Parking lot

A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface. In most countries where cars are the dominant mode of transportation, parking lots are a feature of every city and suburban area. Shopping malls, sports stadiums, megachurches and similar venues often feature parking lots of immense area. See also multistorey car park. A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface. In most countries where cars are the dominant mode of transportation, parking lots are a feature of every city and suburban area. Shopping malls, sports stadiums, megachurches and similar venues often feature parking lots of immense area. See also multistorey car park. Parking lots tend to be sources of water pollution because of their extensive impervious surfaces. Most existing lots have limited or no facilities to control runoff. Many areas today also require minimum landscaping in parking lots to provide shade and help mitigate the extent of which their paved surfaces contribute to heat islands. Many municipalities require a minimum number of parking spaces, depending on the floor area in a store or the number of bedrooms in an apartment complex. In the United States, each state's Department of Transportation sets the proper ratio for disabled spaces for private business and public parking lots. Various forms of technology are used to charge motorists for the use of a parking lot. Modern parking lots use a variety of technologies to help motorists find unoccupied parking spaces, retrieve their vehicles, and improve their experience. In North America, parking minimums are requirements, as dictated by a municipality's zoning ordinance, for all new developments to provide a set number off-street parking spots. These minimums look to cover the demand for parking generated by said development at the peak times. Thus different land uses, whether they be commercial, residential or industrial, have different requirements to meet when deriving the number of parking spots needed. U.S. urban planners use Parking Generation Rates, a guidebook of statistical data from the Institution of Transportation Engineers, to source parking minimums. In these reports, the ITE define a type of land use's Parking Generation through an observational study. Parking Generation is statistically found by land use's, average generation rate, the range of generation rates, the subsequent standard deviation, and the total number of studies. To determine the parking generation rate of a building the ITE divides the peak parking observed by the floor area per 1000 square feet. This process is done by various studies to find the range. In the case of ITE studies, the observation of a single site multiple times is considered a stand-alone study. Then the average of the range is used to determine the average parking generation rate of a land use. This handbook is updated every 5 years to determine the demand for parking for specific land uses. Parking Generation Rates provided by the ITE doesn’t explicitly state what parking minimums should be, but rather is just a collection of statistical data for urban planners to interpret and use for at their own volition. Regardless, ITE's Parking Generation has been an influential factor In most North American cities in the adoption parking ratios, according to land use, to determine the minimum spots required by new developments. Parking Generation, regardless of its widespread use in North American cities, is disputed as a tool to determine parking minimums due to its questionable statistical validity. Statistical significance is a major qualm with Parking Generations due to the oversimplification of how the parking generation rate is derived. Peak parking observed by ITE doesn’t take into account the price of parking in relation to the number of parked cars. Thus the demand at any given time for parking is always high because it is oversupplied and underpriced. Thus the calculation for the parking generation rate of a land use some would argue are inflated. Adoption of parking minimums by municipalities, base on ratios from Parking Generation had a substantial effect on urban form. This can be seen in the lack of density characterized by the suburbanization of North America post-World War II. The growth of the car industry and car culture, in general, has much to do with the mass movement of the middle-class away from urban centers and exterior of the city in single family detached homes. As populations grew and density dissipated automobiles became the main mode of transportation. Thus insuring that new developments insured off-street park became a necessity. Parking minimums are also set for parallel, pull-in, or diagonal parking, depending on what types of vehicles are allowed to park in the lot or a particular section of it. Parking minimums initially took hold in the middle of the last century, as a way to ensure that traffic to new developments wouldn't use up existing spaces.