U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
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Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#2There is a thorough book on this topic, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. Highly recommend it if you're interested in the causes of so much of our dysfunction in housing costs.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634461/paved-paradi...
Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#3It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#4It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
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Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#5It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
Ditch off street parking and buildings will become much more dense, which in turn will make them more valuable (manhattan land is more valuable than suburbia), smaller (because people can't afford much space when land is expensive), which increases density further.
End result: Nobody has space for a car, lots of demand for public transit, makes it worth building public transit.
Unfortunately, there probably will be transitional years of people fighting for parking spaces at ridiculous prices before the transit gets built.
Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#6It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
This isn’t true.
If there is a demand for parking spots in an area, dedicated paid parking can be created — based on market forces rather than minimums. This parking is also often more dense and built upwards. It’s a more efficient use of city space.
As is, parking is subsidized by all residents of a city rather than the people who actually consume parking. Much of this space goes unused throughout the day, and the aggregate effect necessarily means sprawl.
Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#7The amount of money we collectively spend subsidizing driving is utterly insane.
Yet every public transit measure is jet with the same tired dogma of “it’ll raise our taxes” or “it will run at a loss”. Street parking tons at a loss. Why is this never brought up?
Significant money is spent by the likes of the remaining Koch brothers to fight public transit infrastructure in every city.
Yet taking drivers off the road will make driving better and faster.
The shortsightedness of this is bewildering.
Parking minimums are a start, particularly for building more affordable housing but it’s barely scratching the surface and even this small gesture will often be met with fierce opposition.
Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#8It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
Before: If you build a building of this size, you MUST also build at least X parking spaces.
Now: If you build a building of this size, you MAY build as many parking spaces as you think you need.
Seems like a strict improvement to me.
Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#9It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
this doesn't eliminate parking spots. they're eliminating parking minimums, which in most cases are not backed by any sort of science or study - parking minimums get set mostly randomly, as a roadblock for development that people don't want in their neighbourhood. there's no good reason for most of these parking minimums, and they're not necessarily parking spots in places where there is any demand. steet parking, parking garages, and parking lots will continue to exist.
then they get carried forward as precedent because people hear "eliminate parking minimums" as "eliminate parking spots" and fight against it, but they don't make any sense.
Re: U.S. cities opt to ditch their off-street parking minimums
#10It’s one thing to ditch parking minimums, but it has to be matched with investment in public transit. Simply eliminating parking spots doesn’t eliminate demand when there are no other options for getting around. And I suspect the public transit investment will be way more controversial and difficult to implement.
If there are truly no other options, then the developers are going to have to severely reduce the price of their real estate or choose not to build there. This is simply taking an implicit approach to things, which may or may not work.
If anything doing this is a way for cities to implicitly get citizens on board for investing more in public transit. All of the new apartment buildings in the hip parts of town don't have any parking for your cars, so you're forced onto public transportation more, which you might think stinks, so you now care more about voting for infrastructure improvement.