Time (December 18)
Online shopping may save individual shoppers from going out in the traffic, but overall it’s compounding traffic woes. “Our city streets and parking resources are being swamped by this new retail reality. Cities simply are not designed to handle the daily tidal wave of deliveries produced by our have-it-now online economy.”
Tags: Deliveries, Online economy, Online shopping, Parking, Reality, Retail, Streets, Swamped, Traffic
The Economist (April 8)
Most cities now waste a tremendous amount of space providing parking for cars that aren’t moving 95% of the time. This could change. “When autonomous cars that are allowed to move with nobody inside them become widespread, demand for private cars could fall sharply. Starting in the morning, one car could take a child to school, a city worker to his office, a student to her lecture, party people to a club, and a security guard to his night shift, all more cheaply than taxis. Cars that now sit idle could become much more active, which would drastically change parking needs.”
The Economist (March 24)
In China, “the desperate scramble for parking spots has been added to the problems of chronic congestion, rising petrol prices and choking pollution.” There just aren’t enough spaces. Scuffles and even protests are arising. In Beijing, things are particularly tight. With 5 million cars and only 740,000 parking spaces, the city attempted to deal with the problem by quadrupling parking fees overnight.
In China, “the desperate scramble for parking spots has been added to the problems of chronic congestion, rising petrol prices and choking pollution.” There just aren’t enough spaces. Scuffles and even protests are arising. In Beijing, things are particularly tight. With 5 million cars and only 740,000 parking spaces, the city attempted to deal with the problem by quadrupling parking fees overnight.
