There’s a piece in The Atlantic on parking garages, covering the state of the art from compact, automated garages to garages outfitted with green roofs and wind turbines:
“The initial response is, ‘Green parking—isn’t that an oxymoron?’ ” says Paul Wessel, executive director of the New Haven-based Green Parking Council, which in June released its Green Garage Certification Standard, modeled on the LEED program for green buildings. But once we admit that parking isn’t going away, he says, we might as well figure out how to make it more efficient and less harmful.
We’d probably see more of this kind of innovation if we didn’t mandate that developers include parking in their buildings.
I’d like to see a mini parking garage every couple blocks in single-family neighborhoods to replace individual garages. It’s not realistic because existing houses all have garages and one house would have to be bulldozed to make room for the lot, and in new neighborhoods I doubt it would attract enough buyers. But if we had built neighborhoods that way from the beginning, homeowners would have more flexibility in designing their house and yard, and they wouldn’t need as large a lot fo the same living space. Of course, it would preclude house designs with bedrooms over the garage, but overall I think the flexibility would be worth it. It would also improve the family’s health not to have gas fumes coming into the house.