Evaluation of shared use park and ride Impact on properties

A Summary of the Final report of a research conducted by Prof Francis WambalabaShared use park and ride typically involves property owners making their parking lots available to commuters for parking personal vehicles so that they can access public transit or use a carpool/vanpool to travel to their final destinations. However, the benefits of shared use park and ride facilities located at commercial retail centers have not been widely documented. Transit agencies usually perceive shared use park and ride arrangements as mutually beneficial to the transit agency, through savings in land and development costs, and to the park and ride parking lot providers, through increases in customer sales and customer base. However, potential shared use park and ride providers often feel that allowing shared use park and ride on their property may not be cost beneficial. The objections include that allowing park and ride service will create problems such as increased liability, vandalism, and litter, and that it will result in the use of parking spaces by park and ride commuters instead of by potential shoppers (i.e., that commuters using the parking lot will use parking spaces that might otherwise have been used by potential customers). Very little research has been done in this area since the early 1980s