U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#51

Post by the_snooze » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #30

r00fus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Nothing changes overnight but it allows for denser development esp. around existing public transit lines. The problem is there a barely any decent "existing public transit lines" in Austin. Existing public transit line, singular, perhaps, and in a decade or so we'll get some more. In the meantime it just means traffic gets much shittier with no real alternatives.

I think you're assuming that mass transit is the only lever to improve traffic. Eliminating parking minimums allows businesses to pop up nearer to where people live, where they're accessible by foot or micromobility. If anything, plentiful parking in and of itself causes traffic to be shitty because driving becomes the only safe/comfortable way to get around; housing and businesses come to have huge paved deserts between them, completely hostile to non-car mobility.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#52

Post by codybontecou » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

polygamous_bat wrote: post #32

1-6 wrote: post #21

I thought a generation of remote work would change attitudes about cities. Why are we still trying to cram into small spaces?

Because some people are social and have fun with other people.

We've never had social interaction before the modern city /s

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#53

Post by crote » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

1-6 wrote: post #21

I thought a generation of remote work would change attitudes about cities. Why are we still trying to cram into small spaces?

Because a lot of people like living in cities.

They want to visit friends, go to a museum, join a sports club, check out a book from the library, go shopping, visit a restaurant - there's way more of those in a city than in the countryside.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#54

Post by autoexec » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

_dain_ wrote: post #17

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that did this and it was a nightmare. All street parking filling up by 4pm. Half hour walks to your car. Neighbors keying each others cars for taking up a space for too long. Guests basically just being SOL - you’d literally be unable to have guests over because if you left to pick them up there’d be no spot when you got back, and if they drove themselves they’d never find a spot…

It sounds like the parking was underpriced. EDIT I am rate-limited so can't reply, but this part: "If you have 200 cars" This is only the case if the demand for parking / driving is perfectly inelastic, which would be quite extraordinary. Empirically, when you charge for parking or institute toll roads, traffic tends to fall, in some cases sharply (because many journeys are low value). I repeat: if the parking spaces…

jacking up the prices for parking spaces due to artificially induced scarcity will mean that cars are still every bit as essential to get around, but now only the wealthy will be able to afford to park them, screwing over the population least able to arrange/afford alternatives. I guess it's somehow better if the increasing number of poors in the US have to park miles away from their jobs (if they're lucky enough) and have to walk/run the rest of the way.

Like it or not, our cities are already built to make cars a necessity and pricing people out of access to the majority of places within a city isn't a solution to the design of public transportation or roads.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#55

Post by jen20 » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25

notatoad wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this doesn't eliminate parking spots. they're eliminating parking minimums , which in most cases are not backed by any sort of science or study - parking minimums get set mostly randomly, as a roadblock for development that people don't want in their neighbourhood. there's no good reason for most of these parking minimums, and they're not necessarily parking spots in places where there is any demand. steet parking, p…

Your comment is completely wrong, at least as it applies to Austin as explained in the article. Parking minimums are simply a requirement that if you build an apartment building with N apartments, you need to include a number of parking spots that is a function of N. The idea being that if you're building a number of places for people to live , the vast majority of them (especially in Austin) will need a place to par…

Worse: it was voted for, but the costs have now spiralled while the proposed service has plummeted.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#56

Post by doctorpangloss » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:53 PM UTC

_dain_ wrote: post #17

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not. I’ve lived in neighborhoods that did this and it was a nightmare. All street parking filling up by 4pm. Half hour walks to your car. Neighbors keying each others cars for taking up a space for too long. Guests basically just being SOL - you’d literally be unable to have guests over because if you left to pick them up there’d be no spot when you got back, and if they drove themselves they’d never find a spot…

It sounds like the parking was underpriced. EDIT I am rate-limited so can't reply, but this part: "If you have 200 cars" This is only the case if the demand for parking / driving is perfectly inelastic, which would be quite extraordinary. Empirically, when you charge for parking or institute toll roads, traffic tends to fall, in some cases sharply (because many journeys are low value). I repeat: if the parking spaces…

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted.

The reason people keep buying cars after prices rise 57% in a decade: the extra $10,000 amortized over 10 years is less than living even 1 year near the things you drive to. Things you drive to includes your parking space!

It doesn't make any sense to own a car and live in a dense urban development. What more needs to be said? Live in the suburbs if you have a car.

Fortunately bridge and toll community members are insensitive to these changes. They see no problems with 2 hours of schlepping, $16 of tolls and $25 parking to drink $0.50 of vodka priced at $17 at a downtown bar. If they were sensitive to these issues, that behavior would have ceased much sooner than a pandemic-induced shock to their routines.

That said, I don't see anything wrong with the suburban lifestyle, I am a product of it. Instead of focusing on issues like parking costs, which cities can never beat suburbs at because suburbs have essentially infinite land, cities should fix their education systems, because they can realistically beat suburbs on the concentration of human capital. My community would be far more appreciative of that than bullshit about parking spots.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#57

Post by AlexandrB » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:54 PM UTC

oceanplexian wrote: post #42

swozey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The middled/old-aged NIMBYs in the suburbs don't use Uber/Pub-trans so they don't care and don't want to ever vote for it being improved or "taking my tax dollars." They still equate public transportation with being poor and not how millions of people who live IN the city get around, nor how THEY can benefit from being able to come downtown or go to the mountains skiing more frequently. You know who wants tons of par…

> They still equate public transportation with being poor and not how millions of people who live IN the city get around. I rode BART out of Oakland for years. I don’t agree with NIMBYs but it’s not like they are making it up. I assure you, it is indeed full of insane people, homeless, the trains are nasty and smell like urine, frequently break down or get stopped because people regularly suicide themselves on the tr…

> I’m sure in Asian countries the trains are fantastic but unfortunately public transit riders here aren’t adults and ruin it for everyone.

Not sure why you would turn an obviously systemic problem into one of personal responsibility. Do you think there are no mentally disabled or homeless people in other countries?

This attitude seems startlingly common in the US. It's like the pessimistic side of American Exceptionalism - "This problem, which many other countries have tackled successfully, cannot be fixed here".

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#58

Post by swozey » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

TexanFeller wrote: post #44

swozey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The middled/old-aged NIMBYs in the suburbs don't use Uber/Pub-trans so they don't care and don't want to ever vote for it being improved or "taking my tax dollars." They still equate public transportation with being poor and not how millions of people who live IN the city get around, nor how THEY can benefit from being able to come downtown or go to the mountains skiing more frequently. You know who wants tons of par…

Because statistically that’s very true almost everywhere in America. Even flagship cities like NYC have pathetic trains/subways compared to Europe/Asia and 90% of the population has never been that far abroad to see what’s possible. I’ve tried the express busses and “train”(can you call it that with only two cars!) in Austin and gave up because they waste much more time and are less comfortable than driving. Never sa…

I worked on 2nd and Congress for 4 years and almost every single person I worked with who lived in the suburbs took the train from around the Domain/Aboreteum/further-north-Canada area. They would usually bike, park-at, or get dropped off at a park-n-ride.

Nobody said addicts, etc aren't on trains. I said people think that is who is only on it. My software engineer dad-friends absolutely took the train every single day and so did a TON of people who worked downtown. They constantly complained that the trains were full and I remember them changing schedules based on how full they were.

They all said they took the train because it was faster and they didn't have to sit in traffic.

I've also taken tons of buses. I lived off the drag and worked on 2nd. I always took a bus by UT down Congress to get to downtown. A bus is a bus. Every city bus has bus issues like you mentioned. Yawn. It's even worse here in Denver.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#59

Post by smt88 » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

georgeecollins wrote: post #48

In Los Angeles there are ~ 3 parking spaces per car, and < 1 housing unit per person. We mandate a bunch of parking for every new building, but no housing. Its no wonder that people live in cars.

LA is a disaster for transit and housing, but your numbers aren't a problem on their face.

Any car being used will need >1 space at all times: one at home and one wherever it's being parked when its driver has gone somewhere.

If you have We need far more parking spaces per car in LA once we consider the millions of people who are driving in the city and live outside of it.

As far as housing, we'd have a 100% fully housed population with <1 house per person because a large percentage of people live with one or more people.

Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums

#60

Post by ta_1138 » Wed, Jan 03, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

tellsomething wrote: post #20

jmyeet wrote: post #7

The amount of money we collectively spend subsidizing driving is utterly insane. Yet every public transit measure is jet with the same tired dogma of “it’ll raise our taxes” or “it will run at a loss”. Street parking tons at a loss. Why is this never brought up? Significant money is spent by the likes of the remaining Koch brothers to fight public transit infrastructure in every city. Yet taking drivers off the road…

Seems silly to think infrastructure means subsidising. Why don't you switch to dial up so that all the cables underneath the ocean can be slowly removed in order not to bother wild life over there? But really, your whole life is sustained by providers driving. Taxes in the city comes from humans being able to physically move their bodies to the right location. I mean, wouldn't it be ideal to get all the benefits of a…

Of course infrastructure is subsidizing those who use it. Even more so when it comes to infrastructure that takes a lot of space, as every square foot of surface dedicated to one thing cannot be dedicated to another. And infrastructure induces demand by lowering some prices relative to others.

In an extreme case, imagine that your typical, currently congested highway gained another 6 lanes in each direction, and we raise speed limits to 100 mph. First, the right of way is now way bigger, so we need to wreck a lot of buildings for this infrastructure. It makes being able to travel near that highway really nice for a while: Minimal congestion! A straight out windfall by people owning land near it. But that also means that the area redevelops, as farmland that was in the middle of nowhere is now a reasonable commute downtown! But as the development continues, the highway will fill up. And since downtown streets were not changed, it's the area downtown near the highway that is now a congested mess, as the limitation is getting from there to buildings.

And again, a subsidy for you can be a harm for me: If every street is 8 lanes wide, it's very hard to cross. Every pedestrian crossing added is also infrastructure, but it slows down traffic. Every bit of lawn you use is another bit of distance I have to wade through to get to my destination, vs an area with the same number of houses, but without lawns.

One can like one tradeoff more than the other, but the fact that infrastructure means subsidy, and that urbanism choices are picking some people's interests over others is just factual.