Could a folding car solve parking problems? | BBC
Here’s a car that folds itself to fit in a smaller space. Is this going to be the solution for urban parking problems?
This App Warns You When You’re About To Get A Parking Ticket | FastCompany
Parking, in short, can be confusing. And, if you get the sign wrong, expensive. Which is why something like Park.IT—an app that tells you whether it’s safe to park, and sends you reminders when you’re time is up—could come in useful.
Electric Vehicle Charging Station #InstawalkRaleigh (Taken with instagram)
Should Building Taller Be Much, Much Easier?
In early December, the city council of Austin, Texas, adopted an exhaustive downtown plan that will guide every element of the neighborhood’s transformation over the next 25 years, from its historic preservation policies to investments in workforce housing to parking and transit infrastructure. Amid all of those potentially touchy topics, though, the loudest row grew out of one program sketched on just five pages of the full 183-page document.
via architecturelab:
San Francisco Parklets Provide New Public Waysides
San Francisco’s new parklets program is adding dozens of street-side public spaces for you to enjoy. This innovative initiative replaces parked cars with seating and landscaping, to the benefit of weary walkers and local businesses. Read more.
via untappedcities:
(via smarterplanet)
The Urban Country Bicycle Blog: Americans Work 2 Hours Each Day To Pay For Their Cars
Imagine you could work 500 hours less every year. That works out to be an extra 12.5 weeks of vacation. Alternatively, imagine you got paid for an extra 500 hours of work each year, without having to work those extra 500 hours.
via courtenaybird:
(via courtenaybird)
A silver bullet for urban traffic problems
Enter Streetline, a 30-employee company in San Francisco that creates and installs wireless sensor networks to monitor parking spaces. Each sensor uses a magnetometer to detect the presence of large metal objects nearby.
“If the sensor is within two or three feet of the car, it will register a huge increase in metal,” explains Zia Yusuf, 45, the company’s chief executive. “When the metal content suddenly drops, we know a car left.”
The sensors communicate wirelessly, signaling whether spots are occupied or vacant, gradually collecting data to reveal local parking patterns. That information allows cities to price their parking spaces according to their actual value, factoring in supply and demand as they would with any other piece of real estate.
With that data, cities can both help ease congestion and boost their meter revenue.
Streetline charges its clients a monthly usage fee of $25 to $30 per sensor. The fee covers installation, maintenance and management of the software that collects and distributes parking data. The company does not publicly disclose financial information, but Yusuf says that Streetline is now raising its second round of funding and expects to see its annual revenue rise by 75% for 2011.
“I think this technology will transform urban transportation,” says Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs.
He cautions, however, that city governments are rarely early adopters, and signing them up as clients typically involves many bureaucratic headaches.
So far Streetline has set up networks in areas including parts of Los Angeles, Roosevelt Island in New York City, the parking lots at Fort Totten Metro station in Washington, D.C., and a garage at the conference center in Salt Lake City’s Temple Square. The company has also released an iPhone application called Parker, which shows drivers how many parking spots are available on blocks within the sensor network. An Android version is in development.
Source: Wireless Sensor Networks
via smarterplanet:
Ideas for Cities: Spatially and Functionally Innovative Bicycle Parking | This Big City
The bicycle is an integral part of the sustainability strategy of many cities, but as its popularity as a mode of transport increases, so does the difficulty of accommodating it in urban areas. With this in mind, Kent-based organisation Cycle Pods have created an innovative portfolio of bicycle storage solutions, offering cities, companies, and schools a potential solution to their bike storage needs.
Their flagship product is the cyclepod. By storing bicycles in an upright manner, 8 bikes can be secured in a 2 metre diameter. Two locking points for each bicycle will satisfy the most security-conscious cyclist. A modular equivalent has also been spun-off from this product. Called the Spacepod, this variation comes in different shapes, allowing a bicycle park to be built along walls, around corners, or back to back. More suited for organisations looking to install bicycle parking for their employees, the Spacepod has many corporate users including The Guardian and KPMG.
Be a Neighborhood Hero (and Earn Some Cash) by Sharing Your Driveway
Have you ever been stuck circling the block waiting for a parking space to open up? The new ParkCirca space-sharing service might make that a thing of the past. Co-founder and CEO Chadwick Meyer told me how he was fruitlessly hunting for a space when he noticed how many private driveways had no cars in them. Why not let the driveway owners make some money from them, and save stress (and gas) for the drivers at the same time?
Via @petewarden
Full Story: ReadWrite
YouTube - Streetline Co-Winner IBM SmartCamp Silicon Valley
Streetline Co-Winner IBM SmartCamp Silicon Valley
Streetline uses sensors that allow citizens to find inexpensive parking fast while helping cities manage their parking resources more efficiently.
SmartCamp is an exclusive global program bringing together entrepreneurs, investors and experienced mentors who want to build a Smarter Planet.
SmartCamp provides access to world-class advisors plus a direct route to seed and venture capital.
http://www.streetlinenetworks.com/
