I can think of at least a dozen buildings in Toronto that use some form of a parking stacker system. And I am seeing firsthand how they are becoming more popular and more commonplace as a result of space constraints, rising costs, and a bunch of other factors. Below is an example of a system that allows you to (almost) triple the number of cars that can be accommodated on a given footprint. However, it does require higher floor-to-ceiling heights and a pit. If you can’t see the video below, click here.
Category: Mobility
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Look what fits in a parking lot
Brent Toderian likes to start Twitter hashtags that revolve around city building. One of his most recent is #LookWhatFitsInAParkingLot. For this one, he asked the Twittersphere to consider the things we love in cities that might fit inside a parking lot.
Here is one of the best responses — Dodger Stadium edition:
Venice, Amsterdam, and Shibuya (Tokyo) were all overlaid — at the same scale — on the surface parking surrounding Dodger Stadium. There are about 16,000 parking spaces, which actually take up more land than the stadium itself.
To be fair, I bet if you overlaid parts of Los Angeles on this same parking, it would look similarly astounding. But that shouldn’t change what you take away from this post: parking is very land consumptive.
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Mapping auto emissions in America
This morning the New York Times published what they are calling the most detailed map of auto emissions in America. In it, they remind us that transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the US today and that most of it comes from our driving habits within metro areas. See below charts.
Not surprisingly, if you look at total on-road emissions, the biggest cities — New York and Los Angeles — are at the top of the list. But you also have car-dependant regions like Dallas-Fort Worth that punch above their (population) weight in terms of total emissions.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. The story flips as soon as you adjust for population.
On a per capita basis, New York is pretty much at the bottom of the list. It is yet another reminder that one of the most sustainable ways to live is in a dense urban environment where it is possible to get around without the use of a car. New York is, of course, one of the best places in the US to do exactly that.
Charts: New York Times
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Metrolinx to further optimize the Union Pearson Express train
It was announced this week that Metrolinx will be making changes to the popular UPX train service that connects Union Station to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. This is an interesting transit story. And as someone who will be moving to the Junction (adjacent to one of the stops along the way), I have a vested interest in this announcement.
The UPX started out as a high-priced boutique train service to the airport. A one-way fare was $27.50 per person (without a PRESTO card). This was too much and I argued that here on the blog. If you looked at the math and compared it to the alternatives, such as taking an UberX, most people were not going to take this train.
The fares were ultimately dropped — by a lot — and the service then took off not only as a link to Pearson but as an inner-city commuter service. I now sometimes call it the Union-Junction Express, because the actual train ride from Union to Bloor St (at Dundas West) is about 7 minutes once you’re on the train.
The announcement this week merely solidifies the train’s evolution from high-priced boutique service (which didn’t work) to airport/commuter service (which is really working). The trains are expected to run more frequently now, some of which will continue to make the same stops as today and some of which will stop in new locations along the line.
As transit-advocate Cameron MacLeod said in the Globe and Mail yesterday, “there’s both good and bad news here.” The good news is more frequent service. Even quicker trips in some instances. And better integration with the broader GO train network. The bad news is the award-winning UPX station at Union will no longer be needed. The service is expected to move to a new platform.
Photo by Sean Thoman on Unsplash
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My life as a tram
Love them or hate them (I happen to love them), Toronto’s streetcars are part of this city’s identity. Most North American cities got rid of their streetcars around the middle of the 20th century. But Toronto didn’t. And that has left us with the largest first generation streetcar network in the Americas in terms of total track length, number of cars, and ridership. That’s something. If you’re also a fan of streetcars (or just like geeking out about cities), you may enjoy this little ode to Zürich’s tram network by Monocle. It’s called, “My life as a tram.”
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Thoughts on driving and parking
Adrian Cook’s recent blog post about parking got me thinking about a few driving-related issues. Adrian points out that most condo buildings only allow owners to rent out their parking spots to people who already live in the building. But oftentimes, that’s not the customer. The people in the market for a downtown spot are the ones who commute into the city. And so what we are seeing in many downtowns is an oversupply of parking. Municipalities need to adjust their requirements.
What I have found is that most, but not all, cities are now fairly flexible when it comes to urban parking requirements. They recognize the hypocrisy in trying to encourage alternative forms of mobility while at the same time mandating a certain number of parking spots. And so the driver is more typically the market. Empty nesters and families who buy larger suites — at least here in Toronto — still almost always want parking. And it’s a deal breaker for them. Sometimes they want 2 spots.
Of course, there are also many instances where the location and unit mix of a project can support building absolutely no parking. There are lots of examples of the market excepting this, and so my view on parking is that there needs to be flexibility. Parking is typically a loss leader. The incentives are in place to build a hell of a lot less of it. But developers build it because they have to.
Lastly, I find that discussions around car dependency tend to ignore that we have designed vast swaths of our cities to be positively inhospitable to people who aren’t driving. Adrian is right in that if you look at the modal splits for people who live in downtown Vancouver and downtown Toronto, you will find a lot less drivers. And that’s because the environment is much better suited to other forms of mobility. The solution starts with urban form.
Photo by Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
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Minimalist smart biking device
I just came across this smart biking device on Kickstarter. It is the next generation of their original SmartHalo, which did very well and is now sold in Apple Stores. The company is based in Montréal.
Here’s how it works:
I know that a lot of you are cyclists, so I figured some of you might appreciate this. It looks pretty awesome. Delivery of SmartHalo 2 is expected by December 2019.
Their Kickstarter campaign ended on July 2. The project got funded with about CAD 1.7 million from over 10,000 backers. But you can still pre-order a device, here.
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Air Canada partners with drone delivery provider
Today, Drone Delivery Canada (TSXV: FLT) — a company that I have written about before on the blog — announced that it has entered into an exclusive 10-year agreement with Air Canada. Press release, here. Globe and Mail article, here. BNN Bloomberg article, here.
As part of the agreement, Air Canada Cargo will market, sell, and promote DDC’s drone delivery services across the country using its sales and marketing platforms. It will be positioned as premium offering, and Air Canada has agreed not to engage any other drone delivery service during the term of the agreement.
This is a pretty big deal for DDC because it gives them distribution and legitimacy (they’re a pre-revenue company). And for Air Canada, it is an opportunity to be a part of “Canada’s first national drone cargo solution.” The promise is a more cost-effective solution for servicing remote communities.
DDC plans to build out and operate up to 150,000 drone delivery routes across Canada as a result of this partnership. But, of course, it remains to be seen just how profitable these routes will be when they begin servicing their low-density communities.
Full disclosure: I am long $FLT because I think that what they are trying to build is very interesting and I think that better connectivity will be a positive thing for remote communities within Canada.
Photo by Ethan McArthur on Unsplash
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Public perception of drone delivery
Back in 2016, the United States Postal Service published a report on the public perception of drone delivery in the US. This was nearly 3 years after Jeff Bezos announced on 60 Minutes that Amazon was working on a drone delivery service and that it would arrive within the next 5 years (so by 2019). I think USPS was trying to figure out how to be, or appear, more innovative.
Not surprisingly, the report found that Millennials were significantly more supportive of drone delivery (65%) compared to Baby Boomers (24%), who strongly dislike the idea. Generally, the report indicates that the percentage of people who think it’s a good idea declines with every preceding or older generation. Again, I don’t find this at all surprising.
But what I did find interesting was that, irrespective of age, respondents were primarily concerned with some sort of “malfunction.” This was at the top of the list. Next in line were concerns around “intentional misuse,” such as drones being used to transport illicit goods or to spy on people and/or property.
Closer to the bottom of the list was a concern that drone delivery “might make the sky less pleasant to look at.” My own view is that visual clutter and noise pollution are critical problems to address here. There’s talk of “drone highways in the sky”, but how do you really manage the sheer volume of drones that would be needed to service a dense urban environment?
Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash
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The taxi medallion bubble
In 1937, New York created taxi medallions as a way of dealing with the sheer volume of unlicensed cabs in the city. About 12,000 were initially sold. They cost $10. And you needed one, fastened to your car, in order to operate a taxi service.
In 2002, the price of a medallion had risen to about $200,000, though its value had been fairly stable since about 1995. Below is a graph from a recent NY Times investigation on taxi medallions. At their peak, in and around 2014, they were worth over $1 million.
The common narrative is that ride sharing services simply killed the value of medallions. They disrupted the taxi business. While it is certainly true that mobile apps have forever changed the way we navigate our cities, the above investigation by the NY Times has revealed something potentially more impactful:
The medallion bubble burst in late 2014. Uber and Lyft may have hastened the crisis, but virtually all of the hundreds of industry veterans interviewed for this article, including many lenders, said inflated prices and risky lending practices would have caused a collapse even if ride-hailing had never been invented.
At the market’s height, medallion buyers were typically earning about $5,000 a month and paying about $4,500 to their loans, according to an analysis by The Times of city data and loan documents. Many owners could make their payments only by refinancing when medallion values increased, which was unsustainable, some loan officers said.
So at the same time that Uber was being vilified in the media for destroying the taxi business, the industry itself was working to manipulate medallion prices and shill unaffordable debt onto new immigrants. An interesting read from the NY Times.