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Copyright © LK 2002 All rights reserved
Published in the Journal of the Institute of Irish Engineers under
the title "Car Parks and the Spacing of Spaces" in May 2000
Articles:
* Car Park Design - the Devil is in the Detail
* Car Park Engineering Design: Working Together for 'Win-Win' Solutions
* Turning Circles at Public Car Park Exits
* Car Park Design - An Irish Perspective
* The Vertical Challenge in Car Parks
* The Economics of Pay Car Parks
* Car Parking in Towns - A Very Big Challenge Today!
* The Economic Boom in Ireland: Parking Implications
* The Value of a Parking Space
* Cheaper parking on the way?
* Hospital Parking: Cars, Cranes and Confusion
* The Great Shopping Centre Car Park Space Hunt
* Ramps in Car Parks
Car park design in Ireland today is of a very high standard, due mostly to co-operation between engineers and car park operators. Most experienced engineers have worked on at least one project involving significant parking provision, whether
in the basement of an office or apartment building or
on the surface of a shopping-centre or business park or
in one of the 60 multi-storey car parks located around the country.
In all of these, the team will have been aware of the recommended parking space dimensions for European cars of 2.4m x 4.8m. So how can it be that a modest family saloon will frequently fail to fit into the finished parking space? The problem seems to be that design teams set out a column grid based on centre to centre distances that are multiples of 2.4m, e.g. 7.2m and then appear to forget the following:
built structural columns are usually of large cross sections - 400 x 400,
the grid layout forms the basis for the painters marking the spaces within a car park and
structural columns are frequently used as supports for vertical ventilation ducts or waste water pipes.
The built column dimensions reduce the actual space between two columns, for example, from 7.2m to 6.8m or an average of 2.27m, versus the 2.4m recommended. Figure 1
If the painting contractor follows the plans, he will lay lines along the centres of the columns. This results in two narrow spaces and one standard space in a typical grid. Figure 2
The failure of project managers to ensure that services are run down the back of structural columns rather than along the side, exacerbates this situation further. Many car parks have 300mm ventilation shafts or 150mm waste pipes, plus their protective guard-rails, intruding into the car park space. Consultants increasingly require control panels and air-conditioning units for adjacent premises be wall mounted within the car park structure. Figure 2 These panels/boxes protrude from walls and pose serious hazards to both vehicles and pedestrians moving in the affected space.
Cars are getting bigger, passenger doors are getting longer and there are more of them on the road and parking in car parks:
a Jaguar XJ8 is 4.8m long and 2.0m wide with a turning circle of 11.5m
a 230 Mercedes is 4.5m long and 1.72m wide with a turning circle of 10m+
a typical '4 x 4' is 4.7m long and 1.9m wide with a turning circle of 11m+.
The owners of these, or indeed most cars, are reluctant to 'shoe horn' their vehicles into narrow spaces for fear of damaging these valuable assets. Also, both driver and passengers must be able to safely access their modern 'chariots'.
Design teams must therefore ensure that:
no columns are located in the vehicle circulation routes,
unavoidable columns do not reduce the space available to cars, i.e. there should be a minimum of 2.4m clear between columns,
no mechanical services intrude into the parking 'cube',
turning circles of larger cars are comfortably accommodated within the design.
Car park design is a complex subject, and there are many similar issues to be discussed between the design teams and the parking professionals. Most of the larger professional car park operators will be delighted to contribute to your deliberations - but please get us involved early!
One Parting Thought:
Sqeezing that one last space out of a floor plan usually means leaving all patrons of that car park with navigation problems for the life of the building. In reality, that last space will seldom be used even in the busiest car park!
Liam Keilthy
CEO of Park Rite Limited 1994-2001.
Phone: 1-353-1-2893746 Email: Liam Keilthy
Copyright © LK 2002 All rights reserved
This article is reproduced here with the permission of the author. Copyright remains at all times with the author, and the opinions expressed are his alone.
