Thinking outside the box on parking

Shanghai has added 6,104 shared parking lots by the end of July, said the Shanghai Transport Commission.

Parking has long been a mind-boggling issue for many car owners, especially those who live in old residential complexes.

Since 2017, the commission has been carrying out a citywide campaign for shared parking lots. The idea is to rent out parking areas from office buildings or shopping malls to residents at night time when no customers or employees would use the parking lots.

Hongkou Bailian Shopping Mall is one of the places the commission signed up with this year. The mall has 333 parking lots, but not many people would use them when shopping at the mall.

On the other hand, there are 11 residential complexes around the mall and all have insufficient parking space. One of the complexes has only some 200 parking lots, but more than 1,000 households live there.

“The mall offers 302 of its parking lots to the residents who live nearby from 5 pm to 8 am on the next morning on workdays,” said Liu Rui from the traffic authority of Hongkou District. “The price is 500 yuan (US$70) a month.”

During the weekends, residents can park their cars in the garage of the mall for 24 hours. The price is quite cheap compared with the standardized price which the mall usually charges the other cars.