A QUALITATIVE APPROACH TO PARKING

The author's opinion is that parking should not be seen from a quantitative point of view only. Provision of parking facilities, however, is often a matter of availability of space, rather than of purposeful planning. Planning for parking is now more or less confined to the application of certain rules of thumb and is related to square metres of shopping floor, offices, etc. The author points at the strong relationship between parking and the land use pattern. A possible approach could be: what would happen if the land use pattern within a town centre were fixed to the present situation, i.e. More or less frozen. The answer probably would be, that certain activities would move to areas where changes are still possible. A decision model for local governments is given. The proposed method gives an estimate of the number of parking places required for each of the alternative plans available. The parking demand is then calculated from the existing literature, for the various relevant days of week and for the nights. Parking demand and supply are then compared and a balance is sought. The factor of acceptable walking distance also comes in, and might even be considered as a criterion. The system may lead to reduction of parking space, changes in land use or provision of parking accommodation. /TRRL/