Park and ride
From Free net encyclopedia
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Park and ride terminals are public transport stations that allow commuters to leave their personal vehicles in a parking lot and transfer to a bus, rail system (usually light rail or commuter rail) or carpool for the rest of their trip. The vehicle is stored in the lot during the day and retrieved when the commuter returns. Park and rides are generally located in the suburbs of metropolitan areas or on the outer edges of large cities.
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Partly because of the concentration of riders, these terminals often have express transit service, with a limited number of stops and possibly taking a faster route if available. The service may only take passengers in one direction in the morning (typically toward a central business district) and in the opposite direction in the evening, with a typically limited number of trips available in the middle of the day. Overall, these attributes vary from region to region; it is often not allowed to park at these locations overnight.
Park and ride lots allow commuters to avoid the stress of driving a congested part their journey and/or facing scarce, expensive downtown parking. It is hoped that the lots will reduce both of these problems by making it easier for people to take the bus or train into town. Sometimes, even these lots become too busy, and people sometimes organize to carpool to the station to combat crowding.
As of 2005, Norwich has the biggest Park & Ride in the UK, operating from six separate sites around the city.
Image:ParkAndRideOxford20050129 CopyrightKaihsuTai.JPG Some railway stations are promoted as a park and ride facility for a distant town, for instance Liskeard railway station for Looe, and Lelant Saltings railway station for St Ives, both in Cornwall, England. These train services are generally less frequent than would be expected of a Park and ride bus service.
In the United States it is common for outlying rail stations to include automobile parking, often hundreds of spaces. Boston, for example, has built several large parking facilities at its commuter rail and metro stations near major highways around the periphery of the city: Alewife, Braintree, Quincy Adams, Riverside, Route 128, Wellington, Woburn. The local transit operator, the MBTA, has almost 46000 park and ride spaces.
Kiss and ride
Image:KissandRideAtAlewife.agr.jpg Many train stations with good road connections include a separate area where cars can discharge passengers in the morning and pick them up in the evening, allowing the driver, often a spouse and possibly after a kiss, to quickly return to the highway.
Controversy
Park and ride systems are not without their critics, who observe that whatever their effects on congestion, they do little to reduce some forms of air pollution, as automobiles produce the most pollution shortly after they're started (the catalytic converter is ineffective until it is heated). However emission of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, is not reduced by the catalytic converter and is proportional to fuel consumption, and hence distance traveled.
Park and rides are ideally suited for zero emission vehicles, which often have reduced range. In addition, some transit operators use park and ride facilities to encourage more efficient driving practices by reserving parking spaces for low emission designs, high occupancy vehicles, or car sharing.[[cs:P+R]] de:Park-and-Ride fr:Parking-relais nl:P&R ja:パークアンドライド fi:Liityntäpysäköinti