Parking minimums are systematic oppression by car lobbyists against all others forms of transport. Yeah I said it.
"It's not like the government is forcing you to buy a car!"
If you live in a city with parking minimums, yes they fucking are.
One of the funniest things about American car culture is that Americans probably walk the same distance from their parking spot to the store as I walk from my home.
And they're walking in car infrastructure. Some of the most unpleasant, not made for humans places, not to mention dangerous. Compared to walking in what a city should feel like.
As a European, this is the first time I ever heard about parking minimums. What a horrible concept.
From Germany: huh? Quite common around here and I am sure in other european countries as well, despite having different city building concepts than the US. Lately it is slowly being replaced by bike infrastructure demands (and there was always the public transport demands), but it still exists.
I'm from Germany too. Is it really?! I had never heard of that. It can't be a thing inside cities though, can it? I honestly can't even think of a place where it would make any sense. Surely shops that are located outside dense urban areas would try to make sure they have enough parking space anyway.
here in sweden from what i can understand we don't have parking minimums as such, but we have recommendations for how much parking you should have for cars and bikes, which developers generally follow since that means they can just point to the recommendations if someone complains.
however this also means that they don't generally have more parking unless they actually see a need for it.
Is it really a horrible concept per se, or do people in reality have cars and need to park them somewher, even in Europe?
If the business chooses to accommodate cars, that should be up to them and to do so at whatever level they feel is optimal. A government mandated requirement only forces it on them without then being able to consider what's best for their business. Some businesses would do better with no parking, or just less parking. They're still required to pay for the land to sit empty just because the government forced them to. How is that a reasonable concept?
people in reality have cars and need to park them somewher
I've seen a number of denser developments start burying their parking lots, or stacking them on the roofs. You get denser (and conceivably more walkable) neighborhoods when places are built up this way. But it also drives up the cost of development and is only viable where real estate costs are astronomical. Then you've still got these six-to-eight lane Stroads intersecting the city blocks, with relatively little pedestrian infrastructure for crossing safely.
So if I live in a (atrociously overpriced) condo directly next door to a Whole Foods, you're still stuck hustling across enormous expanses of asphalt in order to make a simple grocery run.
Compare that to a dense urban neighborhood I lived in for a few months in Leeds. Walk downstairs, cross a simple cobbled two lane street, pop into a small grocery / sandwich shop combo, grab lunch plus essentials, then pop home inside 20 minutes. No risk to life or limb and I didn't even need a bike, much less a car.
You can find spots like this all over Italy, France, and Spain as well. Probably common to the Eastern Bloc, too. I've just never been. But the idea that people "need cars" is more predicated on the fact that we've created these oceans of asphalt and concrete in the states which are uncross-able without one.
or do people in reality have cars and need to park them somewher
As someone who owns a car and is married to a handicapped person, I'm pretty happy about parking minimums where I live.
It's not just oppression against "other forms of transport;" it's literally classist and (to the extent that race corresponds to class, which is a lot and on purpose) racist. A lot of these zoning laws about minimum parking requirements and minimum lot sizes date back to a time when United States government policy was explicitly designed to perpetuate segregation, and forcing every new parcel and development to be large and expensive enough to be unaffordable to most black people (because they were, and still are, poorer on average because of other institutional racism) was a part of that.
lets not forget its also oppression against people with disabilities since they are significantly more likely to use public transport and pedestrian infrastructure.
I was reading about a study that showed how much the climate temperature would rise if every house had solar panels on their roof. I then immediately thought, hey now, what if we had less asphalt everywhere, would that not affect overall temperatures as well?
What was the conclusion? Asphalt shingles and slate shingles are already dark, so I'd imagine it would impact covered lighter roofing more.
You have a good point there. The study was done using simulation models, so I should look into what they took into account and maybe who funded the study. You can read it here
I live in a country with a propensity for dark cement tiles, i really doubt panels are causing an uptick in heat
I live in a country with a propensity for dark cement tiles, i really doubt panels are causing an uptick in heat
Of course they are (having an effect) why wouldn't they?
Any change in albedo modifies how much radiation is absorbed and emitted and the wavelengths it's emitted at.
Sure one tile doesn't do much but it does do something by a measurable degree. Even if tiny, it's still quantifiable.
The horrible AI slop looks so bad if you look at it for longer than a second. Do better yall.
Thing is: you don't need to look at it longer than a second to understand what is meant to be conveyed. So no, goal achieved, good use of resources instead of overspending on one useless metric (=making it realistic)
@Wrufieotnak @hobovision stock images would have worked fine. Or google earth.
I doubt the AI is getting the proportions right. And none of these look like actual places even for one second
Love how confused it gets with drawing parking spots
I adore how they use mopeds and scooters in Asia
Yeah I love the smell and sound of a million mopeds. Taiwan is known for its urban serenity.
mopeds aren't the problem, the problem is that they don't have enough public transport to handle the sheer absurd amount of people wanting to get places.
imagine how these countries would look if everyone drove a car instead of a moped, society would literally fail because no one would be able to get anywhere
I hate car dependence too but when I see things like this I wonder what your solution is for people like me who can't really walk much.
I don't see any comment asking to remove all cars from the roads. Only that viable alternatives to driving be made possible by sensible zoning instead of building everything solely to cater to cars.
What would your solution for a blind peron be in this car dependant world? Having multiple transportation options is the most fair system. Right now in many places the car is the only option.
Would accessibility be a solution here? I am speaking about public transport that has dedicated spaces for wheelchairs, has ramps to get on and off etc., as well as sidewalks that are accesibil by wheelchairs, with a smith surface and ramps to get on and off to. Maybe combine that with lifts to access pedestrian subways and overbrides.
Possibly it could also mean the ability to rent, best case for free and at a place reachable by public transport with very little or no walking, a wheelchair or a simiiular solution that let's one drive rather then walk.
I'm just thinking loud, but maybe such solutions should be considered in every walkable city.
Would it work for you to drive to a larger parking garage (or even better, use public transport to a larger subway or bus station) and then use some form of battery operated micro-transport type vehicle fit for your type of limitation to move around the sidewalks/bike lanes in what can then be a more compact city center?
uhh, mobility scooters and wheelchairs? i'm a bit confused as to how this isn't really easy to answer
Those lots are horribly inefficient, aisle-less parking would make more sense for businesses of that size
They may be horribly ineffecient but that seems to be the standard design. Plus compared to pretty much any other land use, even the most optimized surface level parking lot is an ineffecient use of land.
You're not wrong in the long term. But in the short term, people will park anywhere possible close to the shop, blocking everywhere near with cars.
@Username @HiddenLayer555 no, the store will just have local customers. And yes there are plenty of those when you can replace the carpark with apartments.
Parking tickets
complete bullshit, but even IF drivers were so fucking brain dead, irresponsible, and incapable of being civil, the solution is not to cede to their entirely unreasonable demand that they be allowed to go to some of the most densest places on earth with a fucking couch 2 arm chairs, big chest for all their loot and a whole ass climate control system, if they cant behave they simply shouldn't have licenses.
Urban fabric is when everything’s a building, meaning you can’t go anywhere unless they’ve got the door open for you.
"Dark urban alleyways are the scariest parts of a city", I say as I dart across twelve lanes of traffic on foot.
what the fuck were u even attempting to say
Are you proposing a society where we never leave our cars and every business is a drive thru? Even if you drive to a wal mart today, they still have to have the door open for you to shop there.
And our current urban fabric is everything is a road, you can't go anywhere unless you drive a car. Can't afford a car? Too young to drive? Have a health condition that prevents you from driving? Want to choose a car free life? Too bad.
sorry what? I can't understand what you're trying to say about the door part
In this thread: A lot of misconceptions and more than a few poorly thought out comments.
Also in this thread: Identifying the need to restructure the current standard before car usage can be realistically reduced by large amounts.
Also in this thread: Identifying the need to restructure the current standard before car usage can be realistically reduced by large amounts.
The best way to reduce car use is to create an environment where driving isn't the default (or only) way to get around. Induced demand works in reverse too.
"No parking required", with 2 cars parked in front of the building. 😂
Places without off-street parking mandates still usually have on-street and even off-street parking
I work in planning. We removed parking requirements in our downtown districts and a bunch of companies came in to buy the old abandoned buildings and expanded them into the old parking areas.
Every single retail business that moved in over the following 3 years failed because there wasn't anywhere for the customers to park. They just went to businesses that had parking avaialbe.
Well you failed your job then, after removing minimum parking requirements you need to add in public transport, make streets walkable and cyclable, you need to induce the kind of traffic that helps build foot traffic, that way the businesses grow naturally around foot traffic.
You got a spare billion dollars for a city with an annual budget of 50 million?
Edit: And my job is to implement the vision of elected leaders as defined in the Comprehensive Plan. We handle the details, but direction is provided by Council.
If your city is only designed for drivers, it's no surprise that people will want to drive places. When you remove parking minimums, you also need to prioritize transit and micromobility accessibility, so people are actually incentivized to switch modes. Cities can and are making this shift successfully: here's one example.
Yes. Let's spend multiple times our annual city budget to force people to walk in 100-degree heat 4 months out of the year to visit a local restaurant or wait 20 minutes for a shuttle.
They definitely won't choose to go to the next town over where they can park 50 feet from the door of their destination, and our entire staff definitely won't be let go in the blowback.
Seriously, its like you've never played Sim City or Cities Skylines. If you are going to rezone or redesign districts and remove parking then you need to, like everyone else is saying, maximize public transit and walkability. Without doing that you are just creating an urban desert.
The actual day to day job of a planner is closer to Papers Please. 80% of my time is spent reviewing meeting with, reviewing plans of, or writing stag reports about private developments.
In fact, we're so busy dealing with fights over fence height, pool lighting, and screening of HVAC equipment that most cities outsource their Comp Plan development to third party companies that specialize in it.
Probably would be better off with relatively minor adjustments to overarching standards over time, much akin to parking requirements, but probably that would look more like parking-protected bike lanes downtown, mixed-use zoning, making missing middle housing more available by getting rid of lots of zoning requirements on housing, or, like japan, making them much more comprehensive. None of that costs you anything economically. Parking protected bike lanes just require paint, and you can do that when you need to repave and repaint the main high traffic roads downtown. Eventually you may be able to justify an upgrade to a totally separated bike lane, or you might be able to justify shutting down main street to through traffic and routing things around.
Then you don't really have to shell out for anything in terms of city transit, you're just changing some regulations around, and people can walk or bike 2 to 3 minutes to the grocery store on their street corner, from their apartment, which is above a pizza place or whatever the fuck. Bike 3 minutes from the edge of downtown in their rowhome into main downtown where they can pick up groceries. Those people can also have jobs and be economically productive with the higher job density that such a development provides, and this all provides a much healthier and more stable tax base for the city since the utilities cost per person and per business is going to be much less. Course, you're not gonna get heavy industry like that, but I haven't really cooked up a solid approach to that sort of commute to a factory or industrial district that doesn't involve a bus or passenger rail line that just heads straight there, like the USSR did.
The more significant problem with this isn't so much that it's some sort of like, totally impossible thing, it's that any city doing that shit will probably be overrun by a shit ton of annoying gentrifiers, which is a harder problem to solve.
I feel like it's pretty obvious that the main problem here is with the local NIMBY voters which might not like such a thing, and a significant lack of federal funding. There isn't really a solid argument against any of the fundamental and somewhat universal planning principles which increase density, walkability, public accessibility, economic efficiency and productivity.
Dude, that's not gonna happen. As you said, it's the voters who are the "problem." Our City Council straight-up banned rezoning any districts to multifamily or 2-family. We have a mixed-use district in the code because we're required to, but it must be on a plot of land of at least 50 acres along a state highway. The largest single tract of land in the city is 15 acres, and it's not on a state highway.
We also have a minimum lot size of 1 acre and minimum street frontage for a single-family lot of 150 feet for all newly-platted lots. The citizens super duper don't want the poor moving in.
But you also have to look at it from a different perspective. Many of these suburban towns are made up of people who actively chose to live a less-urban lifestyle, and as the sprawl approaches them they get very, very hostile. They don't want new people or more affordable housing. They bought their houses 15 years ago when they cost 80 grand. Now people are buying those same houses for a million dollars and tearing them down to build a 7-million dollar house.
So move out of the city 🤷
Public transport is famously existent in the countryside.
Move to the country if you want to drive everywhere then. Leave cities for people who actually value the density they're supposed to provide.
uh, yes? here in sweden we have public transport literally everywhere, if you don't have a proper scheduled line near you you will instead have access to what is effectively an optimized taxi service, where you just book a trip an hour in advance and it runs on the same ticket as the rest of the public transport network.
If your "urban fabric" can't support access to the public, it doesn't deserve to survive.
If your "urban fabric" doesn't have public transit that's faster and cheaper than driving, it's just an overbuilt suburb. America has one city, NYC.
No point in that big store if I never go to it because I don't have anywhere to park.
And I love how cute it is that you think there are "car lobbyists".
And why do you think you should need to drive?
There's a shitload of big stores like that in my city that I can get to in less than 20 minutes without a car.
Your city is frankly built shit if that's not also the case.
Big box stores, not just big stores. From the from door to one to the front door to the next is just barely reasonable walking distance - and that is assuming you take unsafe shortcuts, go around the parking lot on the sidewalks and it isn't a reasonable walk (if there is snow they pile that between the two doors). If you want to go to some third store instead of the second you can't get there in a reasonable walk.
there are many different ways to do a big store. Big box stores are not necessarily any bigger than the others, but the layout of the doors is such that anything other than driving is discouraged by the design and if you do anyway you realize it isn't safe. There are other big stores where walking is reasonable.
And I love how cute it is that you think GM, Ford, Tesla, etc aren't lobbying for parking minimums.
Also, auto companies have never tried to manipulate a country's government, no they would never.
excuse me corporations have no financial incentive ever to behave the slightest fart unethically so they never ever ever will.
Actually curious, is this an ongoing thing in America also, or are you just saying it'd be silly to think it's not? I'd not considered your perspective before and am unsure if this is a documented issue contributing to American city planning, or if your just saying people should be open to the idea of it
And I love how cute it is that you think there are “car lobbyists”.
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/industries/summary?cycle=2021&id=M02
If they only lobbied, lol
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
There's a lobby for a lot of shit and you didn't take 2 seconds to think about your claim that a major American industry (one that relies on fossil fuel at that) wouldn't have lobbyists? Like not downvoting you or anything, I'm too embarrassed for you. Hope you're not someone who takes downvotes etc to heart.