The Daily Journal of Commerce is reporting on the first project in Portland that will employ parking “lifts”, a technology that lets you elevate one car, so you can park another one underneath.
Here’s a site for a German vendor offering the same technology.
8 responses to “Bunk Beds for Cars”
This is not a new technology in Portland. New to you, maybe. There have been parking garages with these lift systems, as turn of the last century warehouses were converted to parking facilities. I suppose if you were in a dire hurry you might not get your car as soon as you wanted, but I think most people had no problem with them.
Ron –
I think you are referring to the automated garages that stored many cars… I seem to remember from my childhood that there was one in the vicinity of the current Galleria smart-park garage.
The article is referring to a different animal: Individual lifts which fit within a single stall to allow two cars to be stored in the place normally occupied by one, alleviating the need to dig ever-deeper underground to store cars for condos.
– Bob R.
Reducing the cost of excavation would be a step forward. I have wondered, though, if a relatively deep foundation would give a condo building better stability in a major seismic event. Or, as an alternative, maybe such buildings could be linked together underground, such as with reinforced concrete beams, so that they would hold together as a unit in a quake.
I admire the condos but I wonder just what would happen in a big one. Would the glass shatter? People’s instincts are to run outside of a building in a quake. Would brick come loose? If the building ends up tilted even slightly it is probably not going to be usable. Basalt is generally regarded as stable, but, maybe, only against slides. It is found fractured naturally so I think a lot of shaking could (but rarely) break up basalt, too. And the Willamette river bottom is regarded as pretty fluid material.
So, car lifts. The article does say they need more headroom. Will it invite even more cars? Or is there simply a lack of spaces, already, in our new condo projects?
I swear I recently saw a picture of a multi-level lot in Portland…And after looking, I found it again at the Historic Photo Archive. (There’s a lot of other interesting photos there, too)
These lifts have been in Nawlins’ (New ORleans) for decades. I’m surprised that PDX is just getting them.
But then of course, Portland couldn’t build its own Streetcars either.
I am really amazed and somewhat shocked sometimes that such a “progressive” city as Portland is often times far behind on simple technologies that much of the country has already taken for granted.
“I am really amazed and somewhat shocked sometimes that such a “progressive” city as Portland is often times far behind on simple technologies that much of the country has already taken for granted.”
True. Making yourself look like an innovator is one way politicians keep their jobs. Maybe we will build the streetcars here (what happened to that idea?) I would hope that doing so could improve the cost effectiveness of that system. I think eventually nanotech would start winding the costs down.
what happened to that idea?
The request for bids for construction of the domestic Streetcar has been let. Responses are due shortly.
The lifts: Maybe some communities in the commuter rail network should look at these lifts as a way for park and ride station to use less valuable land. Like LO, maybe. Looks like they would be much cheaper than parking garages. They could even have a roof (metal or, for LO, handsplit slate tiles) to keep moisture and ice out.) They could even be dismantled and moved somewhere else. Built from recycled steel. Create a job…