Parksmart is the world’s only rating system designed to advance sustainable mobility through smarter parking structure design and operation. Developed by industry experts, Parksmart offers a roadmap for new and existing parking facilities to use innovative, solutions-oriented strategies. Points are awarded to parking structures for forward-thinking and sustainable practices in three categories: management, programs and technology structure design.

Parksmart is the world’s only rating system designed to advance sustainable mobility through smarter parking structure design and operation. Developed by industry experts, Parksmart offers a roadmap for new and existing parking facilities to use innovative, solutions-oriented strategies. Points are awarded to parking structures for forward-thinking and sustainable practices in three categories: management, programs and technology structure design.

This 2011 article was originally published by The New York Times. Read the original article.

For her wedding over the weekend, Nina Johnson had worked through a predictable checklist of locations in town: hotel ballrooms, restaurant halls and catering outfits. In the end, though, she opted for the most glamorous, upscale and stylish setting she could find—a parking garage.

“When we saw it, we were in total awe,” said Ms. Johnson, 26, an art gallery director. “It’s breathtaking.”

Researchers contend that more people will move into cities in the coming years, raising the question of how our transportation systems will manage the rising populations. Approximately 70 percent of the world's population will live in a city by 2050, and "the majority of urban mobility systems simply can’t cope," according to Wilhelm Lerner, Partner for Strategy and Organization at Arthur D. Little (ADL). 

It’s clear we need to figure out better ways to get around cities, suburbs and rural areas. It’s clear that we’re going to live in a poly-fuel, multimodal future—and that means we’ll get around in a lot of different ways, using lot of different fuels. Finally, it’s clear that electric vehicles are a growing part of the future.

President Bill Destler of Rochester Institute of Technology made a case for why electric vehicles are good to drive, charge and park:

This article is adapted from one previously published on the TOD Line, a website produced by the Land Use Law Center for Sustainable Development at the Pace Law School in New York. Read the original article.

How can we better optimize our use of existing parking facilities and lots? One way is to implement a shared parking strategy in which nearby property owners who have different peak hours of parking demand share their lots with one another. 

Prior to the introduction of Parksmart certification, there was no third-party sustainability certification available to our clients for their new and existing parking garage projects. Not only were our new design clients looking for a sustainability certification alternative, but clients with existing parking garages also wanted a certification that recognized the efforts they had made toward sustainability. Parksmart certification provided the solution for both types of clients.

Smart Parking is a parking strategy that combines technology and human innovation in an effort to use as few resources as possible—such as fuel, time and space—to achieve faster, easier and denser parking of vehicles for the majority of time they remain idle.

In a large office building or mixed-use development, parking garage ventilation can represent 30 percent or more of the property’s total annual energy bill, consuming upwards of 400,000 kilowatt hours per year. In some cases, ventilating the garage consumes more energy than lighting the facility.