Park and Rides

Park and Ride
Parking lots designed to allow vehicle owners to park at a common site and maximize the use of public transit, vanpools and carpools.

A park and ride facility offers a safe, convenient location for commuters to leave their automobiles and travel to their destination in carpools, vanpools or buses. Park and ride facilities reduce the total number of vehicle miles of travel and improve air quality. A park and ride facility can offer a transit provider convenient access to a large number of patrons without going to the added operating expense and time of circulating buses through residential neighborhoods.

Park and ride lots can provide the following benefits:

Park and ride facilities may range in scope from several reserved parking spaces within a commercial or institutional parking lot to a facility of 500 or more parking spaces. The facilities may include:

The size of the parking lot is dependent on the design volume, the available land area, and the size and number of other parking lots in the area.

Park and Ride Lot
Park & Ride at US 202 and Paoli Pike in West Goshen Township.

Park and ride lots come in different forms including:

Chester County's recently adopted Public Transportation Plan recommends implementation of the 'New Commuter Service Model' to address not only roadway congestion, but also service gaps and new service requests in the existing public transportation system. These new commuter services would begin as: a carpool originating from one of the park & ride locations; a group of people working at one of the county's major employment centers; or, any combination thereof. As the numbers of riders/participants increase, carpools would then evolve into a vanpool, and eventually into an express bus service.

Park and Ride Lots

Recommendations

Develop additional park and rides within Chester County. There are seven existing park & ride facilities located near major interchanges throughout the county as represented by letters a-g on the exhibit below.

Park and Ride Facilities

Proposed facilities (as indicated by letters h-q) in the exhibit above should be developed through the land development process and/or shared use arrangements with existing commercial centers.

Similar to bus shelters, the maintenance of park & ride lots is an existing barrier to the expansion of these facilities. Presently, PennDOT will develop park and ride lots but is reluctant to accept the maintenance responsibilities. Resolution of this issue is critical to the expansion of the park & ride network as envisioned by the Public Transportation Plan.

Considerations for new park and rides include:

References

Aerial photo of Quakertown Park and Ride located nearest the I-476 Northeast Extension/PA 663 intersection in Bucks County, PA.

View a PDF of this Design Element.

View a PDF of the entire Multi-Modal Handbook.