> Cars, and in particular, parking, kills cities. Parking is sponge that sucks all the life out of places.
Yes, and. If you start charging for parking to try to fight against this without also improving public transportation, it just kills cities faster. I avoid going into downtown cores where I will pay $25-$40 to park for an hour or two to eat at a restaurant, which means those restaurants can only support their businesses off captive people during the work day, which means that moving to remote work widely across society devastated downtown cores in a way you would not have expected. All because I can get downtown in 15 minutes from my house in my car but it takes 3 hours and 20 minutes by bus and there is no other public transport in the 7th largest city in the US by population.
Cars are the enemy, sort of, but the biggest enemy is the complete lack of any reasonable public transport in almost every major US city, which needs to exist to fairly ratchet up on parking.
Parking minimums prevent developers from free-loading on a commons, that commons being street parking.
So eliminating parking minimums by themselves will create nasty side effects.
But of course the correct answer to tragedy of the commons is pricing -- price the street parking appropriately and it won't be abused so you won't need worse solutions like parking minimums.
Get rid of street parking so drivers can't free load on the commons either, make parking something that you have to buy (with your rent or on your own) because it actually costs something.
Also, you no longer have to worry about kids appearing into the street between parked cars that obscure their presence even near crosswalks (that cars park way too close to because they can't find parking elsewhere). Win-win.
Expensive parking and higher population density might even make pubic transportation commercially viable. Not having to walk a mile from the nearest stop / station could also make it actually convenient to people of all walks of life.
Make it illegal to use private vehicles in urban areas, except for on specific ingress/egress routes. Bolster public transit.
Most drivers are using their car to scoot around 5-10 miles. Make them walk (yes not everyone can; they have friends and family, care workers, etc). Invest in infrastructure to backfill gaps that make walking onerous.
There was measurable improvement in air pollution during Covid lockdown. We'll hate it now but thank ourselves when we're 70 and a little less anxious about environmental collapse.
Cars are great for road trips but a massive pollution and burden on urban infrastructure.
Rip up superfluous sidewalks then (aka heat storage. Plus concrete is worse for joints) and leave the avenues/streets not designated for ingress and egress for bikes, small delivery vehicles, handicap accessibility.
People drive because it is convenient. If there are fewer parks it becomes less convenient and fewer people will drive. Why do we prioritise the convenience of those that want to park a car over those that need a place to live?
Solar panels is the answer. It keeps the people dry in the rain and the power can go right back to the city. Yes, it's not possible for all lots. For a vast majority of them, it's a net win.
Solar panels do not solve the problem of parking lots being community dead zones. You can put solar panels on anything - it'd be better if it were housing, a store, a pub, etc. than a parking lot.
This article goes too far and yet not far enough. By trying to build more buildings that increase parking in yet smaller footprints and then charge for the added expense of all of that, why not just eliminate cars in these districts altogether. Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within the city. Now you aren't trying to extract value from the simple act of wanting to exist in a space leaving more value to core economic goods and services.
I mean that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it. All the downsides of a car with all the downsides of a bus.
The solution, which has done in my city to genuinely smashing success is to nationalize the parking garages meaning government builds them, maintains them, and they're free forever. Dot them around a dense mixed use area and quite literally watch the money pour in. Everything is within grandpa walking distance of at least one garage, they're specced to over capacity so each one is never full, and it provides parking to the workers and apartments.
> Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within
Very telling how these arguments are always the most ableist shit you've ever heard and yet people seem to think they're Very Progressive for making them.
In a large metro with an extant, functional, mass transit system, sure. But do this in a cold place with no existing mass transit, and all you'll do is kill off downtown businesses and reduce property values to 0.
This experiment was kind of done in Buffalo in the 70s. They blocked off large swathes of downtown to build the above ground section of metro rail. This encouraged business to close downtown locations and move to suburban malls. That kind of retail never came back to downtown in the roughly 1 decade after completion of the metro. So you had a mass transit system that went effectively from nowhere to nowhere, and managed to kill the downtown retail corridor.
I think someone should try banning absolutely everything but emergency vehicles. No cars, no taxis, no vans, no trucks. Only cargo bikes, hand carts and maybe palanquins. Add some sort of uber type platform where you can hire someone to push wheelchair around. Limit speeds of mopeds and bicycles to say 10 or 15 km/h for pedestrian safety. This should make extremely liveable city if those promoting these things are right.
Maybe surface parking lots aren't the answer, but I do know that if there are places that I can't easily park at, I just don't go there unless absolutely necessary.
Nice to think, "the people will take trains!" but sometimes it doesn't work that way.
This is such a terrifying vision of the proper scope of government. We shouldn't use government to hurt people, and making someone's property too expensive to continue owning is definitely hurting them.
If you're really concerned with surface parking push the government to stop making it so expensive for companies to develop self-driving technology or to offer transportation services. If it's easier and less expensive for individuals to use transportation that they don't need to park anywhere the need for surface lots vanishes and those owning the property will look for something else to do with it.
Parking maximums would be just as stupid as parking minimums. Instead of oversupply with inefficient use of space you'll get under supply with businesses starved of customers who can't find a convenient parking space.
Let the market decide how much parking is needed. It'll do a much better job than you ever could.
Nary a mention of parking garages / underground parking?
Austrian cities have way more parking than one would expect, but it's nearly all underground and costs €
The benefits are huge, you have have dense commerical areas where you drive in, park underground, pay for some hours, then walk between the shops to do all your business.
If you don't like parking you need to start with cars: give people a reasonable alternative. Too many are looking at this from a standpoint of "lets just get rid of parking" - without asking what people will do instead. All too often the answer is they will drive someplace in the suburbs instead where they get free parking.
If you want your downtowns to not have parking you need an alternative. In most cases that means you need to improve your transit in the entire city so people can get there.
I lived in Vancouver for years, near the downtown, near the SkyTrain and it was amazing. Back then I thought I would never live anywhere but the downtown of a city.
But, you know what, life changes. I know there’s hardcore folks out there who will cycle miles with their kids, or take them on transit, or even live with them in a 2 bedroom downtown apartment, but it is just too hard to live that way for many people. With a family, most people need more space, and they need to be able to get from their suburban home to some kind of shopping or work, in minimum time so that they can both take care of kids, maintain a career, and have a glimpse of a life for themselves.
We don’t need to have surface lots right in the middle of every downtown, but there needs to be somewhere for people to park.
"That is, how much value a parcel creates for the community compared to how much value it consumes simply by existing as land. Think of it like this:
Net Contribution=(Economic Output in $)−(Land Value in $)"
This calculation is shady. Land value fluctuates and already "bakes in" the predicted economic output... but multiplied across decades. Not to mention, land doesn't consume value by existing. the value never goes anywhere. Its opportunity cost, not a decrease in actual value.
Yes, there is value "missed out on", but it hasn't been destroyed. Because it never existed. And that value wouldn't have appeared out of nowhere. it would've required using up other resources that the parking lot wasn't.
TL;DW: The difference in tax revenue between a surface parking lot and a business with subterranean parking is so vast, that cities can justify using value to underwrite the loans necessary for developers to do the work. (Called "Tax Increment Financing") This model is proving extremely successful with cities that try taking it on.
I currently live in a downtown area, and "walkable city" policies like this is why I'm going to move to a big open suburb when my lease is up. It makes life much more of a hassle, especially in cold weather.
Cambridge MA was rezoned in the mid-20th century to suburban standards, in a city where land in a mid-range neighborhood now costs $350-$400 per square foot. Besides putting in floor area ratio requirements that required most of the existing housing to be grandfathered, they added a requirement of one parking spot per unit.
If it's a traditional 1-car driveway that's about $70K worth of land, although in the end it's zero-sum because it takes away an on-street spot. Parking garages for larger developments probably cost as much or more per parking space - they use less land, but they're expensive to build.
It's insane, and they're trying to fix it, and approving special permits left and right to omit the spots.
Switch from a culture of car use to walking, biking and public transport (buses, trams, light rail). And if people outside the city are coming in by car - let them park outside the town center and continue with public transport from there (while public transport is developed further afield; after that they would only drive their cars as far as the nearest train station, or even bike there).
Here's the thing - if I can't easily park somewhere, I won't go there. There is no public transit, but even if there was, I am not going to use it if it's anything like the NYC subway. You have to solve the problem of mentally ill people causing problems on the public transit, socially ill people blasting music from a bluetooth speaker, etc before anyone I know would ever consider using the public transit. It's just so much less pleasant than driving.
In effect, reducing parking reduces economic activity. Even if you increase public transit use, those users are overwhelmingly poor and don't contribute greatly to the economic activity where they go.
>> Our property tax policy punishes buildings and does not inflict enough cost on underutilized land. The result is a system that rewards holding valuable sites idle while penalizing those who invest, build, and contribute to the city’s productivity.
This is the exact reasoning for cutting taxes on the rich and let the upper middle class pay the highest percentages.
Maybe the family who has owned that lot for 80 years doesnt have the money to upgrade it for the "highest and best use" by someone else's standards, but the revenue allows them to live a little better.
I've never understood why constant growth is so often a priority. The world is headed for population decline so governments better figure out how to shrink instead of growing.
Im not against city planning, but this whole piece stinks of telling people what to do.
looking at the pictures.....Syracuse looks a lot like my home town... did, old buildings, low rise high rise, muddled look, sortof stuck, was a good place till the land bankers bought up stuff and waited, and now Halifax ,NS is the second fastest growing city in NA, and there is a forest of cranes
and older sections of town are under the wrecking ball, 9 billion $ hospital going up, and some days my phone blows up for no particular reason, other than I suppose, everyone else has stopped answering there's.
I have no idea what all the many tens of thousands of new residents are going to do, but here they are re-building my home town into a mini megalopolis.
So, the comonality is the land banking parking lots, literaly, parking money, as an
asset, that will beat holding costs and inflation, untill, BOOM!
The secondary type is to by up lots, right at highway exits within 30 min circle of an area like this, cant loose.
40 comments
[ 1.1 ms ] story [ 55.1 ms ] threadThe High Cost of Free Parking is an incredible book that shows exactly how awful parking has been for society.
What's your solution to it then?
Yes, and. If you start charging for parking to try to fight against this without also improving public transportation, it just kills cities faster. I avoid going into downtown cores where I will pay $25-$40 to park for an hour or two to eat at a restaurant, which means those restaurants can only support their businesses off captive people during the work day, which means that moving to remote work widely across society devastated downtown cores in a way you would not have expected. All because I can get downtown in 15 minutes from my house in my car but it takes 3 hours and 20 minutes by bus and there is no other public transport in the 7th largest city in the US by population.
Cars are the enemy, sort of, but the biggest enemy is the complete lack of any reasonable public transport in almost every major US city, which needs to exist to fairly ratchet up on parking.
Not parking would be worse. Just think of the injuries from jumping from moving vehicles.
So eliminating parking minimums by themselves will create nasty side effects.
But of course the correct answer to tragedy of the commons is pricing -- price the street parking appropriately and it won't be abused so you won't need worse solutions like parking minimums.
Also, you no longer have to worry about kids appearing into the street between parked cars that obscure their presence even near crosswalks (that cars park way too close to because they can't find parking elsewhere). Win-win.
Most drivers are using their car to scoot around 5-10 miles. Make them walk (yes not everyone can; they have friends and family, care workers, etc). Invest in infrastructure to backfill gaps that make walking onerous.
There was measurable improvement in air pollution during Covid lockdown. We'll hate it now but thank ourselves when we're 70 and a little less anxious about environmental collapse.
Cars are great for road trips but a massive pollution and burden on urban infrastructure.
Rip up superfluous sidewalks then (aka heat storage. Plus concrete is worse for joints) and leave the avenues/streets not designated for ingress and egress for bikes, small delivery vehicles, handicap accessibility.
[1] https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2...
It's a great group of advocates that are making impactful changes across the US and internationally.
We need to attack The Modern Moloch (99pi).
The solution, which has done in my city to genuinely smashing success is to nationalize the parking garages meaning government builds them, maintains them, and they're free forever. Dot them around a dense mixed use area and quite literally watch the money pour in. Everything is within grandpa walking distance of at least one garage, they're specced to over capacity so each one is never full, and it provides parking to the workers and apartments.
Very telling how these arguments are always the most ableist shit you've ever heard and yet people seem to think they're Very Progressive for making them.
This experiment was kind of done in Buffalo in the 70s. They blocked off large swathes of downtown to build the above ground section of metro rail. This encouraged business to close downtown locations and move to suburban malls. That kind of retail never came back to downtown in the roughly 1 decade after completion of the metro. So you had a mass transit system that went effectively from nowhere to nowhere, and managed to kill the downtown retail corridor.
Nice to think, "the people will take trains!" but sometimes it doesn't work that way.
If you're really concerned with surface parking push the government to stop making it so expensive for companies to develop self-driving technology or to offer transportation services. If it's easier and less expensive for individuals to use transportation that they don't need to park anywhere the need for surface lots vanishes and those owning the property will look for something else to do with it.
Let the market decide how much parking is needed. It'll do a much better job than you ever could.
Austrian cities have way more parking than one would expect, but it's nearly all underground and costs €
The benefits are huge, you have have dense commerical areas where you drive in, park underground, pay for some hours, then walk between the shops to do all your business.
If you want your downtowns to not have parking you need an alternative. In most cases that means you need to improve your transit in the entire city so people can get there.
But, you know what, life changes. I know there’s hardcore folks out there who will cycle miles with their kids, or take them on transit, or even live with them in a 2 bedroom downtown apartment, but it is just too hard to live that way for many people. With a family, most people need more space, and they need to be able to get from their suburban home to some kind of shopping or work, in minimum time so that they can both take care of kids, maintain a career, and have a glimpse of a life for themselves.
We don’t need to have surface lots right in the middle of every downtown, but there needs to be somewhere for people to park.
Net Contribution=(Economic Output in $)−(Land Value in $)"
This calculation is shady. Land value fluctuates and already "bakes in" the predicted economic output... but multiplied across decades. Not to mention, land doesn't consume value by existing. the value never goes anywhere. Its opportunity cost, not a decrease in actual value.
Yes, there is value "missed out on", but it hasn't been destroyed. Because it never existed. And that value wouldn't have appeared out of nowhere. it would've required using up other resources that the parking lot wasn't.
TL;DW: The difference in tax revenue between a surface parking lot and a business with subterranean parking is so vast, that cities can justify using value to underwrite the loans necessary for developers to do the work. (Called "Tax Increment Financing") This model is proving extremely successful with cities that try taking it on.
If it's a traditional 1-car driveway that's about $70K worth of land, although in the end it's zero-sum because it takes away an on-street spot. Parking garages for larger developments probably cost as much or more per parking space - they use less land, but they're expensive to build.
It's insane, and they're trying to fix it, and approving special permits left and right to omit the spots.
Switch from a culture of car use to walking, biking and public transport (buses, trams, light rail). And if people outside the city are coming in by car - let them park outside the town center and continue with public transport from there (while public transport is developed further afield; after that they would only drive their cars as far as the nearest train station, or even bike there).
> in economic terms, a parking lot doesn’t simply fail to add value; it actively subtracts value. Every year it sits idle
Idle. Cars park on it, right?
But no, it is sincere.
In effect, reducing parking reduces economic activity. Even if you increase public transit use, those users are overwhelmingly poor and don't contribute greatly to the economic activity where they go.
This is the exact reasoning for cutting taxes on the rich and let the upper middle class pay the highest percentages.
Maybe the family who has owned that lot for 80 years doesnt have the money to upgrade it for the "highest and best use" by someone else's standards, but the revenue allows them to live a little better.
I've never understood why constant growth is so often a priority. The world is headed for population decline so governments better figure out how to shrink instead of growing.
Im not against city planning, but this whole piece stinks of telling people what to do.