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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

#411

Post by CalRobert »

nerdbert wrote: post #349
wiredfool wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen more Large US Car/Pickups (think old full size van/suburban/pickup) in the Netherlands than anywhere else in Europe (with the exception of right outside of a US military facility).

How much time have you spent here? That doesn't jibe with what I see at all. There are so many more giant truckish cars in France, Germany, and the UK than I see here in the Netherlands. I'm looking out my front window now and I see about 20 cars of which one is in the SUV form factor.

Maybe it depends on where you are? I found the prevalence of Dodge Rams in the Netherlands jarring. They're incredibly poorly suited to the towns and cities there.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#412

Post by iso1631 »

wizofaus wrote: post #409
heartbreak wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s four different families in one house.

How common is that in the UK?? It'd be exceedingly rare in Australia.

Having 4 independent adults in a 4 bed house is quite common in the UK due to the cost of housing.

Having 3 or 4 adults in a 4 bed house is even more common once you include 20-something kids who live with their parents due to the cost of housing.

The cost of housing is nothing to do with the number of car parking spaces provided. If you assume the typical 2 adult 2 children household (the ones most likely to be in those 3/4 bed new build houses), where 55% have at least 2 cars -- at that includes London where car ownership is lower, having a single driveway is a major problem.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#413

Post by panick21_ »

david2ndaccount wrote: post #109
damnesian wrote: post #23

>You could imagine a world in which streets were pedestrianized and where we planted trees and gardens and in what is currently space reserved for parking, and closed streets, outside schools, so kids can have places to play. I would love to see a LOT more of this in urban centers. I live in a college town that is about the same size as Iowa City. Iowa City has taken the step of closing off their downtown and making…

Part of the problem is you can’t just convert an area to a pedestrian area as people still need to be able to get there. You need to construct low cost parking garages around the area so people can still get there.

Yes you can. There is usually enough parking around the area and just having a basic bus usually already leads to far more use of the area. And if there is really not enough parking, then there is a commercial reason to build it.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#414

Post by panick21_ »

mlyle wrote: post #127
dopidopHN wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paris is closing the already pretty closed downtown ( along the Seine ). Does that qualify as large metro area? What are the actual piece of reality that makes it impossible in US cities?

It's totally possible, but not as a step change. Heavy car traffic is a stable system that's actively unfriendly to pedestrian and bicycle uses. You need to slowly claw away space for bicycles and increase ridership; and then work to densify and intermix commercial and residential for things to work well. It takes decades, and the initial steps make things worse even if the new equilibrium is better.

It takes decades because policy makers aren't willing to make big steps. And believes like your that it has to take decades are part of the reason why they don't.

As soon as you take away cars, people look for alternatives and the space is claimed by lots of uses. Bus and bicycle use goes up fast.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#415

Post by panick21_ »

willio58 wrote: post #321
squidgyhead wrote: post #96

ClimateTown has a video about this today! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8

ClimateTown, along with Not Just Bikes, City Beautiful, City Nerd, and the like give me hope that the message is getting out. That being said, the more I watch these videos/listen to their podcasts the more I understand that city planners, specifically those in charge of managing traffic and parking, have been taught _incorrectly_ for decades. These content creators regularly say that if we want change we are going t…

Planners actually already mostly know and are mostly good. The problem are more often the uneducated elected officials and the transport engineers. State DoT are particularly bad.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#416

Post by panick21_ »

tzs wrote: post #70
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.

Yet a heck of a lot of people have cars there. Private car ownership in the Netherlands is around 590 per 1000 population. It's within 10% of Germany on cars per 1000 population and on percentage of families that own a car. The Netherlands stands out for its excellent biking facilities so that people who cannot afford a car are not screwed like they are in many places, and people with a car don't have to use it is as…

There must be data somewhere about how much each car drives per year no?

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#417

Post by wizofaus »

iso1631 wrote: post #412
wizofaus wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How common is that in the UK?? It'd be exceedingly rare in Australia.

Having 4 independent adults in a 4 bed house is quite common in the UK due to the cost of housing. Having 3 or 4 adults in a 4 bed house is even more common once you include 20-something kids who live with their parents due to the cost of housing. The cost of housing is nothing to do with the number of car parking spaces provided. If you assume the typical 2 adult 2 children household (the ones most likely to be in t…

> Having 4 independent adults in a 4 bed house is quite common

As it would be in Australia. But not 4 families!

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#418

Post by datavirtue »

midoridensha wrote: post #404
chii wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where I live, the subway comes every 3-5 minutes, like clockwork. aka, you've just qualified your use of public transport with the condition that you would not ever need to wait more than 3-5mins. What if you had to wait 30mins or an hour? In the majority of cities in the US, esp. slightly more rural areas or smaller towns, this is clockwork public transit is highly unlikely to be the norm.

>What if you had to wait 30mins or an hour? I wouldn't live in such a shitty, broken, mismanaged shithole. Properly managed places are able to provide good public transit. >In the majority of cities in the US, esp. slightly more rural areas or smaller towns, this is clockwork public transit is highly unlikely to be the norm. Right, because the US is broken and doesn't know how to do this stuff properly. It's like com…

[flagged]

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#419

Post by harambae »

Spooky23 wrote: post #391
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The excess of cars in cities is bad enough, but I do wonder whether underground parking would at least help. It can be more expensive, especially for taller buildings, but it would eliminate the eyesore and recoup the valuable urban real estate and potentially free up the streets. Realistically, we have to accept that we've spent almost a century creating a situation that has enabled car dominance and that many peopl…

There’s plenty of parking in Manhattan, it just isn’t free. Parking isn’t the force that shapes the world. Free parking is. Suburbs have zoning standards that usually require more parking than required. The average big box lot has parking stalls that have never used for anything other than piling up snow.

Is motorcycle parking still free (or unenforced) in most of Manhattan? I did this for many years (sometimes with a motorcycle cover as people recommended, but sometimes without) and was never ticketed.

In Boston it was the same policy until recently when they started enforcing motorcycle parking extremely strictly - basically requiring motorcycles to buy a car spot once the very few motorcycle parking spots are filled up.

Re: The force that shapes everything around us: Parking

#420

Post by heartbreak »

wizofaus wrote: post #417
iso1631 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having 4 independent adults in a 4 bed house is quite common in the UK due to the cost of housing. Having 3 or 4 adults in a 4 bed house is even more common once you include 20-something kids who live with their parents due to the cost of housing. The cost of housing is nothing to do with the number of car parking spaces provided. If you assume the typical 2 adult 2 children household (the ones most likely to be in t…

> Having 4 independent adults in a 4 bed house is quite common As it would be in Australia. But not 4 families!

Sorry for the confusion. I was using “family” to emphasize that these were unrelated people in the same house. The idea being that the car-sharing dynamic is different between multiple families (or unrelated individuals) than within one family.

My spouse and I share a car. My neighbor and I probably could but not without a lot more hassle.

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