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The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

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Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#141

Post by AlotOfReading »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #86
the_snooze wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even when cities invest in non-car transit, cars will still steal those resources. It's not uncommon in my city to see cars idling on bus lanes, or gig delivery workers parking in protected bike lines inside the bollards .

Yeah where I am there is little and half-assed bike infrastructure. Cyclists facetiously and bitterly call the bike lanes "uber lanes." They are simply painted and unbuffered, unenforced. Extra parking in residential areas and loading, ride share, and delivery space everywhere else. Cyclists ride in the lane or not at all, and then are blamed for being there when we're injured or killed in traffic.

I used to knock on these people's windshields to ask them to move on busy roads. I had to stop doing that after one person tried to run me over a few blocks later (they missed and hit the sidewalk). Others were content to simply scream, or back up onto me.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#142

Post by c4mpute »

TeeWEE wrote: post #5

Come to the Netherlands. Sell your car. Buy a bike. A car is not really a status symbol here. Its more like a liability.

The Netherlands do have huge bicycle parking lots and strict parking enforcement for bicycles. Bicycle parking is as bad as car parking over there. I'm glad I've only briefly visited there...

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#143

Post by gwbas1c »

supportengineer wrote: post #130

We have an abundance of parking and a shortage of housing, it's too bad we don't have a way to quickly setup housing (even temporary) in parking areas. Most parking is already located near other utilities so they would already be close by. To start with, we could require every parking lot over a certain size provide basic amenities like public restrooms with showers and water fountains.

> it's too bad we don't have a way to quickly setup housing (even temporary) in parking areas.

RVs.

Don't quote me, but I suspect some temporary shelters during disasters are RVs (and go to the exact parking lots you describe.)

> We have an abundance of parking and a shortage of housing

But I'm not sure that putting RVs in underutilized parking lots will solve the homeless crisis. (Assuming that's what you're referring to.) I generally see a lot of homeless people in very dense cities where parking is at a premium.

Maybe "RVs in parking lots as temporary housing" would work for low-wage employees, who sometimes are at risk of becoming homeless due to their low wages?

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#144

Post by EatingWithForks »

everdrive wrote: post #120
EatingWithForks wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to NYC where free and cheap parking is on nearly every major and minor street. I would consider it widely available. Yes, trying to find a parking spot is a nightmare but that doesn't mean it isn't widely available generally.

>Yes, trying to find a parking spot is a nightmare but that doesn't mean it isn't widely available generally. But that’s exactly what it means. It’s not available to people. Someone else already parked there.

Well yes, because there are a lot of people. That doesn't mean NYC doesn't have ample parking; parking is literally everywhere all the time. Many streets park on both sides, so over 50% of the street real estate is parking! Consider maybe that parking demand is high, not that supply is low.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#145

Post by falcolas »

jltsiren wrote: post #123
falcolas wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be an artifact of where I live, but most rural areas have always had a centralized city (post office, bar, church), and the vast majority of folks who called that village/city their home lived miles away from it on their farms. Horses and carriages were a practical requirement, since walking all day one way to visit the grocer was unrealistic.

Rural living traditionally meant living in dense villages surrounded by farmland. Lonely farms were more common in the frontier. There was safety in numbers, and living next to other households allowed sharing things that were too expensive for most households.

Not really. At least, never in the US. Plantations, for example, are fairly distant from each other, and from their associated towns.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#146

Post by stouset »

sumtechguy wrote: post #89
sleepybrett wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked at 'cities: skylines' or if there is a sequel... recently. I'm wondering if they finally did start modeling parking. I think 'realistic parking' should probably be an option, like you said some people want the 'classic' sim-city experience and modeling. I'd hate to drive those people away from the 'cities' series, as it just seems to be sim-city without the EA enshittification. I think it could be re…

There is a mod for the current version of cities that does model it. You have to make sure you have enough parking or your buildings will go empty. There is a also a DLC addon where you can have walkable cities. It is pretty tricky to get just right.

Realistic parking and mixed-use commercial/residential as common in European cities are my two biggest wishes for Cities 2.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#147

Post by gwbas1c »

I lived for a few years a 5 minute walk from downtown Palo Alto. I still used my car, but significantly less. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to walk, instead of drive, for a random trip to a restaurant. It was even better when going to the bar.

I think if we also focused on walkability for residential development, we could cut down on car use. Even though I now live in suburbia, I made sure there were a few places I could walk to before I bought my house.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#148

Post by lotsofpulp »

balfirevic wrote: post #55
ttymck wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I need to go to the mall? Because there is no retail zoning closer to my home.

My city has plenty of all kinds of shops where people live, but they (and I) still go to malls because shops there are larger and better equipped, there are more of them and you can walk between them at nice temperature and protected from the rain.

Yes, small shops in neighborhoods will never be able to match the price to utility ratio of large shopping complexes with businesses like Costco, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Ikea, Home Depot, Apple, Kroger, etc.

As long as one has access to a personal car, and those above big businesses are available within 30min, even 45min, it is basically impossible for a smaller, local retailer to compete. And now you have the internet and delivery to your door to compete with too.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#149

Post by chimeracoder »

ghaff wrote: post #135
elijaht wrote: post #51

I live car-free in NYC. A large appeal of NYC to me was not having to park. I don't ~mind~ driving, but I absolutely hated having to deal with finding parking when I lived in other cities. Parking generally makes me feel stressed (competition for free spots), or makes me pay (using something like SpotHero makes it easy to find a spot, but costs me). It's not even just major cities either- I'm frequently in a college…

One of the differences with NYC (and maybe specifically Manhattan--though it doesn't map perfectly) is that there's a cultural expectation that residents, even those with money, may not own cars. It can still be a hassle for weekend trips but it's still something of a difference in mindset even for people in other large cities where carless living, at least within the confines of the city, is fairly doable.

> One of the differences with NYC (and maybe specifically Manhattan--though it doesn't map perfectly) is that there's a cultural expectation that residents, even those with money, may not own cars

NYC is the only city in the country where the majority of residents don't own cars. Manhattan has the lowest car ownership rates of all the boroughs, but car owners are still the minority city-wide. (Within NYC, car ownership also skews notably towards the wealthy).

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#150

Post by gretch »

hughesjj wrote: post #116
ttymck wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I need to go to the mall? Because there is no retail zoning closer to my home.

Thankfully changing retail zoning is as cheap and expedient as writing a document. Regrettably legislation takes a while to move, but given any solution to this problem will require legislation changes anyway, the marginal value for just allowing mixed use commercial/residential zoning is effectively nil.

> changing retail zoning is as cheap and expedient as writing a document

This vastly underestimates the problem. It’s like saying all you need to be president is have people write your name on their ballots.

Are people in this city amenable to mixed zoning? The forces that decided this in the first place still exist and have to be disentrenched

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