4 ms·

I lived in Seattle for five years without a car. Enjoyed every second of it. Between walking, bike, bike share, car2go, uber, lyft, zipcar, busses, and the lig

I lived in Seattle for five years without a car. Enjoyed every second of it. Between walking, bike, bike share, car2go, uber, lyft, zipcar, busses, and the light rail, and upcoming self driving car services... Why do i need a car again?

cstejerean 10y ago
You don't need a car, but you are also in the minority. You can't reasonably expect that none of your neighbors have a car as well. And yet this is exactly what builders propose when building a high density apartment building with no parking.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  > You can't reasonably expect that none of your neighbors have a car as well. No, but I can expect them to suffer if they do have one. Our current car system is unsustainable, and is a luxury. We really need to get rid of it long-term. I'd love to have a boat in my front yard, but it's too hard to find a place to park it. Should boat-owners have the right to a boat spot?
  - argv_empty 10y ago
    is a luxury I take it you haven't spent much time in non-downtown Seattle?
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      I spend a good majority of my time in non-downtown seattle. I don't have a car, and can get by just fine.
  - Kadin 10y ago
    > No, but I can expect them to suffer if they do have one. The problem, and the reason why parking requirements exist, is because people externalize that "suffering" on others. They decide they need a car anyway, and then they park that car on other streets, or they park overnight illegally on private property, etc. It's not like parking requirement laws fell from the sky one day on a bunch of stone tablets. They didn't exist a hundred years ago, but were created and became ubiquitous across the U.S. as cars became more popular because there were such problems when parking is in short supply. Now, maybe there are some alternative solutions -- maybe you could get people to sign some sort of blood oath that they'll never own a car while living at a particular address, or maybe we could pass laws that prohibit cars from being registered to addresses that lack parking...? (Maybe we could require that in order to register a car, you have to prove you have the right to a place to park it, and stop treating parking as a public good?) But until there's some better solution, the underlying problem that parking requirements were created to solve still exists. People are very, very good at sharing their suffering with everyone else and society is typically worse off for it. It takes a lot of work to prevent that from happening.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      > But until there's some better solution, the underlying problem that parking requirements were created to solve still exists. But that problem is still a luxury problem. It's not some fundamental right for people to own a car. If you want luxury benefits, you should have to pay luxury pricing. I'm not saying you shouldn't have the right to own a car, just that, like any luxury good, it shouldn't be cheap. In Seattle there are many public transportation options. Sure, it could be much better, but it's still available and quite feasible to use.
    - akgerber 10y ago
      Parking laws did, pretty much, fall from the sky one day on a bunch of stone tablets, usually reflecting terrible data. if you want to read 750 pages on the topic, read Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking. They usually are designed to produce neighborhoods where no one ever needs to spend any time searching for a free parking space— which leads to a great deal of suffering for anyone not in an automobile, since such neighborhoods have vast expanses of surface parking that are completely inhospitable to human beings, and are very difficult to serve with public transit. They also often require an amenity that is very expensive to produce (parking spaces, especially structured spaces) be provided for free, which incentivizes people to own cars and drive everywhere— exactly what we don't want in urban areas, since cars pollute a lot, are dangerous, and require huge amounts of scarce land to store and transport.
      - cstejerean 10y ago
        We are not talking about free surface parking lots. We are talking about assigned parking in a parking garage for any new high density construction. It isn't free, it's paid by the builder and included in the sale/rental of the units. And you can build it below your building so it doesn't take up any additional surface space.
        ghaff 10y ago
        And, often, such assigned parking spots can be sublet to others if you don't need them yourself.
  - bittercynic 10y ago
    Unsustainable or not, most people do have a car, and it is a major nuisance when there is inadequate parking around housing. If there isn't parking near a restaurant where you want to eat, you might just choose to eat somewhere else. But if there's no parking near your home, you're likely to park illegally/block someone's driveway/generally step on your neighbors' toes. Inadequate parking does have a negative impact on a neighborhood, and it's not the only way to nudge society in the direction of driving less.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      > Inadequate parking does have a negative impact on a neighborhood, and it's not the only way to nudge society in the direction of driving less. Sure, there are better ways to push people, and that's now why I want less parking, that's just a pain-point we shouldn't be trying to fix. > Unsustainable or not, most people do have a car, and it is a major nuisance when there is inadequate parking around housing. So? A nuisance that those people can avoid if they chose too. Sure, they have a right to own a car, but there's not right to avoid nuisance.
    - bittercynic 10y ago
      Replying to CaptSpify: The trouble is that the nuisance is not just for the person "choosing" to have a car, it is for everyone in the area.
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        Only because it's a luxury good that everyone thinks they deserve. Cities that don't expect you to have a car (NY, cities in Europe, most of Seattle) don't really have the same problem, because nobody has a car. And it's not like this doesn't have any precedent. We've mostly car-less cities work before many times. EDIT: Are you able to reply to my other post now? I think HN has a timer that limits how often you can reply, but I could be wrong.
pacala 10y ago
Kids.
- zacharycohn 10y ago
  Lots of people don't have kids, and aren't planning on it in the next few years...
- electricEmu 10y ago
  Public transit, ride sharing, and a bike trailer are more than sufficient for most activities.
red_admiral 10y ago
One of the things criticised in the original article was a city requirement that they needed to build at least one bike stand for every four micro-apartments. If people can't even store a bike anywhere, that's a problem. And as the business case for these pods is that they're for people who can't afford a bigger place, they're unlikely to want to pay for an uber that regularly.
wgj 10y ago
+1 I've lived in Seattle since 1991. I've lived without a car since 2005. It was harder then than now. These days we have Zipcar, Car2Go, Uber, Light Rail, marginally better Metro. Walking and biking are always options. It's getting to the point in Seattle, as in other cities, where having a car is a cultural choice rather than a necessity. Zipcar is great for the days or evening where you need to be in the car culture. It's way cheaper than actually owning one in Seattle, and you have a lot of models to choose from including some nice Audis, BMWs, etc.

cstejerean 10y ago

You don't need a car, but you are also in the minority. You can't reasonably expect that none of your neighbors have a car as well. And yet this is exactly what builders propose when building a high density apartment building with no parking.

CaptSpify 10y ago
> You can't reasonably expect that none of your neighbors have a car as well. No, but I can expect them to suffer if they do have one. Our current car system is unsustainable, and is a luxury. We really need to get rid of it long-term. I'd love to have a boat in my front yard, but it's too hard to find a place to park it. Should boat-owners have the right to a boat spot?
- argv_empty 10y ago
  is a luxury I take it you haven't spent much time in non-downtown Seattle?
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    I spend a good majority of my time in non-downtown seattle. I don't have a car, and can get by just fine.
- Kadin 10y ago
  > No, but I can expect them to suffer if they do have one. The problem, and the reason why parking requirements exist, is because people externalize that "suffering" on others. They decide they need a car anyway, and then they park that car on other streets, or they park overnight illegally on private property, etc. It's not like parking requirement laws fell from the sky one day on a bunch of stone tablets. They didn't exist a hundred years ago, but were created and became ubiquitous across the U.S. as cars became more popular because there were such problems when parking is in short supply. Now, maybe there are some alternative solutions -- maybe you could get people to sign some sort of blood oath that they'll never own a car while living at a particular address, or maybe we could pass laws that prohibit cars from being registered to addresses that lack parking...? (Maybe we could require that in order to register a car, you have to prove you have the right to a place to park it, and stop treating parking as a public good?) But until there's some better solution, the underlying problem that parking requirements were created to solve still exists. People are very, very good at sharing their suffering with everyone else and society is typically worse off for it. It takes a lot of work to prevent that from happening.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    > But until there's some better solution, the underlying problem that parking requirements were created to solve still exists. But that problem is still a luxury problem. It's not some fundamental right for people to own a car. If you want luxury benefits, you should have to pay luxury pricing. I'm not saying you shouldn't have the right to own a car, just that, like any luxury good, it shouldn't be cheap. In Seattle there are many public transportation options. Sure, it could be much better, but it's still available and quite feasible to use.
  - akgerber 10y ago
    Parking laws did, pretty much, fall from the sky one day on a bunch of stone tablets, usually reflecting terrible data. if you want to read 750 pages on the topic, read Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking. They usually are designed to produce neighborhoods where no one ever needs to spend any time searching for a free parking space— which leads to a great deal of suffering for anyone not in an automobile, since such neighborhoods have vast expanses of surface parking that are completely inhospitable to human beings, and are very difficult to serve with public transit. They also often require an amenity that is very expensive to produce (parking spaces, especially structured spaces) be provided for free, which incentivizes people to own cars and drive everywhere— exactly what we don't want in urban areas, since cars pollute a lot, are dangerous, and require huge amounts of scarce land to store and transport.
    - cstejerean 10y ago
      We are not talking about free surface parking lots. We are talking about assigned parking in a parking garage for any new high density construction. It isn't free, it's paid by the builder and included in the sale/rental of the units. And you can build it below your building so it doesn't take up any additional surface space.
      - ghaff 10y ago
        And, often, such assigned parking spots can be sublet to others if you don't need them yourself.
- bittercynic 10y ago
  Unsustainable or not, most people do have a car, and it is a major nuisance when there is inadequate parking around housing. If there isn't parking near a restaurant where you want to eat, you might just choose to eat somewhere else. But if there's no parking near your home, you're likely to park illegally/block someone's driveway/generally step on your neighbors' toes. Inadequate parking does have a negative impact on a neighborhood, and it's not the only way to nudge society in the direction of driving less.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    > Inadequate parking does have a negative impact on a neighborhood, and it's not the only way to nudge society in the direction of driving less. Sure, there are better ways to push people, and that's now why I want less parking, that's just a pain-point we shouldn't be trying to fix. > Unsustainable or not, most people do have a car, and it is a major nuisance when there is inadequate parking around housing. So? A nuisance that those people can avoid if they chose too. Sure, they have a right to own a car, but there's not right to avoid nuisance.
  - bittercynic 10y ago
    Replying to CaptSpify: The trouble is that the nuisance is not just for the person "choosing" to have a car, it is for everyone in the area.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Only because it's a luxury good that everyone thinks they deserve. Cities that don't expect you to have a car (NY, cities in Europe, most of Seattle) don't really have the same problem, because nobody has a car. And it's not like this doesn't have any precedent. We've mostly car-less cities work before many times. EDIT: Are you able to reply to my other post now? I think HN has a timer that limits how often you can reply, but I could be wrong.

pacala 10y ago

Kids.

zacharycohn 10y ago
Lots of people don't have kids, and aren't planning on it in the next few years...
electricEmu 10y ago
Public transit, ride sharing, and a bike trailer are more than sufficient for most activities.

red_admiral 10y ago

One of the things criticised in the original article was a city requirement that they needed to build at least one bike stand for every four micro-apartments. If people can't even store a bike anywhere, that's a problem. And as the business case for these pods is that they're for people who can't afford a bigger place, they're unlikely to want to pay for an uber that regularly.

wgj 10y ago

+1 I've lived in Seattle since 1991. I've lived without a car since 2005. It was harder then than now. These days we have Zipcar, Car2Go, Uber, Light Rail, marginally better Metro. Walking and biking are always options. It's getting to the point in Seattle, as in other cities, where having a car is a cultural choice rather than a necessity. Zipcar is great for the days or evening where you need to be in the car culture. It's way cheaper than actually owning one in Seattle, and you have a lot of models to choose from including some nice Audis, BMWs, etc.