November 16, 2012

• Why don’t we get rid of parallel parking?

  JDN 2456247 EDT 18:08.

   

  I think I hate parallel parking more than most people, given that I’m terrible at it and I have dented cars doing it on a few occasions. But I don’t know anyone who likes parallel parking, or prefers it to perpendicular or angled parking. So why do we have it?
  Most people probably think it’s because we can fit more parking on a given section of road that way. It turns out this is not the case. It seems that way because you’re using both sides of the road; but you are using both sides of the road very inefficiently. Perpendicular parking is actually the most space-efficient, and angled parking’s improved convenience outweighs the small loss in space efficiency it produces.

  Why? Because you need less space on the side of your car when parked perpendicularly (or angled) that you do in front and behind in order to park parallel. A typical space is about twice as long as it is wide, so a street that has parallel parking on both sides could be converted to angled parking on one side without losing any spaces. Converted to perpendicular parking, it could actually gain a couple of spaces, but at the price of making parking quite difficult. Hence, on balance, angled parking makes the most sense.

  This would reduce congestion in cities, because it is much faster for most people to park in an angled space than a parallel space, and hence the road will be blocked for less time by people moving in and out of parking spaces. The only significant downside I can see is the initial cost of implementing the new system, which could be minimized by making the change during normal maintenance and resurfacing of the road. Another minor problem is that it will only be possible to park while driving in one direction; but this no problem at all on one-way streets and not a very serious one on two-way streets.

   

  • 12:01 pm
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