What’s the deal with tight parking spaces?

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – More cities are grappling with a problem many of you see every day: parking spaces seem tighter than ever. One of our viewers wants to know Why do parking spaces feel smaller?

If you think the parking spaces at your local store are tighter than last year’s jeans, you’re not wrong. But the parking spaces are not getting smaller.

The University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute has tracked the growth of the average American car. The width increased from 5 feet 8 inches in 2013 to 6 feet 8 inches wide ten years later. And that’s just the car.

If you look at what’s left in that parking space with this newer, wider car (see video), you’re down to 11 inches on each side. And only if you park your car perfectly. As you know, pickup trucks are bigger. Sometimes it’s much bigger.

“There is no question that these vehicles cause a lot of problems in communities. I mean, it was a big topic of conversation,” said assistant professor Evan Iacobucci of Missouri State University. “And like I just said, I think there are different ways we can think about it. One is, let’s just consider the sizes. Let’s make everything bigger.”

In larger cities, parking spaces in parking garages could be reallocated and higher fees could be charged for larger vehicles in larger parking lots. Suburban areas may explore other options such as larger parking spaces. These larger tickets cost money and you still pay at the counter looks like free parking.

Additional costs apply for wider, higher and heavier vehicles. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that pedestrian fatalities have increased as the nose shape and height of hoods have increased.

“We found that larger vehicles are more likely to kill pedestrians in accidents,” said Wen Hu, senior research transportation engineer. “We hope these study results motivate you to do something to improve pedestrian safety on the roads.”

Back to the viewer’s question about parking spaces: Why do parking spaces feel smaller? The University of Michigan and the Insurance Institute conducted research and concluded that cars and trucks are getting bigger. And this makes the parking spaces feel smaller.

Tomorrow (October 24th) at 5:30 p.m. we will share our interviews on this topic on our streaming app. You can also find out about other possible solutions that researchers and planners have in mind. You can find our streaming app on ROKU and many other places.

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