Mall Parking Part 1

I just could not keep myself from finally taking up something that has to do with transportation. But I'll be discreet, there won't be much theoretical matter in this article and the succeeding ones (Yes, I intend to get another and more shots at this!). I aim to have a more practical discussion of the topic at hand.

And that topic is...parking! Not parking in the general sense or maybe the art of parking. I'll be focusing on parking facilities at the shopping malls. Quite an original idea? Well, in Metro Manila, a metropolis that is transforming itself into a Megalopolis (if it hasn't yet done so), parking has always been an issue especially at the shopping malls.


The Clairvoyant raised the topic about which malls had the best parking including the design of the ramps while I was managing a curve up a hospital's parking area. I was in the process of complementing the well-designed ramp that was spacious enough to accommodate my old car and made the observation that there where no paint marks along the walls of the ramp. This was unlike the multi-level parking facilities of typical residential, office or commercial buildings where it seemed the designers (architects?) did their best satisfying the minimum requirements of the building code. Ah yes, the building code that manual of minimums that's often used by engineers and architects alike to take advantage of the uninformed public. But that's another story...

For this series on parking, I'll start with the malls and then maybe move on to other places of interest. But what right have I to compare parking facilities if I don't have a decent list of malls I and the Clairvoyant haven't gone to ourselves. So to conclude this first of a series of n articles on parking, let me list my specimens in no particular order:
SM (North EDSA, Megamall, Fairview, Centerpoint, Manila, Podium, Mall of Asia)
Robinsons (Galleria, Metro East, Novaliches)
Ayala (Glorietta, Greenbelt, Market!Market!, TriNoMa, Bonifacio High Street)
Shangri-La
Gateway Mall
Ever Commonwealth
Greenhills/Vira Mall

Notice again that all of the above are well within the National Capital Region, the more technical term for Metro Manila. I do have a list of malls outside the Metro but I chose not to include them so as to be level in the assessment. For what it's worth, these include SM malls (San Fernando, Clark, Baguio, Bacoor, Lucena, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Cagayan De Oro and Davao); Robinsons malls (San Fernando, Bacolod, Iloilo, Cainta), Gaisano malls (Davao and Cebu), Ayala (Cebu), and the others. I also, purposely, did not include branches that have shared parking or didn't have a significant facility like SM Cubao or SM Makati. Obviously, the majority of people park elsewhere or take public transport to these malls.

Now on to Part 2...