PARKING OVERSUPPLY IN EAST HARLEM: AN ANALYSIS OF PARKING OCCUPANCY AND MODE USAGE AT EAST RIVER PLAZA IN NEW YORK CITY

摘要

East River Plaza is a recently constructed mall in the East Harlem section of Manhattan. Thedevelopment contains big box stores including Target, Costco, and Best Buy along with a 1,248space parking garage. This paper evaluates the assumptions and methodology of the analysisdetermining the large parking supply, measures current parking usage, and determines modalsplits through an intercept survey. The project's Environmental Impact Statement assumed 67%to 68% of all trips arriving to East River Plaza would be by automobile. Parking accumulationwas calculated using parking studies conducted at Home Depots in the Bronx, Queens, and PortChester, NY and a Costco in Staten Island, all of which are less dense and have higher vehicletrip rates and vehicle ownership rates. These calculations resulted in a peak parkingaccumulation of 1,190 vehicles for a Saturday afternoon. Actual parking occupancyobservations revealed only 371 vehicles (34% occupancy) on a Tuesday afternoon in lateNovember, and 426 vehicles (39% occupancy) on a Saturday afternoon in December. Theintercept survey revealed 48% and 37% of respondents arrived by foot and 27% and 33% droveon Tuesday and Saturday, respectively. Thus, the parking supplied has resulted in anunderutilized land use and lost opportunity for additional development. Future big boxdevelopments in dense urban areas should not use suburban models for auto trip generation andparking accumulation and instead consider the provision of trips being made by walking andpublic transportation, reducing the need for unnecessary parking.