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How Parking Destroys Cities

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#21

Post by Elte »

Tade0 wrote: post #10
poooogles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycle?

Doesn't and can't actually replace a car over a certain size of the city. It is said that in the Netherlands 27% of all trips are done by bicycle - IIRC it's the highest percentage in Europe. What is not mentioned though is that 50% are done by car. If you look at the distance traveled it's 75% car, 8% bicycle. The cities in that country that have a higher trip percentage are tiny, 100k towns. Bicycles replace walkin…

What types of trips? Distance traveled isn't really a relevant metric if you consider that cars may be used between cities (where distances are longer) and bikes inside of cities.

I'm from the Netherlands, 30 years old and have never owned a car. I do most everything by bike and public transport, occasionally if the situation calls for it I rent or borrow a car (I know people with cars that, unsurprisingly, aren't being used all the time). It certainly depends on your exact living situation, but my impression is that infrastructure plays a big role. I lived in Amsterdam for 12 years, and almost everything in that city encourages you to use a bike, and almost everyone does. Recently I've moved to Germany, and even though it's generally considered a bike friendly country with lots of people owning bicycles, the infrastructure doesn't compare. Dedicated bike lanes are way less common, and whatever is there is often bad quality (avoiding bumps all the time is really energy consuming). Again, unsurprisingly, people use cars here over distances where it wouldn't even cross my mind.

Of course distance matters, and cars will be preferable for long distances with bad public transport connections. I've never found driving a car inside a city to make a lot of sense though, it's often not even faster taking congestion etc into account. Put the bike infrastructure in place, and people will use it. Lots of Dutch train stations now have what's referred to as a "public transport bike", a few euros lets you borrow a sturdy bike for a 24-hour period. Take a train into town, do the rest with the bike, it's all really simple and fast. I see this being added to large parking spaces outside of cities in the future (maybe they already have - I don't own a car so I wouldn't know ;]).

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#22

Post by zemvpferreira »

soco wrote: post #19

I hear this discussion also on this side of the pond and I just don't get it: why not reviving public transport? I can't see how even more car-friendly policies - self-driven cars or not - can make the roads more available... I'm in Switzerland and short or long distance, public transport gets you in comparable times with driving. Maybe not for some godforsaken places where you need to switch three buses, but 90% of…

Here in Portugal the louder voices speak for public transit - greener, fairer, etc etc. You know the usual arguments.

Unfortunately massive public works are by far our biggest source of grifting. It takes an average of 20 years and $120M/mile (60M €/km) to open a new metro station.

Maybe Switzerland doesn't have this problem, but I'm all for solutions that take funds away from our politician's hands. And the car is great in that respect, as long as you don't advocate to increase road capacity at a massive cost.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#23

Post by zozbot234 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #11
adav wrote: post #2

Should be: How Parking Destroys American Cities

No, this is my exact sentiment in Lisbon, Portugal - Europe. A city going on 1000 years. Our parking requirements for new construction and our addiction to free curb parking everywhere have destroyed mobility. There are unnecessary jams at all times of the day thanks to idiotic parking. I drive daily and have nothing against cars. I hope that small semi-self-driving electric cars will eventually replace our dying pub…

> In Lisbon we could easily double or triple the speed and amount of traffic flow without any investment by getting rid of a few thousand spots of street parking.

Agreed, but surely the best arrangement in a dense, traditional city centre is not to have high speed traffic at all except on a few large thoroughfares, and to reserve most other streets and alleys to pedestrian use.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#24

Post by kokx »

Tade0 wrote: post #10
poooogles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycle?

Doesn't and can't actually replace a car over a certain size of the city. It is said that in the Netherlands 27% of all trips are done by bicycle - IIRC it's the highest percentage in Europe. What is not mentioned though is that 50% are done by car. If you look at the distance traveled it's 75% car, 8% bicycle. The cities in that country that have a higher trip percentage are tiny, 100k towns. Bicycles replace walkin…

Bicycles replace both walking and driving trips. In Dutch cities, most people walk or cycle to the grocery store, which is a great example of cycling replacing walking trips.

In smaller villages however, that are more spread out and usually only have one or two grocery stores, people usually take the car or their bike to the grocery store, because walking is too far. In this case, bikes do replace trips by car.

Also note that in general, Dutch cities are quite walkable and cycleable. If I visit a friend on the other side of the city I live in, I go by bike. Which is about as fast as going by car. Going by public transport also takes about the same time. This is a result of the Downs-Thomson paradox [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#25

Post by zozbot234 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #22
soco wrote: post #19

I hear this discussion also on this side of the pond and I just don't get it: why not reviving public transport? I can't see how even more car-friendly policies - self-driven cars or not - can make the roads more available... I'm in Switzerland and short or long distance, public transport gets you in comparable times with driving. Maybe not for some godforsaken places where you need to switch three buses, but 90% of…

Here in Portugal the louder voices speak for public transit - greener, fairer, etc etc. You know the usual arguments. Unfortunately massive public works are by far our biggest source of grifting. It takes an average of 20 years and $120M/mile (60M €/km) to open a new metro station. Maybe Switzerland doesn't have this problem, but I'm all for solutions that take funds away from our politician's hands. And the car is g…

> It takes an average of 20 years and $120M/mile (60M €/km) to open a new metro station.

Light rail transit or streetcars can be a lot cheaper than that, while still avoiding quite a bit of car traffic. The best system for any given atea is going to depend on density and local demand.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#26

Post by tomytosian »

Isinlor wrote: post #17
Shaddox wrote: post #3

I'm jealous of parking abundant American cities. In this part of the pond, your choices are between walking, taking a face-planted-against-the-window bus or train, or take your car and spin around for 30 minutes at your destination trying to find somewhere to leave your car. Neither of these are very good. I'd rather one problem be solved than have a choice between 3 awful compromises.

I use bike to go everywhere. It is a prefect solution: 1. Cheap 2. Takes very little space 3. Good for health 4. In a dense city almost as fast as a car; sometimes faster For people who doubt biking is possible. In Finland there is a city near arctic circle called Oulu with population of around 100 000 people. They have 2h of day light in winter. Temperatures often go to -10 degrees centigrade. And 22% of all trips a…

yeah try with a family of 5, when u need to bring shopping or stuff you bought.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#27

Post by tomytosian »

jonvk wrote: post #12
eafkuor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked taxis are pretty expensive. Not everyone wants or can spend 10 or 20 euros every time they need to go somewhere.

Free parking is also quite expensive, although it's hard to see. It increases the costs of private properties when it's part of the property, and public parking increases government expenditures. It also consumes lots of otherwise very valuable space. That's without factoring in the increased costs on social structures from the extra drivers on the road when there is more parking space.

yeah but its wrong. public parking is mostly paid by high income property owners. parking is mostly paid by poor or middle class people living in remote suburbs with the need to commute

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#28

Post by sime2009 »

Tade0 wrote: post #10
poooogles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycle?

Doesn't and can't actually replace a car over a certain size of the city. It is said that in the Netherlands 27% of all trips are done by bicycle - IIRC it's the highest percentage in Europe. What is not mentioned though is that 50% are done by car. If you look at the distance traveled it's 75% car, 8% bicycle. The cities in that country that have a higher trip percentage are tiny, 100k towns. Bicycles replace walkin…

To get back to the article for moment which is really about how parking and cars destroy cities, the discussion about whether bikes/walking replace driving is missing the point somewhat.

The point is if you build city centres around the idea of biking/walking then you can have much smaller and compact cities centres which are more pleasant and suitable for biking/walking at the same time. Biking/walking doesn't replace driving so much as eliminate it.

For people coming from further away, you drive to the edge of the city centre, park (often in a multilevel car park), and then walk the last part to your destination. This is how most Dutch cities are set up. Bigger cities of course have more short distance public transport too.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#29

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #22
soco wrote: post #19

I hear this discussion also on this side of the pond and I just don't get it: why not reviving public transport? I can't see how even more car-friendly policies - self-driven cars or not - can make the roads more available... I'm in Switzerland and short or long distance, public transport gets you in comparable times with driving. Maybe not for some godforsaken places where you need to switch three buses, but 90% of…

Here in Portugal the louder voices speak for public transit - greener, fairer, etc etc. You know the usual arguments. Unfortunately massive public works are by far our biggest source of grifting. It takes an average of 20 years and $120M/mile (60M €/km) to open a new metro station. Maybe Switzerland doesn't have this problem, but I'm all for solutions that take funds away from our politician's hands. And the car is g…

Hm. What do you think of the taxes on top of the costs for fuel/gas, then? And how they relate to the 'peanuts' for some metro?

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#30

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

Shaddox wrote: post #3

I'm jealous of parking abundant American cities. In this part of the pond, your choices are between walking, taking a face-planted-against-the-window bus or train, or take your car and spin around for 30 minutes at your destination trying to find somewhere to leave your car. Neither of these are very good. I'd rather one problem be solved than have a choice between 3 awful compromises.

That is the mentality of a slave. Rise up, and employ a chaffeur to drive you where you need to be, and be back in an instant when you need the car again.
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