When most people think of parking garages, they don’t immediately think “green.”
After all, these are places where gasoline consuming vehicles are parked, right?
At InterPark, we don’t have a large green logo just because we like the color. We
have that logo because we are different than other garages. Advances in technology,
customer demands, and our own innovation have lead to some cool new ways that we
can minimize our environmental impacts and support our customers in making environmentally
conscientious parking decisions.
How do we offer our customers greener parking choices? Let us count the ways.
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The first is electric.
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We keep two electric car chargers at each of our 12 participating Chicago properties.
We also reserve separate racks for bicycles and separate parking spaces for motorcycles,
scooters, mopeds, and other lower emission vehicles.
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The second is illuminating.
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Because the modern world is 24/7, not just 9-5, and the people who park in our garages
could be there at 3 p.m. or 3 a.m., we have implemented lighting solutions that
keep our garages vibrantly lit – while reducing energy consumption. Without getting
too technical, some of the ways we’ve reduced our consumption of electricity is
by utilizing energy efficient florescent fixtures, which are not impacted by seasonal
temperature changes, in many of our garages - and provide superior lighting levels
compared to other conventional lighting systems.
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The third is in our "roots".
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Some of our flat lots have 4-foot long gardens separating sidewalks from the lot’s
surface blacktop. And we've added landscaped roofs and hanging planters at a number
of our multi-level parking structures which team up to keep our facilities cooler
by absorbing heat and light energy. And they also help eliminate that “exhaust smell”
common in most parking structures.
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The fourth is community.
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At InterPark, we want to make it easy for environmentally conscious people to have
choices. That is why we incorporated I-GO car sharing and made sure we had Zipcar
locations in many of our parking structures. Research shows that using shared-car
services saves 32 million gallons of crude - or 219 gallons per driver. And each
shared vehicle takes 15 to 20 personally-owned vehicles off the road as long as
it is in use.
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The fifth is dedication.
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At InterPark, no matter how small the step – like offering paperless bill pay for
our monthly patrons – or large – like partnering with conscientious real estate
developers to add eco-friendly features to parking garages in their eco-friendly
real estate developments, we make it a priority to help people take care of the
planet.
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