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Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

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Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#191

Post by bsder »

J_Shelby_J wrote: post #26
wtp1saac wrote: post #4

Strong Towns has called a good amount of attention to the mandatory parking requirements in many cities (and shockingly, many downtowns). Thankfully, it seems a fair number of cities are removing such restrictions, but hopefully it becomes more widespread. In general I hope the US can urbanize, the older I get the more I realize it’s not really enjoyable living in this country. I don’t think I want hyper dense, but h…

It should decrease housing costs as well. The rules in my area are two spots per bedroom - mandatory. But my building is in uptown Dallas and the main draw to the area is that people work in the area and walk to work. So many people don't own cars or are only a one home house hold. And because it's a highrise parking spots are expensive. Like $50k+ each. And that goes directly to the price of housing in rents. Meanwh…

> Meanwhile, even at the busiest our garage is more than half empty.

Unfortunately, that sounds like the spaces are close to being properly priced in the market?

Getting more utilization would require the price come down, and the price decrease may not increase the overall revenue immediately.

You would need cheaper nearby parking in order to force the price down. If there is no cheaper parking nearby, then the market is at the clearing price.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#192

Post by tzs »

bertil wrote: post #102
stronglikedan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is urbanized...if you want it. There are plenty of places where people that enjoy living in urban areas can do so. However, to me, that sounds like an unenjoyable hellscape. Been there, done that. The beauty of the US is that people have choices, and aren't pigeonholed into someone else's idea of "enjoyable".

The most common criticism I hear against cities is that they are loud. Cities aren't loud; cars are loud. You experienced a bad compromise of having high density of a city and the high car ownership of suburbia. Like a "stroad," a road that is trying to be a street, it doesn't work. Try to spend a week in a place with walkable density and no cars: Amsterdam, Oslo, or closer to US, Disney Land.

Cities were loud long before cars. See

https://www.medievalists.net/2016/02/the-noisy-middle-ages/

https://daily.jstor.org/a-history-of-noise/

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/a-19th-cen...

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.64.5....

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#193

Post by bsder »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #151
7thaccount wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fayetteville Arkansas was one of the first towns to remove the mandatory parking restrictions and a ton of abandoned downtown buildings quickly became restaurants. They were absolutely right.

My jaw hit the floor when I learned that some cities actually apply parking minimums to redevelopment of downtown properties and not just stuff like new surburban strip malls, to the point that some projects have bought adjacent buildings and demolished them in favor of parking lots. Maybe it's true that the r/fuckcars crowd likes to throw the term "carbrain" around a little too freely, but this kind of ass-backward…

It's not always ass-backward.

People forget that one of the reasons why the malls became so popular and helped collapse the old downtowns was, you guessed it, lack of free parking.

With malls, you could come into a boundary and spend a significant amount of time in a walkable arena with lots of different stores. You knew there would always be parking except possibly at Christmas.

Downtown? Not so much. And you probably had to pay for parking. And carry quarters for the meter. And risk getting parking tickets. etc.

Malls were what all the anti-car people supposedly promise will happen when you remove cars. And yet, I know of no malls that ever gained residence areas within walking distance. Which seemingly, would have prevented the malls from collapsing.

The anti-car brigade has yet to demonstrate why that should be different today.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#194

Post by recursive »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #144
marssaxman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really are not plenty of places in the US where you can live a good, urban, non-car-oriented life, and you can tell that is true because the ones which do exist tend to be very expensive, showing that they are in high demand. You clearly do not desire an urban lifestyle, and I won't try to change your mind about that, but those of us who do want urban living generally don't find that our choices are either plen…

I think it's because urbanites keep getting suckered into letting builders do "condensed affordable housing" under the false premise that more housing means cheaper housing. Obviously that would only be true if the units were owned by competitors. Where one contractor owns all the units they set the prices, and they have no reason to make them "affordable." Just condensed.

> they have no reason to make them "affordable."

The money they make is {rent} × {units rented}. The reason they don't set rent to $1billion is that they will rent zero of them. I think this shows that they do have a reason to lower prices, at least at some range.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#195

Post by dns_snek »

tzs wrote: post #192
bertil wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most common criticism I hear against cities is that they are loud. Cities aren't loud; cars are loud. You experienced a bad compromise of having high density of a city and the high car ownership of suburbia. Like a "stroad," a road that is trying to be a street, it doesn't work. Try to spend a week in a place with walkable density and no cars: Amsterdam, Oslo, or closer to US, Disney Land.

Cities were loud long before cars. See https://www.medievalists.net/2016/02/the-noisy-middle-ages/ https://daily.jstor.org/a-history-of-noise/ https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/a-19th-cen... https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.64.5....

Practically none of those sources of noise pollution apply to modern urban areas. How many blacksmiths do you have working on your street today?

We've driven out nature, we don't have livestock or any animals other than rats and a few birds, we don't transport cargo on carts with wood & metal wheels, we don't live in industrial areas that produce noise pollution, we have laws governing loud music and such.

Above all, we have high quality windows now which block out almost everything but the loudest noises, usually those produced by cars.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#196

Post by resonantjacket5 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #153
resonantjacket5 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually a bit interesting to see WSDOT's plan for i-5. For capacity they aren't expanding I-5 directly, but expanding i-405 and sr167 instead for people trying to go past Seattle. For i-5 within Seattle area, there are some 2030s plans to convert the hov lanes to toll lanes and reconfiguring the reversible express lane system. * I-5 Managed Lanes: SR 16 to Pierce/ King County Line * I-5 Managed Lanes: Pierce/ K…

I don't see that working out. I405 is often worse than I5, it is just as bottlenecked as I5 is, and there isn't much room to expand it especially when it runs right up next to the water. I feel sorry for anyone who has to actually do that commute. It was horrible when I was living in Bothell and attending UW 30 years ago.

They are constructing it right now the expansion between bellevue to renton.

https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-projects/i...

The bellevue to lynnwood section was already 'expanded' a decade ago though as one can tell, it still has traffic. They're opting to increase the tolls now.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#197

Post by dns_snek »

fragmede wrote: post #179
SoftTalker wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars aren't that loud. Trucks, buses, and trains are loud, and that is what you have a lot of in urban areas.

Thing is, we can build better buildings that are more resistant to noise pollution, regardless of the source. If I can't hear my neighbors, then I can totally ignore them. Which makes it livable.

The problem with this is that it reinforces the notion that you "live" inside and only go outside when you need to get somewhere. How are you ever going to enjoy a nice street-side cup of coffee in peace? Or take a walk around your neighborhood? Or engage in any outdoor social activity?

If you allow the outside to be unpleasant, then people are increasingly going to stay inside which has negative societal ramifications.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#198

Post by Mawr »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #175
wtp1saac wrote: post #4

Strong Towns has called a good amount of attention to the mandatory parking requirements in many cities (and shockingly, many downtowns). Thankfully, it seems a fair number of cities are removing such restrictions, but hopefully it becomes more widespread. In general I hope the US can urbanize, the older I get the more I realize it’s not really enjoyable living in this country. I don’t think I want hyper dense, but h…

Have you considered moving to an urban area?

Have you considered paying the full cost of living in a non-urban area via taxes?

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#199

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

bsder wrote: post #193
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My jaw hit the floor when I learned that some cities actually apply parking minimums to redevelopment of downtown properties and not just stuff like new surburban strip malls, to the point that some projects have bought adjacent buildings and demolished them in favor of parking lots. Maybe it's true that the r/fuckcars crowd likes to throw the term "carbrain" around a little too freely, but this kind of ass-backward…

It's not always ass-backward. People forget that one of the reasons why the malls became so popular and helped collapse the old downtowns was, you guessed it, lack of free parking . With malls, you could come into a boundary and spend a significant amount of time in a walkable arena with lots of different stores. You knew there would always be parking except possibly at Christmas. Downtown? Not so much. And you proba…

But, in turn, "within walking distance" is exactly what is rendered impossible by a system in which every significant center of economic activity is required to have square miles of parking around it. It's sort of like a social form of obesity; it's clearly not quite as poisonous as the most vocal detractors say, but the sheer bulk does make it harder to move in what we might consider an optimal way.

Also, for what it's worth, you're citing "carry quarters" as some kind of dystopic microaggression to an elder millennial who was absolutely fucking thrilled to share a roll of quarters with his dad when we went to the local game store and crushed Sengoku on the nearest Neo Geo cabinet.

Re: Tear up unused parking lots, plant trees

#200

Post by ndriscoll »

uoaei wrote: post #124
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are located in the north of the city and need to get somewhere south of the city, or vice versa. You only have a few roads to do that east or west of Lake Washington. In most cases, people aren't going to downtown Seattle, downtown Seattle is just in the way.

Why are those services not available in the north of the city? This is as much a planning issue as traffic is.

Maybe it doesn't make sense to have duplicated services for the city. I grew up in Tucson. There's a zoo, but it wouldn't really make sense to have 2 zoos. Likewise with the Sonoran Desert Museum. There are also unique locations to visit. There's 1 Titan Missile Museum. There's 1 Old Tucson Studios. There's 1 Biosphere 2. They are spread out on opposite ends of the city. There are a bunch of hiking spots that are all different, and people don't want to go to the same one over and over.

Then you have things like the air force base or the university. They're important for the economy so you may work at or near them, but for the most part you don't really want to live directly adjacent to them. Fighter jets are very, very loud all day long (my mom lived where you could see the runway right behind her house when I was a teenager), and the military is known to dump very nasty chemicals for their training exercises. University students throw parties, and there's more crime in the area. For a few years, I lived a little over 2 miles from the university, and I had my bike stolen out of my backyard. In the further out part of town where I grew up, that was completely unheard of. Some of the downtown parks are mostly full of homeless adults. The parks where I grew up were mostly full of kids/teenagers.

So there's reasons why you might want to live within a ~30 minute drive of a denser area with services or work, but without having to actually live near a dense area. And your day-to-day services are already spread across most of the city, so you don't need to travel for those. I get the impression that many cities have a similar dynamic.

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