An attractive, properly maintained parking lot plays a vital role in keeping your customers, tenants, employees, and guests happy. However, experienced asphalt companies know that a great parking lot starts with an effective design. There is no single design that is ideal for every parking lot. Instead, your contractor will consider several factors before presenting you with the best design for your specific parking lot.
What Factors Do Asphalt Contractors Evaluate When Designing a Parking Lot?
When building or reconstructing a parking lot, the first thing that contractors must consider is the lot’s purpose. A parking lot that must support a great deal of truck traffic, for example, will need a thicker pavement than one that supports only passenger vehicles. When striping contractors design a parking lot layout, they typically evaluate all the elements that go into ensuring that vehicle and pedestrian traffic can flow in a safe, efficient manner without unduly compromising the number of spaces available or violating any local or federal regulations.
1. The angle of parking can affect the number of spaces that you can offer in your parking lot. Parking spaces with an angle of 90 degrees allow you to offer more spaces, but head-in spaces can be more difficult for drivers, making them better for employee parking or other types of lots where vehicles remain parked for long periods of time. Parking lots with a high turnover, including pharmacies and grocery stores, often feature parking spaces with angles between 45 and 60 degrees. Regardless of the angle, the parking lot striping should clearly define the boundaries of each parking space.
2. The desired flow of traffic through the parking lot is another factor that the contractor you select to perform your asphalt striping and marking will consider. Two-way traffic aisles usually allow better utilization of space, and they also help prevent bottlenecks.
3. Your contractor will also need to determine the number and placement of accessible parking spaces. The type of business you operate can impact the number of van-accessible and car-accessible spaces you need, but virtually all businesses must have at least one handicapped parking space. Accessible spaces must include pavement striping to identify the adjacent access aisles as well as permanent signs to mark the space as reserved for handicapped parking.
4. The contractor must determine the best way to mark crosswalks, traffic arrows, and other safety and control features. All pavement markings should be highly visible, easily identifiable, and long-lasting. Thermoplastic line striping and pavement markings can be an ideal solution to satisfy all three of these requirements.
5. An effective parking lot design must include the removal of barriers that impede accessibility or place property features at risk. For example, an accessible route cannot contain curbs or other obstructions, while low-hanging branches or other obstacles could encourage pedestrians to detour through your landscaped areas and damage them.
6. You can choose to add certain features at the time of construction or at a later date. For example, speed bumps can help prevent drivers from speeding through your parking lot, car stops can help drivers determine their position within the parking spaces and prevent damage to buildings or landscaping, and adequate lighting can enhance safety for both drivers and pedestrians.
At Alpha Paving Industries, we can design, build, and maintain your asphalt parking lot. Our menu of asphalt services includes commercial asphalt paving, milling, asphalt overlays, crack repair, asphalt sealcoating, thermoplastic markings, and pothole repair. We also offer speed bump installations, road construction, parking lot striping, car stop installations and parking lot signs, and we install and repair concrete. We are a well-respected company with impeccable references and a client base that includes many retailers, municipalities, airports, health care facilities, subdivisions, churches, educational institutions, and apartment complexes. If you need a free quote from an experienced, reputable company, fill out our online form or call 512-677-9001.
