261–270 of 683 posts
>You could imagine a world in which streets were pedestrianized and where we planted trees and gardens and in what is currently space reserved for parking, and closed streets, outside schools, so kids can have places to play. I would love to see a LOT more of this in urban centers. I live in a college town that is about the same size as Iowa City. Iowa City has taken the step of closing off their downtown and making…
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> It is somewhat a zero-sum game at least in urban centers. Driving is cheap because free and cheap parking is widely available, and car speed is prioritized over other factors including pedestrian safety. I've never seen an urban center where "free and cheap parking is widely available", or one with a speed limit above 25.
I've been to NYC where free and cheap parking is on nearly every major and minor street. I would consider it widely available. Yes, trying to find a parking spot is a nightmare but that doesn't mean it isn't widely available generally.
Have you tried to park on the street in NYC?
Parking is most certainly not widely available. If spots exist but all of them are always taken, that means zero availability.
If you go to a restaurant with 100 tables, all of them full and a 2 hour waiting list, would you tell a friend on the phone "Yes they have lots of tables available"?
1. We were bidding smart parking meters to a city in California who insisted that, per the ADA, they should be accessible to the blind. We suggested to them that blind folks tend to not park or drive cars very often.
2. Seeing damage photos from a customer's parking meter where somebody had inserted dynamite up the coin/ticket return tray. The explosion buckled the body of the machine, but incredibly the reinforcement and the lock held. The [paper] money inside got destroyed, though.
3. The angry customer reaction when a co-worker's "Get bent, loser" dummy/debug message accidentally found its way into production.
4. Having to certify the accuracy of a parking meter's onboard clock because it printed a boat launch ticket that was used as evidence in the case of a guy who killed his pregnant wife and dumped her in the SF Bay.
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Comments like this make me appreciate living in a city that has a pretty comprehensive public transport coverage, and where bicycling is at least tolerable. The city you describe seems to be only usable by car.
There's currently very little incentive to pedestrianize actual problem cities from all concerned parties. Because pedestrians are still largely able to bike, walk, bus etc just fine. And drivers are largely able to commute/park just fine. We need to be honest that the folks most concerned (rightfully so) with urban car congestion are wealthy upper class people who moved TO the cities for their upperclass nature. Sho…
I don’t see how that’s true for most cities in the USA.
For walking, in many cases, there isn’t even a sidewalk for pedestrians to use. If there is, crossing stroads is way more difficult (large distances between crossing opportunities) and dangerous (e.g. no pedestrian islands halfway) than needed.
I live car-free in NYC. A large appeal of NYC to me was not having to park. I don't ~mind~ driving, but I absolutely hated having to deal with finding parking when I lived in other cities. Parking generally makes me feel stressed (competition for free spots), or makes me pay (using something like SpotHero makes it easy to find a spot, but costs me). It's not even just major cities either- I'm frequently in a college…
Sold my car years ago and moved to Boston. I'll never go back to live anywhere that requires me to own a car. I bike or walk everywhere, and what makes me hopeful is that biking infrastructure in Boston (and neighboring cities like Cambridge) has improved dramatically in the years since I've been here and just keeps getting better. Google tells me that the average TCO of car ownership in the US was $10,728 in 2022. B…
What if you don't live near a pool? Your kids just don't learn to swim? My local pool is a 15 minute drive, but a harrowing cycle route.
Parking is impactful but is ultimately shaped by human preferences that are revealed by the choices people make. For example, you can live in NYC car-free, but many (most?) people move out to the burbs once they have a family, partially because lower density + car enables better family life. What works well for a single-and-dating young professional, doesn't work as well for a dad. If ample parking makes family life…
> Parking is impactful but is ultimately shaped by human preferences that are revealed by the choices people make. This is completely untrue. It is shaped by the profit-seeking behaviors of car manufacturers. In general, when you think a phenomenon is due to "the choices people make" (especially in the US), it probably is not.
> This is completely untrue. It is shaped by the profit-seeking behaviors of car manufacturers.
That's a wild claim, how would you substantiate it?
It's partially true, of course, manufacturers (or anything) lobby for their self-interest.
But your claim is that it is completely untrue that people have preferences that shape what they need. A lot of people much prefer living in a large space with land than squeezed into a high-rise.
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> Convince people to live in smaller houses and share walls with their neighbors, and the parking situation would change dramatically. Completely unnecessary. Want a front yard, back yard, and garage (attached to a laneway)? Plenty of that was build pre-WW2: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0&t=1m8s The Oh the Urbanity channel has a video on the (mistaken) i…
The GP said "convince people to live in smaller houses and share walls", you retort back "completely unnecessary". Your first two examples are...smaller houses and shared walls.
All the streets in question have big(er) and small(er) houses, with both semi- and fully-detached houses. Some areas have more of some kind than another.
Next time I'll re-arrange the order of the links so that the big(er) stuff is first:
* https://www.google.com/maps/place/150+Geoffrey+St,+Toronto,+...
There are two subways stations (Keele, Dundas West) with-in 2km of that location. You can have sizeable fully-detached houses at densities that support walking distances of various amenities and mass transit.
The idea that urban living necessitates "smaller houses and share walls" is a red herring as demonstrated by a whole bunch of housing stock built pre-WW2.
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> Convince people to live in smaller houses and share walls with their neighbors, and the parking situation would change dramatically. Completely unnecessary. Want a front yard, back yard, and garage (attached to a laneway)? Plenty of that was build pre-WW2: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0&t=1m8s The Oh the Urbanity channel has a video on the (mistaken) i…
The GP said "convince people to live in smaller houses and share walls", you retort back "completely unnecessary". Your first two examples are...smaller houses and shared walls.
This might be one of those cases where random links were copy pasted without consideration for the actual claims.
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There is a mod for the current version of cities that does model it. You have to make sure you have enough parking or your buildings will go empty. There is a also a DLC addon where you can have walkable cities. It is pretty tricky to get just right.
Realistic parking and mixed-use commercial/residential as common in European cities are my two biggest wishes for Cities 2.