Parallel Parking - Road Infrastructure

Road Infrastructure

Roads that facilitate parallel parking have an extra lane or a large shoulder for parked cars. It is also employed whenever parking facilities are not available—usually in large metropolitan areas where there is a high density of vehicles and few (or restricted) accommodations such as multi-storey car parks.

Many jurisdictions restrict parallel parking during rush hour, freeing up an extra traffic lane. Historically, metered parallel parking had individual meters for each parking spot with spots clearly marked on the road. Some jurisdictions have eliminated individual spots allowing shorter vehicles to use less space. Individual meters are then also replaced with a centralized parking ticket machine.

Beyond taking up a lane of traffic, on-street parking further reduces road capacity as remaining traffic slows to interact with cars moving in and out of parallel parking spaces, car doors opening and pedestrians.