Columbia University and University of Hawai‘i Students Collect Urban Data

HONOLULU, HAWAI‘I and NEW YORK, NEW YORK - Two Twelve Principal and Columbia University Adjunct Ann Harakawa and Columbia University Adjunct Professor Kaz Sakamoto, with support from Two Twelve and a grant funded from the Ulupono Fund at Hawai‘i Community Foundation, recently led the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and University of Hawai‘i Summer Workshop called Urban Data Collection: Parking in the Ala Moana Neighborhood and Its Impact on Mobility. 

With a multidisciplinary perspective in its inaugural 2018 session, the workshop defined general principles and place-specific tools and tactics around the creation of TODs and topics spanned tactical urbanism, density, climate change, autonomous vehicles, Hawaiʻi place-based culture, and policies restricting development. Building on their mixed-methods approach to the future of transit-oriented development (TOD), Ann Harakawa and Kaz Sakamoto continue delivering their multi-disciplinary perspective to pose and begin answering the research questions of: How can technology augment parking studies for improvement in accuracy and efficiency? What are the technologies currently available and gaps in need that could be filled in the parking management industry? 

For this 2019 August session, the group led efforts to count and map on- and off-street parking in the Ala Moana neighborhood. They trained on Coord (a Sidewalk Labs spin-off) and traditional GPS methods to document parking spaces and provide the inventory data to Ulupono Initiative and the City & County of Honolulu. They and the students established a baseline of parking data to understand current inventory and infrastructure to provide information and establish the performance measurement around the impact of technology, autonomous vehicles, climate change and provide the framework for the automation of such studies.

Inspired by Donald Shoup’s revolutionary work, The High Cost of Free Parking, and its 500-page follow up, Parking and the City, parking covers an astonishing percentage of urban land area and parking inflates the cost of housing and goods because developers fold it into property costs. On- and off-street parking have largely been a responsive municipal service evidenced in Shoup’s works and their conversations with various individuals, anecdotally: “few communities have the staff time or financial resources to conduct a comprehensive review of local parking standards on a regular basis”. Without a comprehensive review of parking, municipalities and city staff are confronted with making decisions with insufficient data and information.

Ms. Harakawa and Mr. Sakamoto state: “We see a distinct opportunity to help establish the foundation for a parking inventory program that identifies how much on-street parking there is and where they are, corresponding parking spot location information (e.g., costs, operational information). From there city staff and their consultants can begin to characterize a city’s parking supply and have baseline information to make decisions. With the emergence of new technology and the immediacy of the climate change horizon, decisions at the local level can help increase citizens’ awareness of alternative options as well as set the criteria for forward-thinking parking regulations and mobility systems change.”

The output of the students’ work is an inventory of existing parking conditions, which aims to:

• Understand user needs and what types of parking information can lead to inefficiencies and will impact emissions and climate change
• Gather data on the impact to the built environment and determine what parking space optimization means for neighborhoods
• Provide baseline information, which could help define current land use and project future land use with less parking
• Create a feedback loop: creating the parameters for the shift from motor vehicles to public transportation and determine how that affects or may enact change (policy, social) within parking requirements
• Document a replicable process for others to take on and apply the methodology for future parking inventories
• Investigate parking management technologies to envision the future of parking in Honolulu

For more info on the program, visit: https://www.arch.columbia.edu/summer-workshops/29-urban-data-parking-in-the-ala-moana-neighborhood-and-its-impact-on-mobility

#ColumbiaGSAPP

Graduate student participants include:

Derek Ford (UH, MA in Geography)
Kevin Kim (GSAPP, Master of Science in Urban Planning '20)
Ri Le (GSAPP, Master of Science in Urban Planning '20)
Kendrick Leong (UH, Masters in Urban and Regional Planning '19)
Lorraine Liao (GSAPP, Master of Science in Urban Planning '20)
Tola Oniyangi (GSAPP, Master of Architecture, Master of Science in Urban Planning '20)
Qi Yang (GSAPP, Master of Architecture '20)

Experts from city government, planning, real estate, academia, and technology who shared mobility and socio-economic insights with the graduate students include and provided workshop support include:

Dana Almodova, East-West Center
Alex Beatty, City & County of Honolulu
Qi Chen, University of Hawaii
Song Choi, University of Hawaii
Chris Clark, City & County of Honolulu
Sean Connelly, University of Hawaii
Ashok Das, University of Hawaii
Priyam Das, University of Hawaii
Jeff Dinsmore, The MacNaughton Group
Kenny Durell, Coord
Mark Fukunaga, Servco Pacific Inc.
Raenette Gee, City & County of Honolulu
Peter Glus, Arcadis
Cathi Ho Schar, University of Hawaii
Chris Johnson, City & County of Honolulu
Layla M. Kilolu, University of Hawaii/East-West Center
Landis Lum
Aki Marceau, Elemental Excelerator
Jonathan Quach, University of Hawaii
Danicole Ramos, Elemental Excelerator
Race Randle, Howard Hughes Corporation
Kathleen Rooney, Ulupono Initiative
Harrison Rue, City & County of Honolulu
Michael Schuster, East-West Center
Ben Trevino, HART
Julie Yamamoto, Servco Mobility Lab Hui Car Share

About the hosts

Two Twelve is a public information design firm that develops sustainable, user-centered designs to help people understand an increasingly complicated world. Principal Ann Harakawa was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai‘i and currently resides in New York. Her island heritage and global experience gives her an added perspectives to current urban developments in Honolulu. As the host and organizer of the event, Harakawa hopes to incorporate design and conceptual thinking along with data and historical evidence to the current TOD planning of Honolulu. For more information head over to www.twotwelve.com. 

Kaz Sakamoto is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University and is also affiliated with the Civic Data Design Lab at MIT. Kaz is also from Hawai‘i.