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Let's build houses for people, not cars
- jodje 7y agoconvincing. any petition up for signing?
- self_awareness 7y agoIf people won't build 'houses for cars', the cars will start piling up on the streets instead. I prefer cars to at least be hidden.
- bmmayer1 7y agoI think the point of the piece is that LA has far too much parking available already and that the city shouldn't force developers to build more parking. Obviously no one would stop anyone from building parking if they wanted but LA does need housing and neighborhoods that don't require car accessibility.
- sokoloff 7y agoThe linked article states that parking maximums are in fact a thing.
- bobwaycott 7y agoSpecifically, the article mentions parking maximums twice—and both times as potential policy suggestions meant to improve the situation.
- sokoloff 7y agoYes; that’s an example where someone would “stop [someone] from building parking if they wanted.”
- narrowtux 7y agoThe end goal here is that people who live in big cities give up their personal car. The journey there might involve this problem though and it depends on the city to enforce new rules. For example, my home town Hamburg (in Germany) is a bad example of too few parking spaces being policed correctly. At some point, the drivers give up searching for a free space that's still in a walkable distance from their destination and will park illegally, which leads to one of 2 lanes being permanently blocked by resting traffic. Apparently the police doesn't care about these illegally parked cars. There are lots of cheaper and more space-efficient alternatives for personal transport, which were mentioned in the article. It's also possible to rent shared cars for the rare case you actually need a car (if you want to transport large furniture for example). Speaking from my anecdotal experience, not owning a personal car works pretty well, I commute to work with an electric bike in 20 minutes (which is actually quicker than taking the train or driving a car and then look for a parking space). If I want to buy furniture and I can't transport it with my bike, I can still rent a car. On top of not having the dreadful experience of having to search 10-20 minutes for a parking space every time, it's also a lot cheaper.
- atemerev 7y agoWell, I am absolutely not interested in giving up my car. It is my private space and enabler of my freedom of movement, without relying on external services and timetables. It adds a lot of value to my life. If my city becomes too unfriendly for me and my car, I will have to move elsewhere. I work from home, though, and I don’t use the car for daily commuting. Commuting is the main driver of most traffic problems in the cities, so there’s that.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- esoterica 7y agoIf you want to keep your car then you should pay the full cost (no free roads and parking for you to use) and externalities (carbon, noise/particulate pollution) of car ownership. Car owners currently receive trillions of dollars worth of market distorting subsidies from the government.
- CalRobert 7y agoInstead, we have people piling up on the street because we don't build homes for people.
- efa 7y agoCurious - are you suggesting LA needs more public (free) housing for the homeless? Or just more "normal" homes that have to be rented/purchased?
- CalRobert 7y agoEither. Both. Whatever. Just more homes. It's not just the homeless, it's the family of 3 living in a 1 bed apartment (when they'd rather not be). It's the person living in Ventura who spends 4 hours a day crawling down the asphalt ribbons of death in a metal box for their job in Playa del Rey. Every time someone says "I want my free car storage on the street so don't build homes here" they're saying "I want you to have to commute farther so I get free taxpayer-provided parking welfare"
- crocal 7y agoThis is all fine and good, but IMHO LA metro map says it all [1]. 6 lines. What a joke. This mega city should have light or heavy rail metro pretty much everywhere. It's even better if there are parking lots in abundance. Park & Ride can be put into place more easily. So, it's obviously a political choice and I am not sure more regulation on parking will have any significant impact on this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Metro_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Metro_Rail
- emsy 7y agoI'm from Germany and visited LA last month. I was riding the rail because we usually use public transportation when visiting other countries. We wanted to visit the walk of fame and it was a much nicer experience than hassling through the traffic in LA. The traffic is borderline insane. The diamond lane was almost empty because apparently everyone is driving in their own car. My wife and I were under the impression that only people who can't afford a car were driving the rail, but we don't know if that's true or not. The rail (and bus) was certainly a much saner choice than the car. I've never seen such a large city with such an underused public transportation. Meanwhile, you have 5 or 6 lanes running through the city, which makes the rail stops unbearably loud.
- kalleboo 7y agoI don't live in LA but the complaints I've heard from LA people is that the rail there only goes to places useful for tourists (they say it's a political showpiece)
- gamblor956 7y agoI do live in LA, and the rail goes to places that are useful for locals, especially those who work. DTLA, K-Town, Long Beach, Hollywood, Universal City, North Hollywood, Culver City, Pasadena, and Santa Monica--i.e., the biggest job centers in the LA area--are all connected by light or heavy rail. Century City is the only major job center not currently connected by rail, but the heavy rail out to there is under construction and should be finished in 5-10 years. School-wise, USC, Cal State Long Beach, and Santa Monica College are already connected by rail; UCLA is part of the Century City rail expansion.
- baybal2 7y agoWhat can I say about this. Parking minimums are not fair. To the effect, they oblige poorer people without cars to pay for parking space for car driving richer people.
- hannob 7y agoNot sure why this got downvoted, it's obviously true. Rich people are more likely to have cars than poor people.
- Chris2048 7y agoThen why say "Rich vs poor" rather than "people with cars versus people without"? Also, perhaps the rich find it easier to give up on their car, or long commutes? Also, the Rich proportionally pay more tax.
- hannob 7y agoI often read the opposite, where people claim a less car-friendly policy harms the poor. I recently bothered to look up the statistics (for Germany, but I doubt they're different elsewhere), they where pretty clear. I think it's an important fact to have in mind: Rich people drive more cars.
- Chris2048 7y ago> they where pretty clear What was the conclusion? Also, Rich people may own more cars; It's another question whether they drive more, whether they need to drive more (or can choose not to), and whether they park (in congested areas) more.
- hannob 7y ago> What was the conclusion? The richer people are the more they drive, the more likely they are to drive to work and the more cars they have. The poorer people are the more they walk by foot. Bikes are pretty evenly distributed among different incomes, public transport is mostly a middle income thing (fewer rich and poor people). It's in german, but it allows pretty extensive working with the data: https://www.mobilitaet-in-tabellen.de/mit/ https://www.mobilitaet-in-tabellen.de/mit/
- stanski 7y agoI actually like the idea of parking minimums. But two parking spaces for a 2 bedroom apartment? Or a 1.5 for a one bedroom? That seems crazy. I know there are exceptions (maybe someone running a business) but in general anyone living in the city shouldn't require more than one car per household.
- StavrosK 7y agoAs someone currently living in a comfortable 900 sqft 2-bedroom apartment, that's not crazy at all. I guess Americans are just used to huge homes.
- currymj 7y agothat statistic, unlike some of the others, isn't a space comparison between parking spots and apartment square footage. it is instead a legal requirement. if somebody wants to build a building with 25 2-bedroom apartments, they have to also ensure 50 new parking spaces get built.
- StavrosK 7y agoThat's what's crazy. It's assuming everyone has two cars and none of them are ever in the street.
- ajmurmann 7y ago> none of them are ever in the street. I think that's the goal. Others who already love in the area otherwise would protest the construction because their precious street parking would have more competition. We should just take all the candy away from the kids and ban most street parking like in Japan. But the US loves their cars do that's never gonna happen.
- StavrosK 7y agoSorry, I meant "on the street", as in "being driven".
- listenallyall 7y agoIf I understand your argument, higher density, less space for parking, better public transportation should help solve the lack of affordable housing. So why are Manhattan, SF, London, Hong Kong among the most expensive places in the world to live? Why is downtown <your city here> more expensive than the suburbs?
- CalRobert 7y agoBecause people are willing to pay more to live there. All of those places are distinctive because their environments are illegal to build now, so we haven't made more of them even while population grew and urbanized.
- Angostura 7y agoIn the case of London an in important factor is because many people are using housing stock as an investment opportunity, rather than a place to live.
- Scoundreller 7y agoMore empty home taxes and secondary home taxes. And make property taxes progressive. The first 100k in value is tax free, then a higher rate on each progressive 100k. Make it so locals love it when a billionaire buys property in their neighbourhood and doesn’t live in it.
- ck425 7y agoThe uk already has a fairly progressive property tax call stamp duty and many councils in the UK have property taxes (or at least our equivalent called council tax) for empty properties. The problem persists not because of billionaire investors but due to: - Easy capital access in the form of cheap buy to let mortgages. Easy access to leverage mean property out performs pretty much every other investment and much of the middle class can afford it. - Lack of regulation on tenancies. Very very easy to kick people out and up the rents. - General shortage. The uk simply doesn't build enough houses. This is made worse by many jobs existing primarily in London / many graduates not realising that there are opportunities outside of London.
- ryannevius 7y agoQuoting the description from the Twitter meta tag on the site: > Los Angeles has the space to solve it's housing and transportation problems, it just needs right priorities. LA County has more than 110,000 acres of parking, enough to pave over Manhattan 7.5 times. Turning 10% of these parking spaces into homes could easily satisfy the current 550,000 home deficit for low-income renters. More than $1 Billion is spent every year just building new parking in Los Angeles.
- pr0duktiv 7y agoZurich had this problem, the city was built before cars were a thing and thus it is inept of handling much traffic. The authorities decided to disincentivize driving cars by blocking roads and reducing available parking spaces [0] while offering good public transport. Worked well, now only 17% commute by car. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zürich_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zürich_model
- partiallypro 7y agoThat's well and good, but the sticking point is "the city was built before cars were a thing." The US is already heavy with sprawl and it's a reality that we have to live with. I'm not sure how to put that cat back in the bag.
- marcandre 7y agoSame idea. See Barcelona and superblocks for example.
- grecy 7y agoBlock roads and build better public transport. Just because it's difficult and will require some pain in the short term, it doesn't mean we should do - and therefore improve - nothing.
- mises 7y agoBut public transport is simply not as good for now; ramming it down people's throats is not a solution. It is crowded, unclean, slow, and noisy. I have to listen to some one else blaring his music, or some fat guy taking two seats. Or some smelly guy who can't be bothered to shower. I suddenly have to plan my schedule around my transportation, rather than my transportation around my schedule. Maybe we should focus on making it a better option. Also, why would you block existing roads? That's a ridiculous proposition. There's a difference between building something better and just forcing every one onto something worse. The market is stronger and smarter than any government, and will try as hard as it can to circumvent any thing you pass. Why not have the invisible hand do your work for you? Make it a better option, and people will use it.
- jordwest 7y agoI really enjoyed this video using Cities: Skylines to describe the problem with parking minimums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvUByM-fZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lvUByM-fZk
- NPMaxwell 7y agoThat's a great video showing what planners are thinking!
- miguelmota 7y agoLos Angeles covers a large area so you need a car to get around. I've tried only Ubering for a few months and it was more expensive than owning a car. The public transportion is half there but getting better. Bycling in the Santa Monica area is safe but outside of that it’s more dangerous because of oblivious drivers and road rage and LA streets are notorious for pot holes. I see some new apartment complexes being built with underground parking right below it which is the way to go but we do need more metros all around.
- bobwaycott 7y ago> Los Angeles covers a large area so you need a car to get around. That is exactly half the problem the article is attempting to address—and the fundamental thought pattern that keeps reinforcing the problem. More space dedicated to non-car traffic means easier to get around without a car. More housing units in areas currently taken up by parking means—theoretically, at least—less need to get around that large area on average if everything you need day-to-day is a short walk, cycle, bus or train ride away. > The public transportion is half there but getting better. Another point the article addresses directly—turning acres of street parking into dedicated public transport lanes. Achieve greater levels "getting better" somewhat overnight (if you imagined that it was different tomorrow). > ... it’s more dangerous because of oblivious drivers and road rage and LA streets are notorious for pot holes. Again, the article addresses this directly. So many cars on the road increases traffic, which increases driver frustration/rage, as well as distraction and obliviousness while plodding along through traffic. Turning parking into dedicated walking and cycling areas would bring a huge increase in cyclist and pedestrian safety (again, if you imagined it was different tomorrow). > I see some new apartment complexes being built with underground parking right below it which is the way to go ... The article spends considerable time arguing that this is explicitly not the way to go—parking minimums increase construction costs considerably, thus decreasing available housing units, while simultaneously increasing housing cost. Underground parking is incredibly more expensive than on-street parking, which means the already increased cost of housing with on-street parking only worsens.
- lazyjones 7y ago
- black_13 7y agoWont happen Decision makers have nice homes and nice cars and a self congratulatory philosophy that says the status quo is just ok dokey
- plankers 7y agoI like the article but this nit bugs me: >Some residents can afford more expensive homes as a limited supply increases demand, but those that can’t are pushed away into more precarious living situations and longer commutes. Limited supply doesn't affect demand, they're largely independent unless you look at induced demand, but that mostly affects things like roads and power lines. It should say something like: >As demand rises, the limited supply increases price. or >As supply outstrips demand, prices become unaffordable for large segments of the population. It's just slightly wrong to indicate a causal relationship between supply and demand in the housing market, which is kinda what this whole page is about.
- sweeneyrod 7y ago> a single aboveground space cost $27,000 How did we get into this situation? According to this https://www.angieslist.com/articles/how-much-does-concrete-driveway-cost.htm https://www.angieslist.com/articles/how-much-does-concrete-d... a "high-end" contractor charges at most $10 per square foot to build a concrete driveway, i.e. $2000 for a 200 sq ft parking space. Where does the other $25,000 go?
- ceejayoz 7y agoGiven that a dump on a tenth of an acre goes for a million bucks or more in parts of California, some of that's probably just for the space it takes up.
- paulgb 7y agoThey cite this paper: http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/HighCost.pdf http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/HighCost.pdf The cost of a driveway does not consider excavating the space (or vertically building the space) for the parking spot.
- kube-system 7y agoEven just plain old ground-level outdoor paved spaces often need rainwater management structures to meet code, which can easily cost more than the pavement itself.
- jlj 7y agoMarket price of buildable land?
- TheCoelacanth 7y agoYour quote is for surface parking. Theirs is for above-ground parking. It is much more expensive to build a structure strong enough to hold a bunch of cars off the ground than it is to just pave a flat area.
- sweeneyrod 7y agoAh, I assumed above-ground just mean not underground but looks like that was wrong.
- johngalt 7y agoMoving from car centered sprawl, to dense transit oriented city isn't something that can be done in one step. It's immensely complex, and changing the direction of cities/governments is difficult even when everyone involved wants to change. I'm reminded of whiteboard discussions where someone says we are 'here X' and we want to be 'there Y' and simply draws an arrow between the two and says 'get started'. Assuming that all the important decisions have been made. Not realizing that the all complexity is in the arrow. That arrow going from car focused to transit focused cities needs to be broken down into individual steps and those steps is where we need the brainpower going.
- WesleyLivesay 7y agoThis is what runs through my mind everytime one of these articles shows up on HN. There is no easy way to undo decades of urban sprawl across the US, especially when many cities have huge amounts of space around them to make this possible. Also, one of those steps is probably sinking incredible amounts of money into initially barely used public transit which is bound to be politically unpopular.
- CalRobert 7y agoYou can also sink comparatively tiny amounts of money in to a network of physically separated, protected bike lanes - the kind you'd let your 6 year old use to ride to school.
- Zarath 7y agoEliminate or reduce mandatory parking minimums. It's pretty clearly implied from the article given that's basically what's talked about.
- nwah1 7y agoIt isn't that difficult. It is mainly about changing incentives and unleashing the autonomous forces of the population. If you think about it primarily in terms of top-down planning, then yea it seems hard. But urban planning is not the solution. If anything it is one of the problems. Here's a better list of options that don't involve mandates or grand designs. -Increase taxes on land value to prevent idle speculation -Remove taxes on buildings to encourage construction and remodelling -Abolish parking minimums -Abolish height restrictions -Eliminate zoning laws that prevent multi-family or mixed-use development -Reclaim poorly used space for pedestrian use, such as curbside parking which accounts for up to 10% of all urban land by area.
- mises 7y agoWhat makes any one think that taking away parking will increase poor people housing? That seems to be the biggest shortage. Why would I turn my parking into housing I run at a low profit or even a loss, rather than up-scale luxury housing? I can make more money off that. And forcing a certain number of units of poor housing will only decrease supply further. I have yet to see evidence to the contrary. Secondly, there are cities where aught but driving is not practical. See Houston; when I lived there, I had to drive often one-hundred-fifty miles per day to different places. There is also no one center; I may have one client in the woodlands, one in Bellaire, one in Sugarland, one in the Ship Channel. How do you propose to fix this? it is too big and too dense for the traditional "hub-and-spoke" model to work, too hot for scooters or bicycles (it regularly hits one-hundred-five degrees this time of year).
- bluGill 7y agoIf you can build and fill luxury apartments I don't know why you would build apartments for the poor: the profits are higher in the luxury apartments. California has a big problem in that they make it too hard to get the permits to build anything so everything that goes in is luxury apartments (they force low income housing, but this is forced) However what if we changed things: you could easily get the permits you need to build whatever. After a few years the market for luxury apartments will be saturated. Now when you look at the do I build lower cost apartments, or luxury apartments you build the lower cost wins because your expected income from luxury apartments is zero. Actually the above isn't true in good cities either: all new apartments are luxury. 10 years latter they are out of style, but it is cheaper to rent them for less than to remodel to whatever the latest style is. After 50 years they are low income housing because only low income people will accept the dated of a style. LA hasn't been building enough for long enough that this can't come into play.
- lazyjones 7y agoThis nonsense gets repeated over and over again: What you get is what you build. New roads just create more incentive for driving. It's been well documented over and over again that vehicle miles driven increases proportionally to roadway created. Lewis Mumford famously said “Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity.” It's not the roads that cause traffic, it's the convenience of driving. To show how absurd the argument is, let's use it for housing - I'm sure it can be easily "documented" that building housing leads to higher population figures. So it must be bad, let's not do it!
- ahoy 7y agoI don't think you disagree. If new roads make driving more convenient, doesn't it stand to reason that building new roads also increases the number of miles driven?
- otabdeveloper4 7y ago> It's not the roads that cause traffic, it's the convenience of driving. That's a tautology, roads are a convenience for driving.
- kube-system 7y agoBusses and commercial traffic also use and require roads. They don’t exist just for those commuting by car.
- dzamie 7y agoSo the article goes on to suggest expanding a bus network or other public transportation. In this manner, it increases the convenience of a more traffic-efficient bus and decreases the convenience of the less traffic-efficient car.
- CPLX 7y ago> It's not the roads that cause traffic, it's the convenience of driving. Exactly. Roads make driving more convenient. Build trains and that makes taking the train more convenient so you get more of that. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
- sova 7y agoGreat site, I just noticed that when trying to link my friend the www. version of the site doesn't work -- please fix =)
- sova 7y agohttps://www.noparkinghere.com https://www.noparkinghere.com
- whalesalad 7y agoThe irony is that anyone who has ever tried to go anywhere in LA can never find a place to park. I maintain that the problem is not "we need more housing for all these people!" rather, "we have too many people!" Why do we have so many people so densely packed? That is the problem we should solve for, not treating the side effects of density. Lower density is what we want, less people in any given square mile. In other words, we shouldn't be trying to live near major population centers. We shouldn't have to. Our notion of 'work' is/needs to change to reflect that. LA, NY, SF, etc... historically became huge because it needed to be that way. Remote work is becoming more and more common. Regular work is being automated away by software or machines. I made this argument once before and was totally shot down because I didn't articulate it properly ... but who wants to live in a densely packed apartment complex in the middle of a noisy city? Sure, some people LOVE that, and they should have every right to choose it. But... a lot of people HATE that and are forced to do it, because it's all they can afford. That is the problem that we need to change.
- kps 7y ago> Our notion of 'work' is/needs to change to reflect that. Our work (where ‘we’ are typical HN readers) changed decades ago, and could be contributing practically nothing to congestion or emissions, if not for Silly Valley upper management's love of sardine cans.
- aqme28 7y agoLA is hardly dense though.
- whalesalad 7y agoI grew up here. I live here. What makes you think it’s not dense? “LA” is HUGE. Parts of it are dense, parts of it are less dense. When most people think of LA they need to think in the context of the entire county. There are ten million people living here, that’s more than the entire state of Michigan.
- CapricornNoble 7y ago
- vinceguidry 7y agoI hold no love for parking minimums, and would love to see them abolished, but proposals like "we should turn 10% of all current parking spaces into low-income housing" just make me roll eyes. That's not an actionable proposal, the closest that gets to an actionable proposal is to demolish existing parking structures and either put public housing projects on top of them or incentivize real estate developers to build actual low-income housing. Telling real estate developers to build low-income housing in areas where they could easily build high-income housing is, well, let's just say cities promise this all the time and developers never do it. "Build more housing" is probably the answer to the homeless problem, but the ownership issue needs to be fixed first. The author made all these cute graphics of studio apartments superimposed on parking spaces. Cool, I like density, my condo is 650 sqft, like 3 or 4 spaces without egress. Are we talking about literally taking parking from existing owners and building housing on the bare pads? Are we talking about building vertically on top of them and leaving the space underneath for cars? I'm not saying these are bad ideas. But can we fully bake them first? So a politician can actually hand it to a bunch of legislators and come up with something he can actually put on his platform? Sure let's abolish the minimum. But that won't do a darned thing to help congestion and the housing shortage other than make LA more like Atlanta where there's an island of density around a bunch of ugly sprawl with more dense pockets springing up in the periphery. We're still waiting for market conditions to fix the city. And market forces don't care about what we want. Promising low-income housing in desirable real estate markets doesn't work but is the only thing politicians can put on their platforms that people will vote for.
- choeger 7y agoThe problem is not the parking spaces. It is also not the roads. Take them away and you only make life more miserable for car commuters. You need two things: 1. Attractive alternatives (really good, clean, fast public transport or really good, safe, fast bike lanes) 2. An incentive to not use the car for commuting. The problem with 1. is that politicians find it much harder to create something good than to make it's opposite worse. The problem with 2. is that a car is a relatively expensive investment, so people will use it. You could, for instance, introduce a flexible city toll that allows you 50 days of free entering by car and serves as a PT ticket as well.
- bagacrap 7y agoIsn't making it more miserable an incentive not to do it?
- pro_zac 7y agoOn a related note, give this episode of Revisionist History a listen. It details the property tax loophole that has been taken advantage of by LA's country clubs for decades. http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoiled http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoile...
- Mikeb85 7y agoParking minimums seems insane. Let the free market decide how many parking spaces to build, it shouldn't be mandated by the city.
- nostrademons 7y agoI think the logic behind it (which is somewhat born out by experience) is that without parking minimums, residents just use street parking. There's an externality there: street parking is provided as a public good so that people can visit commercial establishments, friends, community centers, etc, but if a developer can rely on the public good so that they can fit 50% more units into an area and reduce construction costs, they will. Then the public good is consumed by this private externality, residents take up all the street parking spots that were intended for visitors, and nobody's better off except the developers. Much of San Francisco (where I've heard 50% of cars in the city at any given time are looking for parking) is an example of this problem. So are many immigrant neighborhoods where people double- or triple-up in units: street parking is virtually impossible to find in my neighborhood after about 6:00 PM. The logic behind "abolish parking minimums" is that then people will live a car-free lifestyle and depend upon public transit, but in my experience that isn't true. Even folks who primarily use public transit and like to walk often own a car, if only for grocery runs and the occasional weekend getaway. Services like ZipCar help in that regard, but we're pretty far away from abolishing private car ownership.
- bagacrap 7y agoStreet parking itself seems pretty dumb to me. The bandwidth on streets should not be used up by idle vehicles. Even a single car parked on a block uses up what could potentially be another lane. Is there any less efficient use of space? Hopefully self driving cars will allow us to repurpose that real estate since they can drop off passengers and go hide in a garage somewhere (or carry other passengers around).
- jimmaswell 7y agoI have mixed feelings about it. It can be fine but it needs to be handled a lot more strictly. It causes a safety problem around here when all the parked cars block the view around corners.
- kube-system 7y agoI feel like this author has not experienced living in a city where there was not enough parking to meet demand, and not enough public transit to make up the difference. It causes its own set of horrible problems. People will not give up their car if they still need it to go to work. You have to have the public transportation system before you remove parking spaces. Otherwise you’re going to make the problem worse, not better. If you remove parking first, people are going to avoid dense areas even more, which is the opposite of what you want to solve this issue. You want to encourage people to live and work in denser areas, not encourage them to move further away. On top of that, you’ll get illegal parking which causes property damage and poses risks to public safety.
- jdm2212 7y agoNo one (in America) ever builds public transit without demand for it. And even when there is demand for it, it's a struggle. So you have to get rid of the parking first.
- kube-system 7y agoIf you remove parking before the transit problem is solved, you’re going to make the problem worse by further discouraging density. People will continue to use whatever transit that works to get them to the places they need to go. If you block drivers from accessing an area without any alternatives, you’re simply going to kill any economic activity in that area long before anyone demands transit. People will individually seek alternatives elsewhere to continue their daily activities before they organize and demand political change. People will always make decisions based on where they need to go today. A building with no parking and no public transit, doesn’t have a bunch of people hanging around it demanding a 10 year transit project. They don’t have 10 years to wait. They need a place to work/shop/live today.
- gok 7y ago"The City of Los Angeles has the highest number of Lane miles per 1,000 persons in the US. " Woah stop right there. That's the opposite of reality. Of the metro areas in the contiguous US, LA is in fact last in miles per resident: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2015/hm72.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2015/h... (The absolute least is Honolulu)
- 83457 7y agoMaybe they are talking about the city specifically while other is speaking to the overall metro area?
- gok 7y agoOk I guess they're citing table 2 from this? https://escholarship.org/content/qt485983zw/qt485983zw.pdf https://escholarship.org/content/qt485983zw/qt485983zw.pdf Which: - Uses data from 2000 - Only looks at LA proper (not really meaningful) - Still doesn't support their claim. Miami, Detroit, Dallas, Tampa Bay, St Louis all have higher lanes/person I'm guessing they thought it showed LA being highest because it's first in the table and didn't realize what column it was sorted by.
- ineedasername 7y agoFirst off, parking isn't flat & spread out. It is very often stacked & condensed into compact areas known parking garages, some of which sit under housing complexes and so take up no extra real estate at all. Presenting the square acreage of all parking spaces like this is a grossly misleading way of presenting the data. 10% of the raw acreage of spaces is very much not 10% of the real estate used for parking. Second, there have to be many more parking places than there are cars, otherwise you would never be able to move your car. You wouldn't find another spot, because it would already be taken. Third, even if we imagine a perfect system where you leave your spot, someone leaves their spot and takes your spot, leaving an opening for you, that would still ignore the fact that parking spots are not fungible. You can't interchange them, one spot for another, and balance the equation. The spot in front of your house/appartment is pretty much useless for nearly everyone else that isn't a neighbor. I don't have any comprehensive solution to this problem, but what I am pretty sure of is that there's no single silver bullet solution that will massively improve the situation. (or if there is such a solution & I'm just not smart enough to find it, it's not going to be found in parking spaces.)
- lmm 7y ago> First off, parking isn't flat & spread out. It is very often stacked & condensed into compact areas known parking garages, some of which sit under housing complexes and so take up no extra real estate at all. Housing is very often stacked and condensed too, so x square feet of parking is equivalent to x square feet of housing (or retail, or ...). Actually it's even worse than that because LA's parking minimums require the parking to be on the bottom floors - the ones that would be most valuable and convenient for humans. > I don't have any comprehensive solution to this problem, but what I am pretty sure of is that there's no single silver bullet solution that will massively improve the situation. (or if there is such a solution & I'm just not smart enough to find it, it's not going to be found in parking spaces.) I'm more and more convinced that eliminating "free" parking is the silver bullet. It's a massive distortion to how we arrange our cities. Once there's a level playing field for parking to compete with other land uses, the market can sort the rest out.
- ineedasername 7y ago
- csours 7y agoSerious question - what percentage of people do you think will be swayed by these arguments? It's over 100 degrees during the day where I live (and it was before global warming too). I don't mind walking, but that temperature is dangerous for a lot of people, and inconvenient for everyone. I really like the idea of density. I don't like big asphalt parking lots; but I think the alternative is concrete parking structures. Disclaimer: I work for GM, any opinions are my own.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- xivzgrev 7y agoUgh. Has this author ever visited LA? The entire city / culture is built around using a car to get to places. This article does nothing to address that, other than a few whimpy shoutouts to build more “convenient” public transit. Apparently we can get rid of all parking in Hollywood because a single red line runs through it. In order for a public transit system to be convenient you need a LOT of density. You also need speed. The two goals are fundamentally at odds with each other. That’s why a lot of people prefer cars. No one likes traffic or emissions, and cars are way more likely to kill you, but damn are cars convenient even in urban environments. Any plan like this can have all these numbers talking about how much space could be freed up but they need to address this fundamental problem, and this article failed to. Now what interesting is the rise of self driving cars. I’ve often see paid parking lots and think within 20-30 years they will be out of biz. A few large operators will emerge and park their cars overnight at some owned large lot far out of the city to recharge, maintain, etc, and there won’t be much need anymore. So that could be a path to what author is talking about, long term. Of course does nothing for parking lot owners who just hold onto the property speculating...
- davidw 7y agoIt's always amazed me that humans - even those without much 'high tech' - can adapt to environments as diverse as the arctic, Kalahari desert, or jungles of Borneo, but god forbid the government stop mandating the precise number of parking spots places need, because no one would be able to adapt.
- jimmaswell 7y agoOk, go live in the arctic without any electricity since it's so easy then. Just because we can live in worse conditions doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for improvement, and as may come as a surprise to some people, most people like having parking available and find cars convenient.
- ben_w 7y agoPeople like the freedom that a car currently embodies — if you have good alternatives, the physical object is unimportant. I’m 35, I have owned one car for two weeks, and then only for the purpose of selling it on behalf of my partner without it looking dodgy. I don’t miss it.
- thorwasdfasdf 7y agoParking minimums are a big problem. But, it's just a part of a much bigger problem: Regulation is strangling the life out of us. Regulation like zoning and countless other regs prevents market forces from working the way they should. Have you ever heard of a banana shortage crisis or a jeans shortage crisis in the US? No you haven't. The reason is because market forces are able to adjust to changes in market demand. In housing, those market forces are bottled up and stifled, preventing investments, preventing innovation, preventing progress, preventing better solutions. We really really need to start looking at regulations and find ways to get rid of the ones causing all these problems. ADDED: We've seen very little actual VC money or Research and development go into improving the cost of creating Shelter (In fact, we haven't made any improvements in this in the last 50 to 100 years adjusted for inflation). Much of this is due to regulations. Other industries can find ways to reduce cost but the mountain of housing regulations prevent any and all progress in these areas. I'd argue Housing is one of the most critical areas that human should be trying to progress in, as it's most important for human survival.
- phil248 7y ago"Have you ever heard of a banana shortage crisis or a jeans shortage crisis in the US?" No, but I've heard of gruesome conditions for child laborers in sweatshops and I've heard of banana monoculture that has resulted in disease and threatens extinction of the crop. We should all push for better and more adaptable regulations that aim to minimize the damages caused by capitalism and enhance its benefits. But regulations as a concept is not the problem, only the implementations.
- swiley 7y agoWhile I agree with what you’re saying I’m not sure jeans and bananas are in the same category as housing because they’re much cheaper to produce (granted, simple concrete structures are also very cheap to produce, not quite so cheap though.)
- thorwasdfasdf 7y agoThe point is, they wouldn't be cheap, if we created regulations around them. For instance, let's say, for environmental reasons you decided that all jeans must use the wool of a canadian sheep that's hard to grow. Now the price of jeans triples needlessly. This sort of thing happens all the time in housing and nobody ever realizes it.
- theemathas 7y agoDoes the title mean "Let's build houses for people, not build cars for people", or "Let's build houses for people, not build houses for cars"? Language is weird.
- taurath 7y agoZoning is the real problem. Other than Manhatten and a few big city downtowns, I know of almost no continuous human scale places to live in the US. Go to Vancouver - they have a good mix of housing but the core is ENTIRELY apartments and condos and they have plenty of transportation. You can walk around all day. I want this. Every asian city is condos and apartments first, for every social and economic class.
- tehChromic76 7y agoTowns and cities too please!
- thomasfl 7y agoThe next wave of interesting startups will be shelter. Not housing that keep people comfy at night, but effective walkable citylike places. Places that take into account that the human race is very social. Places that makes it easy to be friendly to the environment. Poundbury in southern UK was nothing but greenfields. Now it’s a highly succesfyl city that attracts people and businesses, despite 1/3 of the buildings being affordable houses projects. Good cities reduces the inhabitants need for long distance travels.
- squarefoot 7y agoAnd you are definitely a cat lover if you misread the title as "Let's build houses for people, not cats" and your first thought is "no way!" :^)
- newnewpdro 7y agoYou can live in your car, but you can't drive your house.
- proc0 7y agoCar culture is finally backfiring in large cities. It's fine to do this when your city's population is small. You can have lots of cars and there is a lot of space. But now cities like LA are paying the price of everyone thinking they NEED a car and making it a cultural status thing. Imagine everyone thinking helicopters were cool and everyone should have a helicopter when they're 18 in order to get laid. It makes no sense, it's a transportation vehicle meant to be useful. It takes you from point A to B and that's it.
- Dumblydorr 7y agoGood luck convincing people not to buy ludicrous vehicles as status symbols, or to keep up with the Joneses, meanwhile they're paying 12 or 15 or 20% interest for these cars over 6 years because of financial ignorance. I work in a hospital office building, the parking lot is a circus of wasteful consumerism. The sheer amount of shiny, ridiculously huge F150s and luxury vehicles and the obscene number of SUVs tells me people dont get a simple, cheap A to B vehicle. They dont rideshare or bicycle or public transit. People pay top dollar for comfort, status, and care nothing for finances or climate.
- proc0 7y agoRight. Although if you can afford one, nothing wrong with that, but it seems many cities are designed as if every individual has or should have a car, which then forces people into that lifestyle. Then to get the most value from your vehicle, you have to use it more, which means more sitting down, more stress from traffic, more risk of accidents, etc.
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- Dan_JiuJitsu 7y agoThis article is bullshit, written and funded by real estate developers who want to build high density housing without concerning themselves with where the people who live in that housing are going to park the cars they own. This appears to rely on the fallacy that people are going to give up their cars to take non-existent public transportation to bring their kids to school or get groceries. The public transit that does exist is rife with drug addicted, mentally ill homeless people. No fucking thanks!
- Pfhreak 7y agoExcept... people will? I've reduced the number of cars in my life, increased the biking and public transit. My kid gets dropped off at school on the back of a cargo bike, and I'll often walk to get groceries. I use stuff like car2go, lime, lyft, etc. when I need a car or bike in short order.
- Dan_JiuJitsu 7y agoSure that's you. One anecdotal example. As a data driven counter example, take the number of card on the road in Los Angeles at a given time. I live in LA, and there is a zero percent chance I expose my child to typhus on the train. You are a very distinct minority.
- Zarath 7y agoIt's a cycle. Build the city around cars? Then the city becomes spread out due to poor land usage and cars become a requirement. Since the city is more spread out, public transit is both more expensive (since you need to cover more distance) and less efficient (you service fewer people per mile).
- carapace 7y agoGo all the way, build Arcologies. > Arcology, a portmanteau of "architecture" and "ecology", is a field of creating architectural design principles for very densely populated, ecologically low-impact human habitats. > The term was coined in 1969 by architect Paolo Soleri, who believed that a completed arcology would provide space for a variety of residential, commercial, and agricultural facilities while minimizing individual human environmental impact. These structures have been largely hypothetical, as no arcology, even one envisioned by Soleri himself, has yet been built. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology
- peterwwillis 7y agoThe lede is buried: To build more houses for people (that will be near jobs, businesses, and schools), we have to have better transportation. There simply is no alternative.
- pkamb 7y agoHave any (American) cities/towns simply turned an entire street into a bike/pedestrian path? No cars or limited hours or local access only. Similar to the old-railroad-to-bike-path conversions that are happening everywhere, but for a normal street.
- karmelapple 7y agoYup! A variety of places do this, though I’m not sure if it’s to the extent you have in mind. Iowa City eliminated cars on roads in their downtown, and they have a vibrant town square there now with plenty of restaurants, bars, shopping, ice cream, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ped_Mall_(Iowa_City) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ped_Mall_(Iowa_City) Boston closes down Newbury Street a few times during the summer for the past few years. https://www.newburystboston.com/cd_listing/open-newbury-2019/ https://www.newburystboston.com/cd_listing/open-newbury-2019...
- pkamb 7y agoYeah the "core downtown pedestrian zone" concept I'm sure is popular and gaining more traction, which is great. But I'm talking more about taking a random street that passes through the entire town and removing cars permanently. Maybe a side street parallel to the existing major car thoroughfare. At the extreme end, say, turning an entire North/South avenue of Manhattan bike/pedestrian-only.
- maerF0x0 7y ago> 551,800 home shortfall for low-income renters There is also a shortfall of Ferraris for low budgeted car buyers. /s I say this, in jest, to illustrate that part of the issue is the North American perspective of the minimum viable living space. Many of our regulations increase the cost of production to the point that there is no viable solution at the price point that people can afford. I think we need a rise of micro units to allow people to live where they can afford. The capitalist side of me says "Why should a developer take a unit of resources an intentionally make it generate less revenue?" The claim usually goes that capitalism uses the constrained resources of a society at maximal benefit...
- phantarch 7y agoI just was recently introduced to this and other discussions on city planning by a couple of great youtube series by donoteat1[1]. "Franklin" and "Power, Politics, and Planning" are some of the best and most humorous examinations of topics like parking minimums, public housing, gentrification, etc. I've come across. The presenter is highly left-leaning, but also knowledgeable and backs up his positions with data. Agree or disagree with his views, it's informative either way! It's opened my eyes much more to how cities are actually planned and the problems posed by politics over the ages - the conflict between public good and private interest, and how specific policies affect cities and their accessibility to people of various economic statuses. Would recommend if you enjoyed this article and want more related topics to learn about. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFdazs-6CNzSVv1J0a-qy4A https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFdazs-6CNzSVv1J0a-qy4A
- stjohnswarts 7y agoSounds like a socialist policy. It's not good. What LA needs is more competition and less zoning to lower prices and allow better results.
- Aeolun 7y agoRemoving parking minimums, and imposing parking maximums will do more for decent public transportation than any other thing that could be done.
- whenchamenia 7y agoMeanwhile, my biggest house shopping concern is a garage. Even if you live sans-car, it is super useful to have a work and storage space.
- intopieces 7y agoThe people who live in the tents featured in this picture are not waiting to move in to whatever housing should be built on those parking lots. Even Singapore, with its famously stellar urban planning and extensive government housing, has homeless.
- mrtweetyhack 7y agoYou already have part of the solution. Give the homeless cheap cars. They can park, do their drugs in privacy, sleep all day, go beg and steal. Win.
- pontifier 7y agoI've been thinking a lot about this problem lately. I'd like to hear thoughts on the effect of an unlimited density, all uses allowed, zone near public transit. I imagine something like the Kowloon walled city.