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Many drivers have no place to park their cars. In response to this problem, Beijing's transportation department has carried out reforms and innovations. Over the past five years, the city has accumulated more than 60,000 paid staggered shared parking spaces. This has not only alleviated the urgent needs of citizens, but also provided inspiration for urban governance.

Parking difficulties are a common problem in big cities. At present, Beijing has more than 7.5 million motor vehicles, and the shortage of parking spaces is even more obvious. In old residential areas, there are frequent battles for parking spaces, and some people even lock their parking spaces to occupy them; around large hospitals, long queues of cars form every day, and the slow movement leads to regional traffic jams... The contradiction between supply and demand of parking spaces reduces the actual experience of owning a car and sometimes causes conflicts and frictions.

Tight resource balance is a reality, and how to improve resource utilization efficiency has become the key. In recent years, grassroots organizations have begun various explorations, especially this year, government departments have included paid staggered shared parking into the "monthly question" to focus on promoting and "solving problems". Following the idea of ​​mutual exchange, a number of mature experiences have emerged. For example, the parking demand in public places such as office buildings has obvious tidal characteristics, which can form a mutual match with surrounding residents; enterprises and institutions often have supporting parking lots, and encouraging qualified "open doors" is conducive to achieving a win-win situation. All these cases show that when faced with thorny problems, there are always more solutions than difficulties.

Although the current 60,000 parking spaces are not enough to completely "quench the thirst", they at least represent a direction. The key to continuing to expand resources is to reduce the friction coefficient. This may be the safety concerns of some units, the hidden dangers of parking overtime, etc. We hope that relevant departments will further improve the supporting mechanism and continue to consolidate the consensus of "parking in place, parking payment, leaving when the time is up, and illegal parking will be punished", so that time-limited parking spaces can play a greater role.

From a broader perspective, parking difficulties are just one of the constraints of life, and similar sharing ideas can be used flexibly. When some citizens are troubled by the lack of exercise venues, can schools and sports venues be opened as much as possible? When some elderly people are troubled by the inconvenience of dining, can catering services be introduced to the vacant venues in the community? By taking inventory of resources and connecting resources from a holistic perspective, the convenience of urban life will surely continue to improve.

As society progresses, people's demands for life are rising. This means that our cities will be loaded with more and more functions, and resources will eventually have a limit, so we must rely on the optimization of governance capabilities to meet people's needs. Taking a step forward, learning from past experiences and applying them to other situations, and revitalizing "sleeping" resources according to local conditions, the city will become more and more livable.

Source: Beijing Daily Client | Commentator Cui Wenjia

Process Editor: Ma Xiaoshuang