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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

#261

Post by LargeWu »

FpUser wrote: post #176
0xfaded wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately people will fight tooth and nail to maintain their existing expectations and will see public transit as a threat to their cars. You have to take away cars (parking) first so that they start demanding public transportation.

So you want to arm twist people to suit your agenda? It does not work this way. Personally I aways support and would vote for more public transport but not by forcing me to abandon my car. If that is the approach the only vote you'll get from me is fuck you. And I am a nicer guy who mostly uses EUC, bike and feet.

Nobody is forcing you to abandon your car, you are just going start absorbing the true cost of the externalities (whether in tolls, taxes, inconvenience, etc). You can decide for yourself then whether using or owning a car is worth that.

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

#263

Post by s1artibartfast »

chimeracoder wrote: post #133
dylan604 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been without a car for 4 years now, and it is becoming a burden. For the first 2 years it wasn't so bad because of lock down. Now, even with my e-bike (which I love and would continue to use if I had a car) there are certain things I just cannot do. Inclimate weather is a big one, and in my location, June-September is inclimate weather of 100°+ weather. Carrying things home from the hardware store is not conduci…

> I've been without a car for 4 years now, and it is becoming a burden. For the first 2 years it wasn't so bad because of lock down. Now, even with my e-bike (which I love and would continue to use if I had a car) there are certain things I just cannot do. Inclimate weather is a big one, and in my location, June-September is inclimate weather of 100°+ weather. Carrying things home from the hardware store is not condu…

>I can rent a car whenever I need it (something like once or twice a year)

I think this is obviously the crux of the issue. It depends on what you do and what your love. I would be renting a car/truck 2-3x a week based on my interests and passions.

I would like not having to drive to work, but would rather give up those 1.5 hours a day than everything else my vehicle lets me do.

that said, i support letting people chose for themselves.

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

#264

Post by dionidium »

chung8123 wrote: post #254
mint2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s nice to have practically every amenity possible in easy walking distance I.e 5-10 minutes walk. Probably 20 restaurants, 20 small shops, coffee shops, ups, usps, fedex, hardware stores, museums, parks etc etc all within 10 minutes walk. It’s nice not having to drive for everyday errands. driving and parking is soul draining and causes suburbs to be ugly, not to mention freeways. Those are ugly as sin.

You don't need all of that to have every amenity at a walking distance. I live in the suburbs and I still have almost every amenity walking distance. Do I need 20 restaurants and coffee shops? Having space for your hobbies is nice so if your priority is hobbies that need space living out of the city is nice. If your priority is going out for things it is probably better to live in the city.

> Do I need 20 restaurants and coffee shops?

That should be up to individuals, not central planners.

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

#265

Post by chung8123 »

voisin wrote: post #3

It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.

In theory it will eliminate the demand because it will be so much of a hassle people won't demand it. When there are no other options for getting around people will have to move to be closer to where they need to be and that increase in price will be weighed against the increase in the price of owning a car.

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

#266

Post by Eisenstein »

jen20 wrote: post #77
Eisenstein wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you consider Austin or the suburbs of Austin? If you live in a city or close enough to one, sprawl is terrible as it gives you all the cons of car dependence with fewer benefits of a concentrated population center. The rest of the country can decide they want to live 45 mins drive from a grocery store, but fixing car dependency in cities should be a priority, and I think you'd agree with that.

The density of downtown Austin has increased _substantially_ since 2015, but it's still not straightforward to live there without a car. Most of the shops downtown sell tourist tat, not useful items, and most of the everyday commercial districts are inaccessible by public transit. Almost all new high rise construction just has a couple of floors of parking garage, and handles it well. I can't see buildings without th…

> I can't see buildings without that being commercially successful

There is no parking ban being enacted. It is a removal of an arbitrary parking minimum. If they can't sell the properties without it why would they remove parking?

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

#267

Post by tomatocracy »

crote wrote: post #78
screye wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bike infrastructure means some brick separators and painted lanes. It takes less than a month to build city-wide rudimentary protected bike lines. BRT is similarly quick to implement, if a little more expensive. Remove 1 lane of parking from major downtown roads & replace with a painted BRT lane. Order about 50 buses to run in 1 way loops around the downtown area. Have high frequency BRT between the out-of-downtown p…

> Bike infrastructure means some brick separators and painted lanes. The biggest issue with bike infrastructure is that the people responsible for infrastructure genuinely believe this . The end result is usually a scattered bunch of stupidly dangerous "bike lanes" which aren't of use to basically anyone. You need a separate biking network , which interfaces with car traffic as little as possible. This means you're e…

I cycle quite a lot in London which has put a lot of these in and honestly I think most of the separated lanes etc are a waste of money - they only really make a difference on the busiest roads with the narrowest lanes or at the most dangerous junctions. What does seem to be hugely underestimated is the need to provide lots of decent secure cycle parking at every destination.

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

#269

Post by rcpt »

chung8123 wrote: post #254
mint2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s nice to have practically every amenity possible in easy walking distance I.e 5-10 minutes walk. Probably 20 restaurants, 20 small shops, coffee shops, ups, usps, fedex, hardware stores, museums, parks etc etc all within 10 minutes walk. It’s nice not having to drive for everyday errands. driving and parking is soul draining and causes suburbs to be ugly, not to mention freeways. Those are ugly as sin.

You don't need all of that to have every amenity at a walking distance. I live in the suburbs and I still have almost every amenity walking distance. Do I need 20 restaurants and coffee shops? Having space for your hobbies is nice so if your priority is hobbies that need space living out of the city is nice. If your priority is going out for things it is probably better to live in the city.

> live in the suburbs and I still have almost every amenity walking distance

Are you sure you live in a suburb?

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

#270

Post by autoexec »

dragonwriter wrote: post #178
autoexec wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is zero evidence for this. When most people need something, and there is suddenly a much smaller supply of that thing, prices for the now scarce but still needed thing tend to increase. That's basically self-evident. If you have evidence that shows otherwise please feel free to provide it. I suspect that if examples showing otherwise exist at all they won't be remotely representative of the situation these ci…

> When most people need something, and there is suddenly a much smaller supply of that thing, prices for the now scarce but still needed thing tend to increase. No one is arguing against the idea that eliminating parking requirements increases (in short-run, first-order analysis) the market clearing price of parking spaces. The contentious part is that the presence of the freedom to build housing without parking requ…

> The contentious part is that the presence of the freedom to build housing without parking requirements does nothing to reduce the demand for autos.

Why would it? Without alternatives to cars as a means to get people to where they need to go, people will still require cars. As long as people are required to own and drive cars not having enough available parking does nothing to help reduce the amount of cars being owned/driven. In fact, we know that it increase the number of cars on the road. That's how we end up with statistics like "30% of all traffic in urban areas come from people circling around looking for places to park".

You can't solve the problem of people needing cars by not addressing the reasons people need cars, and only reducing the number of parking spots for the cars people already need.

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