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How Parking Destroys Cities

theatlantic.com

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Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#31

Post by zemvpferreira »

zozbot234 wrote: post #23
zemvpferreira wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with you but high speed is very relative. I'd be happy to have a 30-50 km/hr limit across the city and no city streets/avenue with more than two lanes of traffic, certainly not advocating for more than that. What I'd love to have is a continuous flow of traffic at low speeds instead of stop-and-go for an hour to get 10 kms across town.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#32

Post by zemvpferreira »

zozbot234 wrote: post #25
zemvpferreira wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It can, but it won't be in Lisbon, unless we completely reform the public sector first. If that's our hope we might as well get used to the current situation.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#33

Post by zemvpferreira »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #29
zemvpferreira wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's fair enough, I'm pinning my hopes on the electric car/bike coming down in price enough to make them viable for our commuters in the next 5 years. Still, if we don't have massive public works, it's a lot harder to fill politician's pockets on the side.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#34

Post by userulluipeste »

This is madness. Despite the pandemic we all went through and the need to avoid unnecessary human contact and proximity, despite the fact that the highest risk of infection has been demonstrably in walkable cities like New York, the old policy of pushing for measures that would force people to travel together, regardless of their preference or safety, hasn't changed. I like to walk, and pre-pandemic I took public transport a lot, despite having access to a car, which I used to drive only rarely. That all changed with the pandemic. Thankfully, I haven't got infected, and I'm convinced that the shelter provided by car's cabin was an important factor. Do not force people into having only exposure laden movement options.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#35

Post by QuarterReptile »

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…

It's more painful in the US because so much of our built environment is not at a human scale conducive to public transit. Transit uses an implied hub and spoke network system where the base level of spoke is walking, then some combination of buses/trains/subways integrating those walk-sheds.

For huge areas of the country (and yes, this includes those classified as "urban"), the distances are too long, and the scenery too hostile or unexciting, to encourage walking. The more this happens, the more people want cars, and everything about accommodating cars (vs accommodating those on foot) worsens the area for human use: heat islands from parking and roads, danger from the same, dead landscapes, etc. Part of the problem is that cars are great for GDP (road building/maintenence, New rings of suburbs every generation as people flee the old ones, the whole car ecosystem) and horrible for building wealth, and ultimately national policy is all about GDP.

The inertia of this ugly system keeps cars nearly necessary to live and work in most places. And you can live in ways that avoid car use, but all entertainment and recreation and your friends are inaccessible without cars because most people pick the car option when faced with the question.

All of this means that there's no critical mass of people using transit to push for high level of service, and buses (and in some regions trains too) become filthy places to avoid.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#36

Post by Jochim »

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…

You're correct in that once you start building for cars your city sprawls out and other modes of transport become impractical.

I don't think the 27% number is particularly useful because it offers no context into the type of trip. No one is suggesting you use bicycles for intercity trips, but for city transport they're perfect. This is reflected in the mode share numbers for cities compared to the national average: Wikipedia has Amsterdam at 40% bike share with 29% public transport and 27% driving. In the context of a city, biking and public transport are the obvious choices to get more people into the same area.

I think you have a chicken and the egg problem in many cities where driving is hugely subsidised and no investment takes place in other transportation methods. For example, in the UK the majority of trips seem to be around 5 miles or less. By bike this is only a 30 minute commute at the extreme end. Once you account for traffic it ends up being only 10-20 minutes slower than driving the same distance.

Compared to the Netherlands cycling only makes up 2% of the national mode share. The difference between the UK and the Netherlands is that we have almost no investment in cycling infrastructure, and what we do get is typically poorly executed.

> Bicycles replace walking, not driving.

Personally I don't believe driving belongs in any city where you also want people to have an enjoyable time walking the streets and socialising. It's a perfectly acceptable way of getting between cities or from remote locations, but within a city there are almost always better options.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#37

Post by soco »

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…

There aren't such big cities in Switzerland to actually need a metro. Surface transport does just fine, plus some transit trains going under where it can't be avoided. So yes lately many investments go in new train tunnels, you can load your car and go that way for really long distances or across mountains, you have the sleeping wagons back in fashion, you can send your heavy luggage ahead via same train for a minor charge, you have night transport for when you come back drunk from clubbing... so you can keep your car for the casual shopping trip and for taxiing kid's football team to the weekend match. Not much need otherwise, and yes, it works already.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#38

Post by Tade0 »

Jochim wrote: post #36
Tade0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're correct in that once you start building for cars your city sprawls out and other modes of transport become impractical. I don't think the 27% number is particularly useful because it offers no context into the type of trip. No one is suggesting you use bicycles for intercity trips, but for city transport they're perfect. This is reflected in the mode share numbers for cities compared to the national average: W…

> Wikipedia has Amsterdam at 40% bike share with 29% public transport and 27% driving.

That's the thing: in Amsterdam. Who are those people that are responsible for half of all trips and where are they headed with their cars?

Looking at the map I wouldn't drive in this city as well - the distance from the city limits to the centre is less than 5km, so as much as I have from my apartment to the centre of the city I live in, and I generally don't drive into this 5km radius circle around here.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#39

Post by Simulacra »

I have a dream in which cities will offer free parking on the outskirts in garages, and free light rail/subway transit into the city, with zoning laws that emphasize a walkable city. I can dream, but I think it will require separating people from their cars and getting them comfortable with that.

Re: How Parking Destroys Cities

#40

Post by sofixa »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #35
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…

It's more painful in the US because so much of our built environment is not at a human scale conducive to public transit. Transit uses an implied hub and spoke network system where the base level of spoke is walking, then some combination of buses/trains/subways integrating those walk-sheds. For huge areas of the country (and yes, this includes those classified as "urban"), the distances are too long, and the scenery…

> Transit uses an implied hub and spoke network system where the base level of spoke is walking, then some combination of buses/trains/subways integrating those walk-sheds.

Not necessarily. Minibuses, bikes, e-scooters, even cars (park and ride, a big parking next to a train station; you get off the train and on your car for the last/first part of your trip) are perfectly viable "last mile" options.

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