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

npr.org

361–370 of 432 posts

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

#361

[flagged]

You can just say 'I don't like this' instead of making up a bunch of 'just so stories' about why.

Fine if you don't like density, but the whole pseudo-science `Dense urbanization is detrimental to health, physical and mental` is just mental.

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

#362
post #45
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 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.

Except 100 small shops and restaurants can’t be supported by walk-only pedestrians unless you create super-ultra-dense residential.

It’s really nice not to share walls with 4 different neighbors and be able to have a yard and let your kids play outside your house.

Residential density is worse in every way for most of the population.

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

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Austin is the biggest city in the country to eliminate its parking mandates citywide > Austin removed parking requirements for its downtown area a decade ago Here’s an article from 2024 :) https://www.npr.org/2024/01/02/1221366173/u-s-cities-drop-pa...

That article is technically true but misleading. Most of Manhattan eliminated parking minimums back in 1982. Seattle eliminated or reduced minimums anywhere close to transit (which is a huge part of the city obviously) back in 2012. The entire state of Oregon eliminated parking minimums and single family zoning last year. Austin isn't setting a trend here, they're just catching up because the city has grown so quickl…

Most of Manhattan’s unilateral action 42 years ago probably doesn’t relate to a modern day trend.

Oregon sounds like it is setting a pace, I’m glad Austin managed to end single family zoning last year alongside it. I hope Seattle, and every single other major city government in the US will manage to one day remove citywide parking mandates alongside the unusually car dependent laggards in Austin.

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

#364
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly have never lived in convenient (but high costs) parts of Manhattan. A 10min walk/transit window can span 20-40 city blocks depending on the location and transit options. All of your assertions are plain wrong.

> A 10min walk/transit window Move those goal posts. The original claim was "easy walking distance I.e 5-10 minutes walk." > can span 20-40 city blocks 20 NYC blocks is a mile, which is 20 minutes walking. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/average-walking-sp... > convenient (but high costs) parts of Manhattan. If it's so efficient and/or desirable, why only a fraction of NYC? The answer is that those areas ar…

>If it's so efficient and/or desirable, why only a fraction of NYC?

You are misinformed. It is only part of NYC and rare in other cities across the US because of the planning which generally supports cars, including rules like the article, parking minimums. That makes it a luxury good. Build more walkable areas then it won't be a luxury anymore.

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

#365
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…

Isn’t that somewhat counterproductive if you are trying to attract developers to build in your cities urban core? They might decide to just build in the suburbs or another city that pencils out better.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean. Even with remote work, living in a high-density area offers advantages - the primary one (in my mind) being that you don't have to own a car.

It is hard to replace a vehicle when my primary use case is getting away from the high density area I live in go places with minimal public access.

Most people do not do this everyday. You can use a car when you need to but driving for every trip is what has created the affordability and the congestion problem in America.

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

#367

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.

Isn't this (part of) the point? We have an abundance of parking required by law and not enough housing units - removing the requirement should encourage more money to be invested into anything but parking no? Seems like letting businesses decide whether or not it's worth opening a business with the available parking would cause one of two things to happen: 1. We wind up with the actual correct amount of parking requi…

3. Businesses open up shop 5 miles away from downtown where they don’t have to deal with any of this.

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

#368
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…

> It takes less than a month to build city-wide rudimentary protected bike lines. Citation needed. Maybe a month of actual painting time once you've done all of the planning, but planning the routes and going through all of the approvals and meetings is absolutely not possible in a single month. Not even a single year.

Maybe instead of planning bike lanes we should be addressing the root causes of why it takes such such an absurd amount of time to make changes like this. Once we do that we can get back to bike lanes.

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

#369

I vote we ban all free public parking and let the free market determine how much parking there is and where.

"I'm for both the free market and for banning a very common free market choice."

No, by public parking I mean parking on public streets.

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

#370

[flagged]

You can just say 'I don't like this' instead of making up a bunch of 'just so stories' about why. Fine if you don't like density, but the whole pseudo-science `Dense urbanization is detrimental to health, physical and mental` is just mental.

Very weird. My life has greatly improved since moving to a walkable city. It’s very nice to walk and get groceries for a meal that day or walk to a bakery or walk to a bar or walk to a store or walk to my doctors or walk to my friends.

When I lived in FL you had to drive everywhere. I’d rather be walking. We literally evolved to walk long distances, and cars don’t seem to be making our lives better with all the externalities getting ignored (air pollution, microplastics, and noise pollution).

I don’t mind if people want to drive, but they should be paying the true cost and not keep a massively subsidized lifestyle that can’t exist without massive federal funds.

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