Beijing-parking-ITDP-China

additional pollution without violating ambientair quality norms. The city has long been investingin public transit while decreasing private caraccess and every development within the city is300 meters away from a transit stop. For all landuses exempt from the parking cap, such as privateresidential developments, a mobility plan can besubmitted to the Mobility Management department.For example, landlords can include a transitpass as part of an apartment lease and build bikeparking to avoid fulfilling the parking requirements.These policies have helped making Zurichone of the most livable cities in Europe.Formulating a parking capThe general idea of a parking cap is to influenceindividual travel behavior in a way that favorsnon-driving modes, which must be done inconjunction with improvements to transit infrastructureas well as biking and walking facilities.An individual will contemplate travel preferencesbased on factors such as cost, time, comfort, safetyand attractiveness.Any strategy that is intended to affect tripchoice needs to be targeted at changing individualtraveling preferences. Establishing a parking capis important to limit car traffic but not to the pointwhere the area economy suffers from a decrease inaccess to destinations. The proposed approach forestablishing a parking cap is based on mode splitgoals, which can be set in two ways:●●Freeze Approach: This method, implementedin Zurich, Hamburg and Copenhagen anddescribed earlier, freezes the existing parkingsupply and no longer allows additional parkingsupply, unless other on-street or off-streetparking spaces are to be cancelled. A gradualreduction in the number of parking spacescan be used to lower car trips over time. Thisapproach is useful for built-up areas and areasthat need to be protected from more increasingcar travel.●●Modal split approach: This method uses thedesired modal split for an area and uses trafficmodels, based on surveys of existing traffic.It entails setting an ambitious target aimed ata modal split favored to public transport andNMT, rather than car traffic. Too high a carmodal split value generates higher congestion,makes the environment less livable andrequires more land for a parking, low-valueland use. Too low a car modal split value mayhamper the area from functioning and threatensits competitiveness, especially in areaswhere few high quality alternatives are available.Using traffic models, the desired modalsplit is then translated into car trips and parkingsupply for different buildings. This can beused to formulate the parking maximums fornew buildings. This approach can be used forboth existing and new development areas.In both approaches access to alternative trafficmodes such as public transport, walking andbiking are needed to accommodate modal shiftaway from cars.In Beijing, parking supply caps were alreadystipulated in the Beijing TransportationDevelopment Program 2004-2020, written by theCommunication Commission in 2005. The citygovernment, in cooperation with the districts,needs to freeze the parking supply in congested,central areas and define modal split targets foreach of Beijing’s areas, based on factors such asroad capacity, desired vehicle volumes and speeds,public transport access, accepted levels of pollution,density and number of jobs. Especially forcentral areas that are to be protected and wherecongestion is currently problematic, modal splitsfavoring public transport and NMT are needed.Beijing’s OD traffic model can be used to compareexisting and desired modal split and to calculateparking caps and maximums for each area.Existing parking supply can then be reviewed andspaces removed, starting with setbacks, on-streetand publicly operated off-street buildings. Parkingmaximums for new developments are then to beset for each area as well. Detailed studies for eacharea are needed.7.4 Private, residentialparkingThis type of parking constitutes of parking garagesor on-ground parking lots on the residentialdevelopment’s premises. If Beijing’s latest policy instimulating parking supply in residential areas isproceeded, this will lead to increased car ownershipand car use, putting even more pressure onthe city’s road system. As the surveys in chapter3 show, additional off-street parking will onlysit empty if on-street parking is not managedBeijing Parking, ITDP-China 1491 March 2015