January 30, 2007
Robotic Parking Lots Coming Soon
Cities are scenes for epic sci-fi battles. The MTA’s Robo-train has now met its first galactic rival: Robo-lot. This month the city will spawn its first robotic parking garage at 123 Baxter St. in Chinatown, a completely automated system allowing drivers to park their vehicles on a platform that transports it to an underground facility storing up to 67 vehicles. That this parking lot requires no parking attendant makes us feeble humans scratch our mortal heads.
But does it work? And how does it work? While this technology has been used in other countries, the only other robotic garage in the US led to trapped and dropped vehicles. But Robotic Parking (see website for how it works), the company who built the garage, stated that the accidents were due to malfunctions that were ignored by maintenance staff. (Human error!) Another company, Automotion Parking Systems, stated that in the 11 years of operating this technology, only one car has been damaged. APS, which has the Chinatown garage, will be charging around $400 a month.
As for how it works, the AP explains that after a driver leaves the car on a pallet, "The pallet is then lowered into the innards of the garage, and transported to a vacant parking space by a computer-controlled contraption similar to an elevator that also runs sideways." Sideways elevators - where are those?
In a city with a scarcity of space, going further underground makes sense. But, as in most sci-fi battles, will it leave citizens running and screaming? With all the recent news of dangerous and crowded streets, will a generation of Robo-lots lurking beneath the city’s surface bring even more cars? Many argue that more streets bring more cars, but does the same apply for parking spaces?
The rise of Robo-lot raises as many fears and doubts as the controversial Robo-train. The automation of the 21st Century city is no easy task, but it’s inevitable. Now…if we could only have conveyor belt sidewalks.
Photos of robotic parking lot by AP/Kathy Willens
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No problem. Next, robot cars. In 25 years there will be special left lanes reserved for them.
Oh yes, forgot to mention, in addition to a left lane for robot cars, a car-to-car wifi net that measures traffic throughput.
wow! it's times like these that I thank god I'm rich! Poor people will be like "robot parking? I need food!" hahhahha
Ah yes, Baxter street. Exactly where I'd want to spend a million bucks on a condo...
I loved WNBC's story about this yesterday. It noted that the robo-garage in Hoboken only had three malfunctions since opening in 2002: the time that it dropped a Cadillac Deville six stories, the time it dropped a Jeep four stories, and the time when no one was able to get their car out for 26 hours. Works for me!
"Ah yes, Baxter street. Exactly where I'd want to spend a million bucks on a condo..."
That location had me scratching my head a bit too.
Bet this is more of a novelty than anything else. Bet the Electric bill really add to the Overhead.
no more xie xie mr. roboto.
On the bright side, $400/month isn't that bad. Still -- the noise, the smell... hmm.
More parking causing more traffic? Hardly. With rates at $400 a month the only thing causing more traffic is Goldman Sachs' bonuses and hedge fund money. And as you walk the various neighborhoods of Manhattan take a glance into the garages: almost 75% of the cars are European imports. Time to stop blaming Bush for the decline of the dollar.
when the people weren't able to get their cars for 26 hours in Hoboken: that was because of a dispute over who was running the lot, the company running it took the software with them when they left and the court had to step in to force the return of the software.
I saw one of these in an apartment building in Taiwan 5 years ago, it was great. You swipe a card at a reader, and whirr clunk whirr bam! the door opens and your car is ready to drive away. It even rotated your car so you never have to back in or out of the space.
I remember wondering why we didn't have them in New York yet. I guess we do now.
Yeah, it's $400/month now...Just you wait about a year...
$400 ?! Shouldn't this stupid thing lower costs? I call bullshit. Fuck $400.
$400 comes out to $13.33 a day. Find me a lot in the Chinatown/Little Italy area that charges $13 a DAY -- regardless if you're driving a car OR a SUV (most, if not all, charge more if you've got a SUV/minivan/etc). You also forget that it probably costs more to maintain something like this -- software, more electricity, initial cost, etc.
$400 for INDOOR parking is not that bad in this city.
You get peace of mind, that's worth something.
Say a repossessor comes, he can't get your car in the middle of the night.
Janeeeee! Stop this crazy thing!!
Well, if you didn't need to pay $400 for parking space, maybe you could pay off that loan, and no repoman would come in the middle of the night for your car...