Parking garages are ugly by their very nature: They’re metal cages that take up valuable space in our cities to house our automobiles for a few high-priced hours. But not all garages have to be ugly. In fact, three of the most beautiful are located within a few blocks of each other, in the city of Santa Monica, California.
It’s happened to all of us. You get back to your car after a delicious brunch or productive visit to the bookstore only to find a demonic little slip of paper tucked under your windshield wiper. "But the meter was broken!" you think. "I’m going to contest this!" you say to yourself. No, you’re not.
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A competition to re-imagine suburban surface parking lots tapped architects to transform the often-wasted space into flexible urban plazas. This entry, dubbed "Civic Arches" by Utile, Inc. Architecture + Urban Planning, proposes using the the arches beneath a Long Island Railroad viaduct to park cars of commuters during the week, then reclaim the space as a farmers market on the weekends. [Architect’s Newspaper]
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As a surface for wheels, pavement does its job well enough. Asphalt concrete is flat, smooth, and solid (usually). But there is a price we pay for the convenience of paved roads and parking lots everywhere—a price paid in heat, noise, and polluted runoff. We went in search of better pavement and found these potential solutions.
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The more crowded the streets get, the harder it is to find a decent parking space. If you’ve got an extra parking spot, then you’re in a position that’s envied by most who own a car.
So why not make a few extra bucks off of it and help others find a spot at the same time? That’s something you can do with Park Circa.
It’s an app that lets people find and rent out parking spaces. It’s simple enough to use. If you need a parking spot, enter the location where you’d like to park and search through available spaces that have been listed. If you have an extra spot, list it on the database as being available for rent.
Park Circa is compatible with Android, iOS and Windows Phone devices. You can download the app here.
[via Bit Rebels]
If worrying about your vehicle and personal possessions has always made you hesitant about using valet parking, Honda will alleviate your fears with a new system that replaces clumsy valet drivers with overhead tracking cameras and software smart enough to juggle an entire lot full of cars.
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Most of us know the stress that comes with parking your wheels pretty much anywhere in the city; if you’re like us, you vow to hide out in the countryside and never return after each white-knuckled experience. But those are empty words more often than not, and we foolishly come back for more. ParkMe has been a lifesaver for these frustrating situations, but Android users have only been able to look for available parking garages — until now. The company just rolled out an update that now offers motorists real-time street parking information, giving you the price and likely availability of metered locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and a few other cities. The feature has already been available for iOS, but this will serve as a handy tool for the millions bearing Google’s mobile OS in-hand. Just remember to let your passengers do the navigating — we won’t encourage you to ParkMe and drive.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Source: Google Play, ParkMe
The hard part about driving isn’t exactly the driving part; it’s actually parking. I can drive automatics and stick shifts, but it takes me close to a quarter of an hour to park after I’ve found myself a spot. It’s not only infuriating for other passengers in the car, but it also annoys other cars who get inadvertently stuck while I do my thing.
I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people have this problem. Why else would Volvo come up with a car that can park for you?
Note that this isn’t like Google’s driverless cars. Instead, it’s more like a driverless valet. Once you arrive at your destination, you’re supposed to just pop out of the car and leave it to find a parking spot. It doesn’t use any mapping technology, but relies on sensors that have been embedded in the ground instead.
Volvo calls this “Vehicle 2 Infrastructure.” It’s a pretty neat concept, but I just don’t see establishments spending thousands of dollars to install sensors on their parking spots.
That’s unfortunate, because I think we could all use an autonomous parking feature for our cars.
Realizing that cars that automatically parallel park themselves are old news, Volvo has taken the concept one step—actually several miles—further with a new concept vehicle that can actually find an empty spot and park itself in a lot. You just abandon your car at the entrance of a parking lot, and like a valet you never have to tip, it takes care of the rest.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
