I am wanting to go with paralle parking in front of the buildings in my downtown scene and would like to get your thoughts on the size of the parking spaces. I measured some of the larger viehicles on the layout and decided that around 3’’ long and about 1 1/4’’ wide, does this seem about right to you?
Also, how are the spaces marked off on the streets? Could this be a simple rectangle or something more complicated? Another question, I would like to install parking meeters and not sure where to find them. I have done a search at the Walthers web page and haven’t found much.
I’m not sure but wouldn’t painted parking places only be appropriate for metered parking. I have been considering the same thing for the smaller of the two towns on my layout but my thinking is that free parking downtown might be more appropriate in a town of this size. In the larger city, there will be metered parking and painted spaces but right now I am working on the smaller town.
You can have parking lines without meters. The town I used to live in was that way. One side of the street had parallel parking, with white lines ruled from the curb to one car-width away. Curbs were painted yellow where parking wasn’t allowed, such as near fire hydrants or corners. There was a tendency to extend the yellow paint an inch or so, yearly. Fortunately, I left before it ate the parking spot at my corner.
The other side of the street had diagonal parking, which is REALLY typical of a small town or city. It would have been on both sides, but the street wasn’t wide enough.
I tend to associate diagonal parking on streets very strongly with the midwest, somewhat less with the East, where the streets tend to be narrower. Our modeled streets often have the same problem, but if you’ve got room, I’d consider adding some diagonal parking.
In my area parallel parking spaces don’t seem to be marked off at all in residential areas or downtown districts except by the placement of the parking meters. Then we have bylaws specifying the maximum distance from the meter that your car is allowed to be located.
In most of the smaller towns the main street business sector is set up for angle parking and in some places the lines are painted on the streets.
Parking meters is one thing I have not seen yet. I’ll look around and if I find anything I’ll post it.
Thanks for the thoughts and help. I am modeling in HO and decided to go with paralle parking downtown to save some space. I am modeling in about the mid to late '70’s and around here there were still some parking meeters and I just thought it would be another way the city government officials gould get some more of your money. Mike
A parking space that is 18’ x 9’ generally represents a praking space perpendicular to the drive line. The normal parrallel space in this area is 22’ long by 9’ wide. This may vary in other parts of the country.
Not sure what scale you are in, but if your modeling HO your size seems a little on the large size for a city like San Francisco. We typically do not have any street markings for parallel parking other than the ubiqutous and very expensive parking meters. Try $0.25 for 10 mintues.
Yes, the ebay link I posted is for Selly parking meters. There is a picture of sorts there. Walthers would probably be a better source in the long run though.
A little may depend on your era. Seems to me each spot used to have a line all the way around it in the 50’s, now a dividing line between the spaces with a short line two to three feed long forming a T with the outer end, last one it just makes and L back toward the space. Don’t think there was any yellow used in the 50’s either, not sure when that started.
Our city is taking out the parking meters and installing ticket dispensers, one per block. The idea is to park, go to the dispenser, pay, get a ticket, go back to your car and put it on the dash. The excuse is that way they can track which blocks have the heaviest useage (I guess the dispensers keep track of how many tickets are issued). One city councillor interviewed on the news remarked that by not having predetermined parking spaces defined by the distance between meters, they can get in at least one more vehicle per block. Anything to get more money into the city coffers! I can just see parking and coming back to find the vehicles in front of me and behind me have squeezed in one foot from my bumpers making it impossible to get out! At least this way you can model a single post with a box about a foot square and 2 feet high on it. And don’t forget to put little tickets on the dashboards.