parking design considerations

PARKING DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
Aesthetically pleasing and functional parking areas that fulfill the needs and requirements of the users should be the primary goal of the designer. A well-defined design process will greatly increase the probability of creating parking areas that satisfy this goal. The parking study may include the following items:
• Inventory of total parking spaces within a specific area
• Analysis of specific problems such as poor location or
deficiency of visitor or reserved parking areas and
employee parking
• Determination of parking duration and turnover rates
• Identifying access difficulties and poor pavement or
plant material condition
• Refuse collection or service access requirements
Siting
To most people, the ideal parking space is a few steps from their home or office door. The designer must look at a number of concerns to logically, efficiently, and economically site parking areas. Some of these include:
• Integrating adequate parking spaces with surrounding
facilities and existing circulation patterns
• Locating parking areas convenient to building
entrances
• Using topography and trees to mitigate negative visual
impacts
• Separating customer and employee parking areas
• Preserving sight lines to entries and significant
landscape and architectural features
• Minimizing negative impacts to the natural
environment such as unnecessarily removing mature
vegetation or degrading soil stability
• Preserving and integrating existing mature trees in
future parking


Orientation

To create safe and convenient parking areas, the orientation and configuration of the parking area must be considered early in the siting process.
• Align rows of parking spaces perpendicular to the facility
minimizing the number of pedestrian aisle crossings
• Provide access points and crosswalks from parking areas
to facility entries

User walking distance

Long term users, such as employees, will generally accept longer walking distances from parking areas to their workplace. Short term users such as customers or visitors expect shorter walking distances. Parking spaces for a specific facility should not be more than 75 meters from the facility entrance.

General planning and design

Some common parking area planning and design guidelines are:
• Use 36 square meters per vehicle (includes entry,
circulation, and parking spaces) as a typical planning and
cost estimating factor
• Minimize parking area entrance and exit curb cuts
• Locate separate visitor and reserved parking at the front
entry of the facility
• Eliminate dead-end parking areas
• Locate entrances and exits away from busy intersections
• Locate aisles and rows of parking parallel to the long
dimension of the site with parking on each side of an aisle
• Use rectangular parking areas to minimize land area
requirement
Grading and drainage
Parking areas must be properly sloped and drained to take care
of runoff. Apply the following minimums:
• Ideal slope for all parking area pavements is 2%
• Longitudinal pavement slope should be between 1%-5%
• Pavement cross slope should be between 1%-10%
• Storm water should be collected on the perimeter of
parking areas with a minimum of 2% slope along concrete
curb and gutter

Parking Area Types

Off-street
Off-street parking is the most common and accepted method of
satisfying facility parking needs. In many cases, these areas are
developed as one large mass parking area. The result is often an
installation dotted with huge expanses of asphalt with little
consideration of the negative visual impacts. When siting offstreet
parking areas, the designer should consider:
• Creating multiple smaller parking areas rather than one
large mass
• Integrating planted islands to increase aesthetics
• Minimize extensive grading operations by designing to the
topography
• Ensuring a distance of at least 15 meters is provided from
proposed parking area entrances and exits to intersections
• Minimizing the number of entrances and exits


On-street

• Permit only parallel parking
• Maintain a minimum distance of 15 meters from on-street
parking spaces to intersections and off-street parking area
entrances
• Break up long lines of vehicles with occasional planting
island projections if appropriate
• Ensure streets maintain required traffic-carrying
capacities and provide safe vehicular and pedestrian
passage

Geometry

Parking areas take on many configurations. Parking spaces may be parallel, perpendicular, or angled (30, 45, or 60 degree) to the driving lane, or aisle. A common factor among these various parking layouts is the size of the parking space. The minimum standard automobile parking space should be 6 meters long and
2.75 meters wide. Aisle widths vary based on the angle chosen and if they are one- or two-way. Two-way aisles should be a minimum of 7 meters wide.

The area required by each parking configuration will vary. As a general rule of thumb, the closer to perpendicular, the more vehicles can be parked per linear meter. Perpendicular, or 90 degree parking, accommodates 82 vehicles per 100 linear meters versus just less than 40 vehicles for 30 degree. A summary of the dimensions and attributes of the parking area configurations is provided in the Appendix. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the various parking configurations are addressed in the following paragraphs.

Parallel
For the designer, the parallel parking configuration can be used where suitable off-street parking cannot be accommodated or is not practical. For the driver, parallel parking requires experience, confidence, and patience.
Parking spaces should be a minimum of 7.5 meters long and at least 2.75 meters wide. On-street parallel parking spaces should be 3.35 meters wide.

Advantages
• Works well in extremely narrow, linear spaces
• Requires minimum pavement area
Disadvantages
• Difficult maneuvering for most drivers
• Less than ideal visibility of adjacent traffic
• Inefficient use of on-street space

Perpendicular
 Especially effective in low turnover rate or long term parking areas, the perpendicular, or 90 degree parking configuration is the most efficient and economical since it accommodates the most vehicles per linear meter. Standard dimensions for this configuration are:
Advantages
• Works well with either one- or two-way aisles
• Handles the most vehicles per square meter of pavement
• Handles most vehicles per linear meter
Disadvantages
• Requires widest area
• Difficult maneuvering for some drivers
• Two-way traffic can create some visibility problems

Angled - 60 Degree
This parking area configuration is ideal for a fast turnover rate or predominantly short term use. This is often offset by difficulties of inefficient circulation patterns and one-way aisles. Standard dimensions for this configuration are:
Advantages
• Easy maneuvering in and out of parking spaces
• Good visibility
• Lends itself to either one-or two-way aisles
• Most common short term parking configuration
Disadvantages
• Requires more pavement per vehicle than perpendicular
configuration
• Handles less vehicles per linear meter