Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

usa.streetsblog.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 310 posts

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#101

Post by btrettel »

Derived wrote: post #45
mattlondon wrote: post #34

I always thought it was weird how there is so much parking in the centre of US cities. When I talk to colleagues in various US cities and they say they drive to work it just Does. Not. Compute . In central London, driving to work is essentially unheard of unless you are the Prime Minister. There is parking available in London, but the prices are fairly high - I just had a quick look on parkopedia [1] and it looks lik…

It's that expensive because of the population density and government meddling. There's no need for that in the US...are you saying we should artificially charge the pants off of everyone driving to work just to force them to use public transport? Why? I like my car. I like driving my car. I don't want to ride a train, or a bus. If I can work to the office, I will. I'll drive everywhere else.

"Government meddling" is the primary reason parking is so cheap in the US. Typically the law requires a minimum amount of parking. People like myself who don't own cars tend to subsidize those who do.

I recall some sort of economic study that suggested rents would drop by hundreds of dollars per month if parking minimums could be eliminated. (No time to find it right now, sorry.) I'd take that, as right now my apartment gives me two parking spots that I can't do anything with. (A previous apartment manager complained when I used the spot for storage. Cars only, I guess. Renting to others would not be practical, either.)

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#102

Post by kosei »

> In Philadelphia, there are 3.7 times more parking spaces than households

Honestly, this number seems reasonable to me, when you consider that people could be parking at a) their home, b) their work, and c) at any number of other places (restaurant, grocery store, mall, etc). Not to mention, each household may have more than one car. It's probably too high in aggregate, but we don't park by average, we park for specific means, and if the lot at the grocery store is full, or at our work, or at home, we consider that to be an inconvenience and want more spots.

The only way to change this is to move away from the 1-2 car-per-family model we live in right now.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#103

Post by cozzyd »

stretchwithme wrote: post #87
cozzyd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because order half the time they'll be empty driving to their next pickup. The increase in ride-sharing has already greatly increased congestion: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20180316/issue01/1803...

But in the most popular areas, many cars get multiple riders and find their next rides in the same area. And out in the boonies, some people will keep their personal cars, as it will take longer to get a ride. Also, the average car size will shrink. Not only will we lose the driver's seat, but peak demand as people go to work may be met with even smaller one-seat cars. You won't need a car that can handle your worst-…

I disagree. The article I linked suggests in NYC that Ubers are empty 1/3 of the time on weekdays. The problem of course is that no city is so mixed use that destinations are equally likely to be origins at any given time of day.

taking labor out of the equation it will become cost effective to be empty an even larger fraction of the time (presumably humans stop driving when they're not getting enough fares to be worthwhile). It may also be economical for these vehicles to never park (not only because parking costs money or might be far away, but because it increases latency) for large fractions of the day.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#104

Post by lazyjones »

mattlondon wrote: post #34

I always thought it was weird how there is so much parking in the centre of US cities. When I talk to colleagues in various US cities and they say they drive to work it just Does. Not. Compute . In central London, driving to work is essentially unheard of unless you are the Prime Minister. There is parking available in London, but the prices are fairly high - I just had a quick look on parkopedia [1] and it looks lik…

> Then add in congestion charging @ £11.50 a day [2] and you're looking at £35-£60 a day in fees before you add in your hassle factor of the traffic and paying for fuel

Congestion charge applies only to a small part of London and all those car parks have season tickets at something like -70% discount.

If traffic and fuel costs were such a hassle, nobody would drive to work except a few maniacs, generally cars are chosen for convenience / because public transport is slower and annoying in various ways.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#105

Post by jschwartzi »

btrettel wrote: post #76
jaysonelliot wrote: post #9

Until cities have a better alternative to driving than "use our terrible mass transit in our poorly-designed cities," this will remain a problem. American cities are designed for cars, so that bicycles, scooters, or any other human-scale transportation is not just inconvenient, it's dangerous. Forcing skateboards, scooters, gyros, bicycles, etc., into the road with 4,000 pound cars is insanely dangerous. If you're ri…

> Roads have to be repurposed to make light personal transportation safe. Take every two-way two-lane and split it into a one-way, with a physical separation between a car side and a personal transport side. Remove parking from the curbs, and put it in the middle so one side can be for cars and the other for bikes, scooters, skaters, etc. As a cyclist, I'd argue that most separated lanes as implemented are less safe…

> A friend of mine has additionally pointed out that the city tends to put the cycle track on the downhill side of the road (but not the uphill), which is exactly the opposite of what they should do because cyclists go much faster downhill than uphill.

I saw a really good example of an unsafe bike lane when I lived in Kent, wa. As you say the planner had put it on the downhill side of a 45 mph main thouroughfare dropping 500 feet in 1000 feet. It had a lot of great twists and turns for drivers to cut using the bike lane. And there was nothing on the uphill side.

Meanwhile I could bike a mile south and drop the same elevation by rolling through quiet neighborhoods with school zones and no traffic. It boggled my mind how none of the planners thought to redirect bicycle down this route instead of the most dangerous downhill they could find.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#106

Post by oneplane »

Maybe it's just me, but in larger cities, cars seem like an incredibly inefficient and impractical idea to transport people inside those cities. Maybe just dump the cars outside when you want to get in? Or just don't own cars and share them as a stopgap until a better solution is put in place?

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#107

Post by ghaff »

wild_preference wrote: post #62
Derived wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has plenty of cities that are just like cities everywhere else...we're a big country, we hardly have need to pack everyone in like sardines. I live in a major city, downtown. And I'm starting to hate it. No personal space, no yard, shared (or no) garage, and I'm a car enthusiast by the way, which I'm sure is practically a dirty word around most city-dwellers now. I'm seriously considering moving out to the su…

I don’t think so. American cities just aren’t dense enough to please compact-city lovers looking for a walkable experience like Prague. Even where I live in Guadalajara is better than every city I’ve lived in the States because of all the tiny shops near me. In the States I may have a 7/11 near me which doesn’t even carry coffee grounds or fruit/veg. It’s kind if a sad place to live.

Significant sections of a number of US cities are quite walkable: New York, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, parts of Denver, Chicago. As well as smaller cities like Boulder. It's certainly true that newer US cities tend to be more spread out but if city walkability is a priority for you, examples exist.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#108

Post by lazyjones »

amptorn wrote: post #78
amelius wrote: post #28

Self-driving cars will solve the whole parking problem.

How? Being self-driving doesn't make a car take up less space.

A self-driving car will ideally drop you off in front of your commute target and go find a parking space at a convenient location that might even be outside town.

Re: American Cities Are Drowning in Car Storage

#109

Post by cardiffspaceman »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #74
jeremyjh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they might also actually be helping some people, or improving the environment, even if its very inefficient.

But they also are a cop out to not solve the real problem. If you give tuition money to a few poor kids via a non profit, you don’t solve the college debt and education accessibility problem, but it makes people who did it feel better.

> If you give tuition money to a few poor kids via a non profit

Or pay someone to plant a tree when you fly to offset the carbon.

Post reply on HN