When Zoo parking lots become obsolete?

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oca2073

Active Member
Suppose autonomous driving becomes a thing in the next 10 years. Suddenly all these zoo parking lots won't be needed anymore. For many landlocked zoos with limited space, this will be a serious opportunity for expansion.

Which zoos in your opinion have the greatest potential should this occur? I'm talking about space constrained zoos with no room to expand and who are forced to keep a sizeable parking lot who could use that extra space to seriously address weaknesses and outdated enclosures.

For one thing, San Diego Zoo could expand by 20 acres of prime flat land which will allow them to build a whole new African savannah area. I can think US zoos mostly rely on personal transportation and have massive parking lots even in urban areas. But even European zoos typically have like a 4 acre parking lot even when the zoo itself is fairly small such as Artis from what I remember.
 
birdsandbats said:
Why would autonomous driving make parking lots obsolete? Don't all the cars still need a place to go when no onw is driving them?
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You have to be kidding me. When autonomous driving happens, people can literally get off near the zoo and have their car drive back home or to a parking lot elsewhere where there's more spacious land or they can catch a robotaxi that will look for the next paying passenger. Basically most of the very precious zoo land now devoted to housing visitor private vehicles for hours on end will not be needed anymore.
 
oca2073 said:
You have to be kidding me. When autonomous driving happens, people can literally get off near the zoo and have their car drive back home or to a parking lot elsewhere where there's more spacious land or they can catch a robotaxi that will look for the next paying passenger. Basically most of the very precious zoo land now devoted to housing visitor private vehicles for hours on end will not be needed anymore.
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b-and-b is correct. Autonomous driving is already here with Teslas and what not. That may make parking lots safer as AI drives the car instead of more error prone humans, but the cars are still occupying the same spaces. The personal vehicle is not going away, and the need for the lot is not going away.

The trend that may achieve what you are imagining is building large parking multi-story garages that then open up space for zoos to expand into former parking lots. This idea has been proposed for San Diego Zoo, Fresno Zoo, LA Zoo, Smithsonian National Zoo, and probably others. Isn't this how Cincy Zoo got the space to build their new elephant exhibit?

The challenge there is that building large parking garages is very expensive and they are aesthetically challenging, so actually building them does not happen.
 
DavidBrown said:
b-and-b is correct. Autonomous driving is already here with Teslas and what not. That may make parking lots safer as AI drives the car instead of more error prone humans, but the cars are still occupying the same spaces. The personal vehicle is not going away, and the need for the lot is not going away.

The trend that may achieve what you are imagining is building large parking multi-story garages that then open up space for zoos to expand into former parking lots. This idea has been proposed for San Diego Zoo, Fresno Zoo, LA Zoo, Smithsonian National Zoo, and probably others. Isn't this how Cincy Zoo got the space to build their new elephant exhibit?

The challenge there is that building large parking garages is very expensive and they are aesthetically challenging, so actually building them does not happen.
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Look, I don't want to turn this thread into a tech page about the possibilities of automated driving but suffice to say Tesla is nowhere near right now as they require a driver to be alert at all times to intervene and the system is prone to errors. But most people do think it's plausible perhaps 10+ years down the road and I'm assuming at some time in the future, cars will be able to drive themselves.
 
oca2073 said:
Look, I don't want to turn this thread into a tech page about the possibilities of automated driving but suffice to say Tesla is nowhere near right now as they require a driver to be alert at all times to intervene and the system is prone to errors. But most people do think it's plausible perhaps 10+ years down the road and I'm assuming at some time in the future, cars will be able to drive themselves.
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What you are stating that is fundamentally wrong is that there will no longer be a need for parking lots with self-driving cars. People will still come to zoos in their own vehicles just as they do now. Nothing will change whether humans are driving the cars or not.

The answer to the question posed in your thread title is that zoo parking lots will not become obsolete. However, there is recognition in several zoo master plans (including the San Diego Zoo example you cite) that zoo acreage could be expanded into adjacent parking lots if alternative parking solutions could be found. The only answer that I have seen is to build vertical multi-story parking structures to replace the lots. I am not aware of any zoo actually doing this beyond proposing it. Maybe there are examples.
 
oca2073 said:
You have to be kidding me. When autonomous driving happens, people can literally get off near the zoo and have their car drive back home or to a parking lot elsewhere where there's more spacious land or they can catch a robotaxi that will look for the next paying passenger. Basically most of the very precious zoo land now devoted to housing visitor private vehicles for hours on end will not be needed anymore.
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In your dreams.
What you describe is basically public transit with 4 times the traffic, might even be made to work if cars travelled on rails and not on roads.
 
Self-driving autonomous cars on the level you are describing are not happening in 10 years. The technology is just not even close to there yet. And even when it does get there, adoption of said technology will take a long time before it becomes worth it to design infrastructure around it.

As others mentioned, the best solution right now for space-starved zoos is to build multi-story parking garages, which allow more parking spaces on a smaller plot of land. However, zoos proposing these ideas may also need to redesign their entrances in order to feasibly repurpose the space freed up from the parking garages. And that costs a pretty penny.
 
oca2073 said:
When autonomous driving happens, people can literally get off near the zoo and have their car drive back home or to a parking lot elsewhere where there's more spacious land
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The irony being this would waste twice as much fuel or charge because the car taking itself home would be doing double the distance instead of sitting in a parking lot. Also, what happens if there's an emergency? In the event of animal escape, natural disaster, or some other incident - you'd have hundreds of people stuck without a car. That creates a lot of potential problems.
That's also resting on the assumption the cars can successfully make it there and back with no input, I've been screwed with enough times by GPS trying to take me routes that didn't exist yet or that were not good routes to go. I've heard some areas with a lot of autonomous vehicles are having issues with their navigation and their lack of ability to avoid places they shouldn't be.
 
Most of my life I read news that self-driving cars will just-just become common within few years. But I am not holding breath anymore.

Strange thread. For example, even if a really reliable self-driving car would someday be built, most cars would still be old models, and remain so for a decade or longer.

I wonder if anybody seen or remembers the scene where a robo-nanny, very similar to C3PO, swings a child on a swing, from the old Australian TV series Beyond 2000? If sapient robots become common, THIS would make visiting much better for children! No negotiations with parents who want to go somewhere else, no problem that it is too far or too dangerous for a child to go alone - a robo-nanny can take you anywhere.
 
Chlidonias said:
I was going to make a joke about "no no, the car will drive itself home again" ... but then that was the actual reply :D
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Here is some recent research on the impact of self-driving cars.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856421002822#sec6

Results show that travelers consider parking at home or cruising instead of parking at parking lots if they have to pay anything for parking. The case study of downtown Toronto shows that AVs would travel on average 12 min to access a parking lot. Also, the self parking capability of AVs enables them to travel up to 40 min to park in a cheaper parking lot, and makes expensive parking lots economically unsustainable.

Meaning if space-constrained zoos charge lots for parking (which they often do), no one will park there.
 
oca2073 said:
The case study of downtown Toronto shows that AVs would travel on average 12 min to access a parking lot.
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Yeah - they're still requiring a parking lot so why not just have your car handy?

oca2073 said:
Also, the self parking capability of AVs enables them to travel up to 40 min to park in a cheaper parking lot, and makes expensive parking lots economically unsustainable.
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Yeah - wasting twice the energy and then your car is neither handy if you need something or potentially ready when you're ready.
Personally, for how much the charging costs would be, I'm absolutely would not be about to send my car driving an extra 20-40 minutes for absolutely no good reason.
 
oca2073 said:
Suppose autonomous driving becomes a thing in the next 10 years.
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More like 25 - 50 years. All it will take is a couple of high profile accidents involving autonomous cars and all development will be set back decades. It's a lawyer's dream - because once you go autonomous, it is no longer the "average driver" who is responsible, it is a mega-corporation who will likely settle cases quietly rather than allow the negative publicity to be aired through the courts.

We are a very long way from full autonomous driving - especially the type where the car gets "sent home".

Those car parks will be there for a long time yet.
 
I would like to nominate this thread now for "The most quickly derailed from the original intention 2023" award.......!
 
GaryA said:
I would like to nominate this thread now for "The most quickly derailed from the original intention 2023" award.......!
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I think the entire premise of the thread is flawed - based on an assumption that we will at some point in the near future be able to repurpose zoo carparks to expand their holdings. I just don't think it will happen - not even if we get the flying cars we've been promised for over 100 years now.
 
DavidBrown said:
The answer to the question posed in your thread title is that zoo parking lots will not become obsolete. However, there is recognition in several zoo master plans (including the San Diego Zoo example you cite) that zoo acreage could be expanded into adjacent parking lots if alternative parking solutions could be found. The only answer that I have seen is to build vertical multi-story parking structures to replace the lots. I am not aware of any zoo actually doing this beyond proposing it. Maybe there are examples.
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While not a zoo, the Boston Commons has a great idea when it comes to alternative parking solutions. The parking garage is located underground, with the commons above it. While I'd assume this would be rather expensive to build, if a wealthy zoo wanted to it'd be a great way to save on space by allowing exhibits and/or visitor amenities above the parking garage, which wouldn't have the ugly aesthetics of a visible building.
 
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