the future of parking?
 

pretty damned cool

When I was in Tokyo a few years ago, I saw plenty of parking lots that had parking on multiple levels that were accessible by lifts. But nothing even close to this. As cities become space constrained I can see how this system will be considered even though its cost has to be high. Better have a back up power generator, however. :)

I don't recall if it was one of Jet's threads or if he and I just posted automated parking garages in another thread....but to get to my point, this one is way better than other ones I've seen.

It took me about a minute-and-a-half in watching the above flash video to realize they, were, in fact, speaking English (I don't where the German-speaking was, but I though I heard it).

More to the point proposed by BadNick, indeed, we did discuss it recently:

Well I don't know about all this parking stuff but I'll have me some of that girl in the green sweater! :thumbsup:

Seems like a great idea actually, although I'd hope that get all the kinks worked out before it goes into use everywhere...imagine the headache it would cause if one of these things had a massive failure. I wonder how much it would cost to outfit an entire city with something like this?

sounds like a good concept, how does affect stability of the topsoil during earthquake conditions? instead of dirt you've got like 400 cars

I second this.


My truck would never fit under those low ceilings.


And when something breaks (and something WILL break; they've never built anything that is "unbreakable") all those cars may as well be on the moon. I'll park a block away and walk, thank you.

I live in Japan (not Tokyo) and these are everywhere, except here they are mostly above-ground towers. At most new condo and apartment complexes, there are individual two-level lifts, that either leave one car above or below ground. One family, two cars, one "space", effectively. If you only have one car, you can rent your other space to someone who lives nearby. It saves a boatload of time, the spaces are big enough that you don't have to worry about fit (very few vehicles here won't clear the height-length-width parameters), and the security is great. No door-dings, thefts, etc. It's a good way to go!

Shit, I forgot something in my car.

My thoughts, exactly...