit: if you're going to tax car drivers, you will provide park and rides or you will fail at the ballot just as they did when they tried to get urbanite only plans. Transit dependent development is still happening around stations, so it is finally defeating the idea you cannot have a parking structure and residential co existing. We see this already working extremely well at Lynnwood, Northgate, shoreline, and mount lake terrace.
Seattle also has massive convention centers and three major stadiums within walking distance of its train lines. On weekends when there is a game, park and rides are full of, you guessed it, suburbanites enjoying the parking and rail they approved in their taxes and sold as a benefit of why they should vote yes to perpetual taxation if they are within the area. None of this comes to the disadvantage of transit dependent residents as the garages are stacked or underground so the actual footprint leaves plenty of room for all kinds of other buildings. The parking structure also serves as bus turnaround for feeder lines and connections from local agencies.
Seattle often calls these transit centers, not just park and rides, to indicate that they serve both suburban users with cars and car free users.
Isn't it nice when we can put the debates aside and realize, oh, let's make transit work for EVERYONE.
Lastly, the idea we need to recoup the investment in parking garages is as silly as the idea we need to recoup the investment of the trains in fares. As I mentioned Seattle isn't running an investment to see a return. The cost was passed to taxpayers at the federal or local level depending on the mix of grants vs loans. Maintenance will always be a tax burden. Fares or parking fees are not expected, nor should they be expected to break even. It is the same for roads, bridges, ferries and so on. What is it with this idea we need to recoup parking but not everything else? Doesn't make any logical sense.
Public infrastructure never directly returns the money to tax payers. Its a cost. And since you'll be taxed until you are no longer alive, it is not a cost that is ever expected to be recouped.
I completely agree. Park 'n rides are solving a different problem than transit oriented development.
Also, the cost of building a park 'n ride for $200k is nothing, compared to 2 bus drivers. 2 drivers would not be able to serve that many passengers. Also, the lot is able to serve during stadium events and recoup revenue.
I swear: urbanists are turning me into a car advocate. We just need to use lots judiciously.
Counterpoint: in Vancouver we don't really bother with park n rides much. There are some, but it's pretty rare to see anything new include that in the plans. Instead, we almost exclusively push TOD and feeder buses in suburban areas. And I'd say it works, because we have much higher ridership than Seattle does, despite a smaller population.
Suburban areas getting small urban cores around stations almost always improves them and makes the buses more useful too, as residents can also go there to get services from the businesses around the station. Very much the Japanese ekimae kind of idea. It works well.
A good thing about parking lots is they can be repurposed easily, can be residentials, commercial facilities or multi-level parking garages, depending on future demands.
So starting with park and ride stations is not so bad IMO especially in car centric suburbs.
However, I think such stations should have at least small convenience stores nearby or inside stations so that railway company can make money from rent and kick start commercial activities around stations.
Very true! Parking lots can be rezoned and redeveloped in no time! Another interesting idea I've seen is that many park-and-ride stations in the suburbs hosted community events of that neighbourhood, allowing people to come together and create destinations for transit trips!
I think that the Utah Transit Authority did a pretty good job with their park and ride program. The largest parking lots were either in far flung outlying areas or in areas that were in distress, but anticipated to in the future see revitalization, with the parking lot essentially acting as a temporary service until the area was ready to be redeveloped into a higher and better use. Also, the stations essentially always have direct access to the street with the parking being behind or to the side (or in one case completely separate from the station). I don't live in Salt Lake anymore, so I don't keep up with all the redevelopment, but at least two stations have seen more than half of their parking converted into mixed use housing... something I'm sure the transit authority saw a decent return on investment on purchasing that land.
1. put the parking behind the station so entering from the sidewalk is easy
2. don't put the station out in the middle of nowhere unless its exclusive purpose is as a park n ride and/or a transfer hub between different agencies and modes
3. BIKE PARKING!!!!!! lots of it with secure monitored buildings. nobody wants to leave their bike chained to a ground staple in a dark corner or random concrete island that nobody is looking at for 7 hours while they're off somewhere else.
The bike parking is something I should have emphasized on more, cuz "Park and Ride" can involve not just automobile parking!
Most park and ride lack shared use paths with bike lanes, rail and busway lines. They will be useful with those two modes of public transits. Will encourage them to use public transit.
Great Video!
Thank you!
Where I live now I ironically think doesn't make enough use of park and ride. There are a lot of places with very large parking lots with a lot of excess parking that they don't need, that are already adjacent to bus stops, that our transit agency could very easily negotiate permission for transit riders to park there. Obviously, redeveloping those excess parking areas into something more useful would be ideal, but as something that can be done essentially overnight to make more use of the space and drive transit ridership, we could do a lot worse. Hell, half of the parking lots that I'm thinking of are already used by people doing park and ride without permission, who just risk it, so there is obviously some latent demand for it. Especially given how limited, and expensive, parking is at our local university, they'd probably fill entire buses with college students alone taking advantage of it. Then again, that might be a large part of why they don't go to the effort to make it official and don't encourage it, because parking fees are way too big of a revenue source for the university and the university has a lot of sway in city and county politics. It's the same reason that most airports in the United States don't have very good transit access. When the cheapest parking (which requires taking a shuttle bus back onto campus anyway) is $84 a semester and most parking garages/lots charging $269 a semester, it's no wonder the university doesn't want students using alternative means of getting to and from campus.
thanks for sharing!!
I find St. Albert to be far too dependent on the park and ride system, seems like many local buses are empty these days
the commuter ones are pretty good on ridership though!
P+R's could have saved cities
if planned and designed correctly
calgary :D
Justifying park-and-ride transit for concert or special events is kinda a skill issue in event organizing and allocation of services :/
If the stations at the venues are designed to handle a large volume of passengers, there's no or little need for Park-and-Ride
@@morethantransitt Actually, that's not true. The volume isn't relevant. It's the place where the volume comes from. If it is cheaper to just build a parking lot near a station, then let drivers park there instead of the stadium. If all stations have no parking space, then we can use empty lots with a shuttle to the station.
Depends.
Park and Ride is the bane of existence of any transit services
The answer is it depends.