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5 Things That Will Impact the Parking & Mobility Industry from a Planning, Design, and Construction Perspective
The parking and mobility industry are evolving at a rapid pace, and public agencies, municipalities, and parking owners and operators are depending on their consultants to help them navigate. Planning, design, and construction professionals are innovating and creating solutions for the newfound challenges that accompany this rapid evolution.
What do these professionals see as the most impactful trends or areas of focus as parking and mobility progresses? We asked leaders in planning, design, and construction and here are five things they think will have the most impact in the coming years. For more insights from our consultant members, check out our Ask the Experts column.
1 Electric Vehicles. That would have to be the push to move to electric vehicles and all the infrastructure that comes with it. EV sales are trending up, and federal subsidies will further drive that. At all levels of government, initiatives, and rulemaking to accommodate EVs and EV charging will shape how we plan and design parking facilities and systems for the foreseeable future.
—Rob McConnell, PE, SE, LEED Green Associate,
Vice President,WGI Parking & Restoration Group
2 Environmental Sustainability. Over the next five years environmental sustainability will continue to impact how we plan, design, and construct parking facilities. Parksmart strategies will become even more important and be prioritized in the garage development process. And the increased demand for electric vehicle charging stations within our parking facilities for both customers and fleets will make us think differently about where we prioritize our dollars in the design process. Parking practitioners who lean into sustainable practices will be successful in the future.
—Robert Ferrin, CAPP, Senior Project Manager, Kimley-Horn
3 Changing Demand. One very prominent impact our industry will experience over the next five years will be the changes to work habits, commuting, and parking demand brought on by the pandemic, many of which appear to be lasting. Many central business districts with heavy concentrations of office workers are still seeing low office vacancies and low parking demand. Cities and parking operators need to continue to rely on data to understand parking demand and preferences to right-size parking supply and provide permit and parking options that meet changing needs.
—Kevin White, CAPP, AICP, Parking & Mobility Consultant, Walker Consultants
4 Cost Controls. Due to the increases in construction costs, labor shortages, and lead times, compounded by the new code impacts related to the adoption of IBC 2021, controlling the costs of structured parking will be of upmost importance. Parking professionals must focus on developing functionally efficient and cost-effective designs. In addition, must employ strategies to maximize economic feasibility, which includes right sizing, sharing, integrating revenue producing components, and taking advantage of recent incentives for sustainability initiatives.
—Todd J. Helmer, PE, SE, CEO, THA Consulting
5 Project Delivery Methods. We will see many design and construction professionals leverage innovative approaches to project delivery. Integrated Project Delivery has been a trend we are seeing for healthcare projects where the owner, builder and designers share in a risk/reward partnership to foster innovation on projects that have critical “speed to market” requirements without sacrificing quality and standard of care.
Additionally, design and construction professionals are leveraging an integrated approach to the design of a project with the use of higher fidelity fabrication ready design models to develop an integrated digital platform married with the builder’s expertise to find and solve challenges much earlier in the project resulting in a higher quality product for the owner.
—Brian J. Lozano, PE, PMP, Principal, National Director
Parking Consulting Services, Walter P Moore
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