Fast Company, December 2013

choi

(1) Skylar Bergl, The Rise of Robo-Parking; How Automation’s high-tech garage could eliminate one of life’s annoyances.
http://www.fastcompany.com/30213 ... ise-of-robo-parking
(“Its [Automation’s] automated parking-garage system (no searching, no attendants!) is already in use at three smaller New York locations, parking more than 350,000 cars with zero errors; it plans to open a 700-space car lot under a public park in Brooklyn, in 2016, which will house 250,000 cars a year”)

Note:
(a) The figures of 350,000 and 250,000 are cumulative, not a snapshot of any given moment. See (b)(ii)(A) below.

(b) In the company’s website:
(i) How-to Demo. Automation Parking Systems, undated.
http://www.automotionparking.com/how_to.php
(ii) Click "Projects" in the top horizontal bar, and you will see
(A) two sites in Manhattan are in operation: Baxter Street (capacity: 100 cars) and 24th Street (53 cars)
(B) 3 future sites in Brooklyn: 275 Seabreeze Avenue, 20 Grand Street and 100 Wyckoff Avenue.

I read the concept before (thinking it will be underground), which is now a reality (on the ground). But I was not too far-off. See next.

(c) Automation to operate a 697-car underground garage in a new public park in downtown Brooklyn called Willoughby Square Park. See

Julie Satow, Buried Garage to Help Pay for New Park in Brooklyn. New York Times, July 10, 2013.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/1 ... -brooklyn.html?_r=0

Quote:

(i) “After renewing efforts three years ago, the city has finally struck a deal with the Willoughby Operating Company for the joint park and garage project. The Willoughby Operating Company, an affiliate of the American Development Group, will lease the city-owned land. It will use $6 million from city capital, the city’s Economic Development Corporation and private contributions from surrounding developers to construct the park.

“The Willoughby Operating Company has also agreed to pay for any cost overruns and to finance the excavation and development of the garage. It hired Automotion Parking Systems, which has a principal in common with the American Development Group, to build and run the garage.

(ii) “The excavation is costly and complex; several buildings need to be protected, and the subways run just four feet from the property line. But Automotion uses limited ramps and driving lanes, significantly reducing the space that must be excavated, the company says. In addition, the machinery that racks its cars can pack more vehicles into a smaller space than a traditional underground lot, increasing efficiency. ‘While digging and excavation is expensive, we will be able to eliminate 1.4 million cubic yards because of our technology, which makes the project financially feasible.’

(iii) “Automotion’s equipment costs roughly $25,000 a vehicle, which rises to $50,000 to $60,000 a car when the excavation costs are included, Mr [Ari] Milstein[,executive director of Automotion Parking Systems,]  said. To build a conventional garage beneath Willoughby Square would run closer to $90,000 for each car, he said.

* There is no need to read the rest of the NY TImes report.   

choi

(2) Adam Minter, Your iPhone’s Afterlife; The secret to China’s booming Electronic-waste recycling business: clever (and highly profitable) reuse.
http://www.fastcompany.com/30213 ... -iphones-after-life
(“It's night when we enter Guiyu [广东省汕头市潮阳区 贵屿镇; “China's biggest and most notorious e-waste recycling zone”], driving over a short, arched bridge that rises over a dark canal that separates it from Puning 广东省揭阳市 普宁市, a dense city of 1.5 million that is one of China's latest boomtowns. * * * [Middlemen] sending electronic scrap from Foshan to Guiyu. From Guiyu, it goes back to Shenzhen and is remade into new electronics. It's the common path trod by electronic scrap from the developed world to China. Increasingly, it's also what happens to the growing flood of electronic scrap generated by the Chinese too”)