Friday, March 30, 2012

1065 Empty Parking Spaces at Riverside during Peak Business Hours

I counted them by eye, Friday AM, 10:15-10:45.

Here's the breakdown:

MBTA Lot: 490 Empty spaces
Riverside Center: 441 Empty spaces
Indigo Hotel: 134 Empty spaces (and only 72 occupied, for a dismal 35% occupancy).

Another way to look at this: 192,000 square feet of wasted space (actually, worse: 192,000 sq. ft of impervious urban heat island).



The gate is wide open to "visitors" - zero incentive for people to use transit.

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Parking Glut at Riverside

Here was the scene at Riverside today (Thursday) at 10:15AM - when we expect maximum weekday commuter parking.
And here is empty parking in the parking garage at Riverside Center, at 10:10AM on a weekday. I counted about 150 unoccupied parking spaces. The gates in this garage were wide open - unregulated, free parking, and they still don't fill the lot. I wonder how many park-and-riders are sneaking in here.

These photos made me realize, in planning for the pending Riverside Development, we need to do homework: obtain parking data from the MBTA and the office park to analyze just how much parking is really used/needed now, and in the future. It looks like we have an oversupply.

(lest you think I am cherry picking, below are a few more views:



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