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Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

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Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#201

Post by dagw »

adrianN wrote: post #196
dagw wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a lot of people need to get to work at 8, but normal working hours start at different times for different people The other factor is school. While I can show up at work, more less, whenever I want, my daughter has be at school by 8.10 at the latest, as does everybody else's kids. If we don't add flexibility to school starting times times then, to many people, it won't matter what sort of flexibility they have wi…

So, have self-driving minibuses that can pick up ~10 kids and ferry all of them to school.

Children are straight up evil, so you're still going to need a supervising adult on each minibus to keep them from murdering each other.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#202

Post by CalRobert »

userbinator wrote: post #116
JDDunn9 wrote: post #98

This topic is discussed at length in the book, "Green Metropolis". It's part of a bigger issue of always putting cars first. You can't build a large building without first doing a traffic study. If you bring too much traffic, you can't build it. Never mind that traffic is about the only cost in America that you can increase to make public transportation more appealing. Generally U.S. building codes include a maximum…

I don't think that many people actually want higher population densities.

Well, if you get to share unsourced anecdata allow me to point out that I moved a third of the way around the world because I wanted to live in a city that was

* something resembling affordable (though it still ain't cheap)

* not auto-dependent.

Maybe you're just surrounding yourself with people who have expressed a preference for low density via their actions?

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#203

Post by closeparen »

oblio wrote: post #191
closeparen wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. have significantly higher commute times (including by public transit) than less dense cities. New York's subway riders have it particularly bad, spending an average of 7.5 hours per week on the trains [0]. This is despite those cities having some of the best transit systems in the country [1]. I'm aware of the finding that lower commute times are associated with happiness,…

But is driving the same as being in public transport? You can read a book, watch a video, and in general not pay attention to your surroundings (more or less). Meanwhile driving in traffic is half boring, half stressful.

Getting a seat is absolutely not the norm during commute hours. Two transit systems I use (BART and CTA) are actually migrating rolling stock to designs with fewer seats to free up more standing room.

Unless you board at the beginning of the line and show up well before departure, you're going to be standing. Likely pressed up against strangers, holding the overhead rail, trying to keep balanced while the operator does his best to knock you over with violent throttle and brake inputs. On rare, blissful occasions I'll get some wall to lean on. Usually stuck in the center.

I have tried to read this way, but it doesn't work well. It's hard to find a nook where there's enough space in front of me to hold a book. The one handed book grasp is awkward, and I always seem to choose the wrong moment to take my other hand off the rail to turn a page.

You can wear headphones, same as you can listen to the the radio while driving.

I wish I could not pay attention to my surroundings; that's pretty hard when in a hot stuffy smelly claustrophobic space trying my hardest not to make physical contact with strangers' bodies.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#204

Post by CalRobert »

closeparen wrote: post #156
JDDunn9 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, we are seeing a return towards urbanisation globally, which is a positive trends, since it's a vital component for curbing global warming. Residents of NYC use 1/3 as much electricity as their suburban counterparts, use a tiny fraction of the carbon emissions on transportation, and produce less garbage. All without convincing New Yorkers to recycle or drive electric cars. Environmental responsibility is bak…

Residents of NYC pay $3000/mo for 1-bedroom apartments, while their suburban counterparts pay $1000/mo for 3-bedroom houses. You could buy quite a few solar panels and lease several electric cars for less than it would take to move to NYC.

If my kid gets run over by a car while cycling to school I don't really car whether the car was electric or not.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#205

Post by CalRobert »

briandear wrote: post #195
mantas wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My city don't have trams but there was a political push to build them. However, bus routes were upgraded instead. Result is better than trams IMO. Some key points we do: - Popular buses run ever 5-ish minutes during peak times - Some buses have extension and cary a crapload of people. - Problematic spots have bus-only lanes. What is better than tram: - Buses that share only a bit of the route can use those lanes too…

Why should a taxi get to use a bus lane? That's essentially a single person car with a chauffeur. How is a taxi-driven car more worthy than someone else's car?

I live in a city where taxis can use the bus lane.

Pros - similar to an express lane (HOV free, single-occupant vehicles pay a toll) it's handy when you're the one who's running late and REALLY need to get somewhere quick.

Cons - Buses deal with taxi congestion, cyclists deal with maniacal taxi drivers.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#206

Post by CalRobert »

sfifs wrote: post #176
6t6t6t6 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid that you are comparing pears and oranges. If you want to be fair, compare American cities with European cities. In Barcelona or the center of Copenhagen, there are not free parking spaces. And I can assure you that there are not the traffic issues that you are mentioning in your comment... It's quite on the contrary, actually.

Well if you want to compare that way to the cities mentioned in the list, the only appropriate comparisons in Europe are London and Paris which definitely have parking, traffic and pollution issues (or had till they started banning vehicles in the center of the cities). Paris even considered banning diesel altogether contrary to the rest of Europe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_agglomerations_by_po... Barce…

Parking and traffic issues aren't issues if you're not driving, and most people in those places aren't.

I mean, flying a helicopter around the city sounds like great fun but that doesn't mean everyone else should be forced to build places for me to store said helicopter.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#207

Post by CalRobert »

wvenable wrote: post #9
grapehut wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not arguing against free parking, just against regulations that require certain amounts of parking to be built

Unfortunately insufficient parking is also a big issues; one in which these regulations are an attempt to solve. One could prevent less parking to be built but that would put more pressure on public roads. If you've ever been to an area with insufficient parking, it's pretty horrible. More so for people with cars but it affects those without cars as well.

" If you've ever been to an area with insufficient parking, it's pretty horrible."

So are places with excess parking. Do you _enjoy_ sauntering through your local big-box shopping center's acres upon acres of parking?

Also, if parking is so valuable why is it free? Charge market rate for the land and let people build parking on it if the market will pay. If the market doesn't pay, maybe they don't want the parking that bad after all.

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#208

Post by seszett »

bsznjyewgd wrote: post #77
djsumdog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we wouldn't see things as being nearly this bad if all American cities didn't rip out their tram networks. Every city I've lived in, even small ones with ~100k people, use to have Streetcars. Today, cities like Cincinnati struggle to get a tiny segment put in. Trams carry a ton more people than buses. People are more likely to ride them too. If American cities hadn't given in to GM and Ford and kept streetcar…

I don't really get why trams are better than buses. Do they really carry a ton more people than buses? Why are people more likely to ride them? Buses come in short/long/articulated/double-decker sizes and don't need to be on rails or require overhead electrical lines. The only argument I can think of is that you get a smoother ride and no need to burn fuel with a tram. (I've only ridden the trams in one city, and the…

I would add that an advantage of tram is that they actually stop at each stop, so you can take an unfamiliar line without fear of getting lost after missing your stop.

They also usually run much more frequently than buses, and don't suffer from delays due to traffic or traffic lights (or not as much).

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#209

Post by CalRobert »

hackuser wrote: post #113
skrap wrote: post #46

My city just passed a bond measure which includes $36MM for a 300 space parking garage for the high school and city hall, literally meters from where a new light rail stop will be built. 25% of the city's families don't own a car. I have trouble not seeing this as a forced, direct subsidy for the lifestyle of the employees of the city. And this is supposedly one of the most transit-friendly cities around (in the US).…

A reasonable concern, but a few thoughts: * Increasing use of public transit benefits everyone, including by reducing greenhouse gas emissions * Almost everything government does benefits some citizens more than others. Police help some more than others; some make more use of the water system, fire department, the courts, health care, other forms of transit, Social Security, etc. I want my society to provide those se…

"Increasing use of public transit benefits everyone, including by reducing greenhouse gas emissions"

Which would be a good reason to put housing and amenities near the station instead of parking...

Re: Poor people pay for parking even when they can’t afford a car

#210

Post by briandear »

paganel wrote: post #192
mschuetz wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do! I'm from Austria/Vienna and I love our high density cityscapes. There is no need for a car in cities since you can get anywhere with public transport. I usually use my bike, though, which has a huge part of the city within 20 minutes driving distance. In comparison, when I was working in Santa Clara, CA, there was virtually nothing within 20 minutes and the public transport was next to useless. I'm also not a f…

> There is no need for a car in cities since you can get anywhere with public transport Visiting Vienna some time ago was the first time when I realized that if I ever were to move to another city from the one I'm currently living in (a capital city in Eastern Europe) that city would need to have a decent tramway network, just like Vienna does (trolley-buses also count). Relying only on cars or Diesel-hungry buses fo…

Vienna is definitely an outlier in terms of awesome. It's one of the more "perfect" cities in terms of size and connectivity. I might argue that Zurich is right up with it. However, Paris is overrated in terms of transport -- summer on the RER or the metro is rather close to hell in my book. No air conditioning and sardine-like UX. Good luck if you have to go shopping, you had better go during off hours or you'll be unable to get your stuff on the train. But then again "off-hours" doesn't really exist in Paris since aside from stores in designated tourist zones, shops are required by law to close by 7pm. I think Berlin does a pretty good and London seems to manage the sprawl of the city rather well.

For non-European cities, Seoul is one of my favorites. Extremely extensive subway, though admittedly during rush hour, it's positively insane. But you never have to walk more that 200 meters to get anywhere it seems.

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