Transportation

Florida city considers fully automated garages

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January 10, 2022

Motorists in Boca Raton, Florida may soon be parking their vehicles in garages that work like giant vending machines, according to a South Florida Sun Sentinel report.

The motorist drives up to the entrance, pushes a few buttons into a keypad or smartphone app and mechanical devices move the car to a spot within the garage. When ready to pick up the car, the motorist goes back to the keypad or pulls up their app, presses some buttons and the machine returns the car.

The automated garages have no driving lanes, saving guests time and reducing car crashes and carbon dioxide emissions.

The garages also take up less space than conventional parking garages.

The city's planning and zoning board approved rules to allow the automated garages in an area near Palmetto Park Road and U.S. 1 near Mizner Park.

The proposed rules allow three types of mechanical parking units:

• Individual mechanical lifts: One mechanical space stacked above another in two levels operated by an attendant and not part of a larger automated parking system.
• Mechanical parking, lifts or platforms: A semi-automated mechanism raises vehicles vertically to provide space to park more vehicles below. This includes safety gates and a code activated switch, but not an attendant.
• Fully automated parking: A computerized system uses a combination of devices like shuttles, hoists, turntables or elevators to move unoccupied vehicles to separate storage areas.

One planned downtown residential development includes an automated garage.

Aletto Square, if approved, would open in 2024 and include the first automated garage in Boca Raton.

The first automated garage in Florida was approved in Fort Lauderdale in 2005. Two systems existed previously in the U.S.; one in Hoboken, New Jersey, and in Washington, D.C.

Hybrid models have existed in New York City for nearly two decades.