ON THE CUTTING EDGE: Parking Space Finder

 

Parking spaces are so hard to come by in San Francisco, that drivers have been known to kill to get one (second item). In the interest of lowering the homicide rate and carbon emissions, officials will test a new system to alert drivers when and where a space has opened up, reports The New York Times:  

 

This fall, San Francisco will test 6,000 of its 24,000 metered parking spaces in the nation’s most ambitious trial of a wireless sensor network that will announce which of the spaces are free at any moment.

 

Drivers will be alerted to empty parking places either by displays on street signs, or by looking at maps on screens of their smartphones. They may even be able to pay for parking by cellphone, and add to the parking meter from their phones without returning to the car.

 

Solving the parking mess takes on special significance in San Francisco because two years ago a 19-year-old, Boris Albinder, was stabbed to death during a fight over a parking space.

 

“If the San Francisco experiment works, no one will have to murder anyone over a parking space,” said Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose work on the pricing of parking spaces and whether more spaces are good for cities has led to a revolution in ideas about relieving congestion.

 

Streetline has technology that will display open parking spaces on Web sites that can be accessed through wireless devices like smartphones. They are also developing a low-cost battery-operated street display that will be able to alert drivers to open parking spots nearby.

 

Of course, this being SF they can’t just leave things there. Streetline is building a sensor network for the city that will “monitor air quality as well as deploy noise sensors that act as sentries for everything from gunshots to car crashes,” according to The Times. “[W]hat we’re building is an operating system for the city that allows you to talk to or control all the inanimate objects out there to reduce the cost and improve quality of city services,” Streetline CEO Tod Dykstra tells the paper.

 

Soon enough, all the people will be controlled, too. 

 

Editorial Note: NYC has no plans to test the parking space alert system. Too bad, as citizens are forced to adhere to a peculiar ritual: Finding a parking space not too far from their homes on one side of the street, then finding a new parking space on the other side of the street the very next day to make way for the Department of Sanitation’s mechanical street sweepers. Since garage spaces are in such short supply that monthly fees exceed what most Americans shell out for rent or mortgage payments, NYers who don't have that kind of scratch have no choice but to comply with alternate side of the street parking regulations. For many, it’s just too much of a hassle to keep a car in the city – in case you were wondering why so many NYers don’t drive.   

Posted by The Stiletto at July 14, 2008
Categories: On The Cutting Edge
 

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