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

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

#181

Post by autoexec »

hughesjj wrote: post #166
kilotaras wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not what artificially inducing means. London for example have buildings which are prohibited of having parking (or getting street permit). Providing an option not pay for parking space when buying an apartment is not that.

IDK, pure speculation, but maybe 'autoexec' isn't arguing in good faith here and may have a conflict of interest

I really don't. I'm not even sure what kind of person would have a conflict of interest while supporting that we keep the requirement until actual alternatives are available to everyone.

While I have a car, and enjoy having one, and have a nice parking space in a heated underground garage, I also work remotely and don't drive all that much. I'm in a privileged position and could afford to uber (within the city anyway).

This is just a bad/non-solution to a very real problem that will do more harm than good.

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

#182

Post by ljsprague »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #154
pramsey wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, good read and wonderful on the vicious cycle that led to the downtowns of most US cities looking like WWII bombed out zones by 1975.

Honestly that would be fixed with expanded immigration. Look at places where the limited immigrants we have had in recent years primarily ended up and have changed the demography, like LA county or Miami-Dade county, and they don’t look like those midwestern or great plains cities. In fact there are almost no vacant parcels anywhere today, with majority latino populations now reflecting the recent waves of immigratio…

You're confusing correlation with causation. Immigrants are more likely to go where there are jobs.

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

#183

Post by c22 »

smt88 wrote: post #59
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 ho…

There are always some cars being driven at any given time, so you could technically get away with even fewer spaces than cars. But the fewer spaces you have the less likely the available ones are near your destination.

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

#184

Post by busterarm »

arcticbull wrote: post #139
busterarm wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effective public transit isn't something you can bolt onto a city after the roads are all built. Cities like Austin that were designed for cars from the outset are hopeless lost causes. Old world cities can have great public transit because they were dense long before cars existed and have hundreds of years worth of civil projects designed to get people from A to B.

> ... have hundreds of years worth of civil projects designed to get people from A to B. We better get started right away then, huh.

You don't start by building public transit. You start by bulldozing roads and housing and moving/rebuilding communities.

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

#185

Post by unethical_ban »

tmaly wrote: post #93

Cities obviously cannot or do not build housing. Given that, beyond say SimCity, has anyone developed simulations of how these new regulations / incentives would actually affect housing?

Come visit San Antonio or Denver and see the apartments built in the past 10 years.

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

#186

Post by brewdad »

jandrese wrote: post #142
coldpie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before: If you build a building of this size, you MUST also build at least X parking spaces. Now: If you build a building of this size, you MAY build as many parking spaces as you think you need. Seems like a strict improvement to me.

How about: If you build a building of this size you must contribute $X to the public transit system to expand service to your building, adding drivers and routes if necessary. We have so many subsidies for cars baked into the system, but hardly anything for other forms of transit, and then we complain endlessly about how expensive transit is to run and have to cut service to make ends meet, which of course discourage…

Impact fees on new developments are already a thing to pay for other infrastructure improvements like sewer, utilities, roads, and parks. No reason it couldn't be extended to transit as well.

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

#187

Post by avianlyric »

codybontecou wrote: post #52
polygamous_bat wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Erm, you realise that before the “modern city”, every urban area was small and walkable, on account of the car not being invented.

The “modern city” or at least the US’s version of a “modern city” is the first time humans have ever lived so far apart at such scale. Enabled only because the car has conditioned so many people to think that driving 30mins to get anywhere interesting is “normal” or “natural”.

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

#188

Post by busterarm »

detourdog wrote: post #145
busterarm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marble countertops aren't competing for space that you could otherwise use to build more apartments to sell/rent. Parking is. Until parking spaces cost more than apartments do, developers are going to favor building apartments over parking one hundreds times out of one hundred.

I understand both sides of the issue. My problem is the lack of context given to this solution for housing. I live in small (2,000ish households) New England town with some streets that predate automobiles. Nobody is really space constrained. The housing 3 miles a way is at least half the cost of my town. The public transportation is poor and it took about 25 years to build less than 3 miles of bike path. Should my t…

> Nobody is really space constrained.

Clearly the answer is no then.

That doesn't make space-constrained Austin's answer an automatic yes either though. The city is very car-dependent. The starting point isn't "take away peoples' ability to have a car". It should be "make it more attractive not to have a car".

Changing parking minimums comes far down that road.

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

#189

Post by carom »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #154
pramsey wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, good read and wonderful on the vicious cycle that led to the downtowns of most US cities looking like WWII bombed out zones by 1975.

Honestly that would be fixed with expanded immigration. Look at places where the limited immigrants we have had in recent years primarily ended up and have changed the demography, like LA county or Miami-Dade county, and they don’t look like those midwestern or great plains cities. In fact there are almost no vacant parcels anywhere today, with majority latino populations now reflecting the recent waves of immigratio…

LA has extremely dysfunctional housing policy. A wave of immigration does nothing but increase demand for housing and drive up prices on rather limited stock. It has not lead to an increase in housing stock or better commercial districts. Adding more people who don't really speak the language laws are written in doesn't change the laws that prevent you from building vibrant cities.

There is very little mixed use. Majority of the city is zoned single family. The only reason there are no parking minimums is because the California changed that law. It has nothing to do with expanded immigration. LA, despite the immigration, is in massive need of a zoning overhaul to build a vibrant city. Very little is walkable, it is very car-centric, and the zoning is the strong opposition to all of this.

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

#190

Post by kube-system »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #167
oh_sigh wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is 3 parking spaces per car inherently unsustainable?

https://www.homeadvisor.com/cost/outdoor-living/pave-a-parki... And that doesn't cover opportunity cost or the knock-on effects of market distortion, or the exponentially higher costs of e.g. parking garages.

The price to pave a lot is by far the least unsustainable part of the situation. Asphalt is cheap. The opportunity cost of the land use is much higher in all but the most rural of places.
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