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Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

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Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#131

Post by ghaff »

0_____0 wrote: post #98
eertami wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's more convenient to walk to the grocery, gym, bar, friends' houses, it really makes you wonder what you're spending all that money on that car for I would never use my car for any of those examples (living in a small EU city). The car is just there for leisure activities, to access skiing in winter and mountain biking/hiking/camping spots in the summer. Yeah it's more expensive than not owning a car but for som…

Same. Most places in the US aren't built in a way where everyday errands are walkable. I feel insanely lucky to have semi-randomly ended up in one of the few places that are. I'm in love with the format of small European cities, enough that I'm considering attempting to emigrate before trying to start a family.

Even if day to day errands are reasonably walkable/bikable/transitable, in most US cities you're adding a lot of overhead and inconvenience for carless people who want to regularly get out of the city on weekends. Very few people I know (so somewhat older folks) don't own cars even in walkable cities.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#132

Post by nomel »

decafninja wrote: post #81
aeternum wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the sentiment, this makes cities even more unfriendly to families with kids. How can grandparents or relatives visit for a weekend?

I'll say it before someone else inevitably does - they're supposed to take public transportation and/or cabs.

When I was young, I didn't live in a big city, and I tried to believe someone who said "just take public transportation", rather than the 3 hours trip, by car. It was 13 hours and $60 by bus (the shortest/cheapest option). By cab, it would have been, literally, 5x my car payment. It wasn't a sane option.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#133

Post by bluGill »

jabbany wrote: post #53

The problem with paid parking at least in North America is that many/most cities are designed so that you need a car to get around -- driving is a necessity not a luxury. This makes paid parking feel like a tax rather than a service. Contrast that to, say, a dense city like Tokyo or Beijing where parking is both scarce and almost always comes at a cost. There is much less backlash, because you can get to pretty much…

Paid parking is generally very expensive. There is a reason WalMart has free parking: over the life of the parking lot it doesn't cost them much, so they can afford to take it out of their profits.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#134

Post by fatnoah »

aeternum wrote: post #59
jurassic wrote: post #24

I think non-residential street parking, paid or not, should probably be illegal. Or at least eye-wateringly expensive and limited to a few minutes at a time (e.g. food pickups). I say this as someone who drives regularly. The lack of visibility street parking creates in densely developed areas is a major safety hazard for all. Cyclists can get doored, drivers have diminished environmental awareness of things such as…

While I understand the sentiment, this makes cities even more unfriendly to families with kids. How can grandparents or relatives visit for a weekend?

>How can grandparents or relatives visit for a weekend?

Speaking as someone who moved the family to the city and had a fair number of (free) on and (paid) off street parking options nearby, for about 50% of the people we knew, it was like we moved to the moon. Even though we only moved about 5 miles, but that "parking" thing was a massive disincentive for people to come to visit.

On the other side of the coin, my small town mom loved that she didn't have to drive at all and could take a 90 minute bus ride to come visit.

For the other set of grandparents, who were uncomfortable with driving in and parking, we'd simply drive out to pick them up.

EDIT: I'm also reasonably confident that the 4th floor walkup was just as intimidating as the parking situation

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#135

Post by dpark »

dml2135 wrote: post #116
dpark wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how removing off-street parking requirements would address anything. It doesn’t. It allows developers to dump the problem on public streets. Seattle does this stuff now. 42 unit buildings with 5 parking spots. This is great for developers. They get to build more units and let Seattle deal with the additional parking pressure. It’s car hostile, which fine, but then you need to provide alternatives to the…

I don’t understand why this is the developer’s responsibility. People choosing this apartment building will be aware of their parking options and can plan accordingly.

I know, right? They should just plan to park 4 blocks away every day, because that’s what they will do no matter where they rent, because all of the buildings are built this way.

It’s the developer’s responsibility for the same reason anything else is: because the law says so (or should). If developers could get away with it, they wouldn’t put in fire alarms or sprinklers and they’d skip out on insulation, and they would probably cut all sorts of corners on plumbing and electric. We establish codes so they can’t do that. Nor can they build unreasonably small bathrooms or excessively low ceilings in finished spaces.

I think it’s reasonable that builders be required to include parking spaces, just as builders are required to have sufficient water supply and sewer capacity for their residents. It’s unfair to the residents and it’s unfair to the rest of the city that developers should be able to externalize their costs onto the public.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#136

Post by zip1234 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #97
zip1234 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning means someone that owns a property cannot do with it as they see fit. How does allowing individual people to make their own decisions about their land have anything to do with forcing people into high density?

Zoning is good. It came about because industrialists were building factories next to people's houses and they were dying of pollutant inhalation. You need rules for what kind of buildings can go together, but the historic mistake (intentional or not) was to zone retail away from housing and force everybody to drive to get to anything that isn't a single family home.

> You need rules for what kind of buildings can go together, but the historic mistake (intentional or not) was to zone retail away from housing and force everybody to drive to get to anything that isn't a single family home.

Yes, sure--I was referring mainly to American single use zoning, which is terrible. There are certainly approaches that have way less in terms of downsides, such as the Japanese style zoning.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#138

Post by gyc »

HWR_14 wrote: post #118
ghaff wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to come into a city for an evening event. I'm actually quite close to commuter rail to the 40 mile away large city. Which I take if I'm going in 9-5 but it's completely impractical to use for going in for dinner and a show.

Why is it impractical for dinner and a show?

Some commuter rail lines in the U.S. are designed to only cater to commuters. So they may not run any train into downtown at night, or they may stop running well before the shows end at night, so there's no way to use the trains to get back home.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#139

Post by ghaff »

HWR_14 wrote: post #118
ghaff wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to come into a city for an evening event. I'm actually quite close to commuter rail to the 40 mile away large city. Which I take if I'm going in 9-5 but it's completely impractical to use for going in for dinner and a show.

Why is it impractical for dinner and a show?

It takes longer (with reverse commute traffic and less going home). I'd have to leave early to make it in time for dinner. And I'd have to hope I hit one of the infrequent trains that run after rush hour. It's completely impractical. I just wouldn't do it.

Re: Charge, Baby, Charge for Parking

#140

Post by alkonaut »

newaccount2021 wrote: post #6

remove or charge for parking and people park on the street...no one is giving up their cars, all of the social engineering just ends up creating more problems in many Bay Area communities you will see cars as tightly aligned on both sides of residential streets as is physically possible...homeowners don't even have room to put out trash bins without blocking their own drives. and why? because apartment complexes and…

> remove or charge for parking and people park on the street...

Parking in the street is still parking. The first parking to charge for (and the one to charge most for) is street parking.

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