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Should be: How Parking Destroys American Cities

• zemvpferreira 5y ago
  No, this is my exact sentiment in Lisbon, Portugal - Europe. A city going on 1000 years. Our parking requirements for new construction and our addiction to free curb parking everywhere have destroyed mobility. There are unnecessary jams at all times of the day thanks to idiotic parking. I drive daily and have nothing against cars. I hope that small semi-self-driving electric cars will eventually replace our dying public transit. There are many great things about the car. But I hate parking with a passion. In Lisbon we could easily double or triple the speed and amount of traffic flow without any investment by getting rid of a few thousand spots of street parking. Road space should be for people to go about their business, not for storing inert objects. My hope against hope is that will one day we abolish street parking and invest in world-class automated below-ground parking. Let 1000 underground auto lifts bloom. Done properly it might even jump-start a new globally competitive manufacturing industry, something we haven't had since the 80s.
  • zozbot234 5y ago
    > In Lisbon we could easily double or triple the speed and amount of traffic flow without any investment by getting rid of a few thousand spots of street parking. Agreed, but surely the best arrangement in a dense, traditional city centre is not to have high speed traffic at all except on a few large thoroughfares, and to reserve most other streets and alleys to pedestrian use.
    • zemvpferreira 5y ago
      I agree with you but high speed is very relative. I'd be happy to have a 30-50 km/hr limit across the city and no city streets/avenue with more than two lanes of traffic, certainly not advocating for more than that. What I'd love to have is a continuous flow of traffic at low speeds instead of stop-and-go for an hour to get 10 kms across town.
  • sofixa 5y ago
    > I hope that small semi-self-driving electric cars will eventually replace our dying public transit Why?? That can't work with the terrain and current buildings in Lisbon, there simply isn't enough space for a car per person. And I can't imagine a livable city with so much space and money wasted for parking and roads. ( Due to induced demand ) Improving public transit is a much better option, especially considering Lisbon has some decent infrastructure already ( the tram and metro networks seemed pretty decent from my trip there just at the start of the pandemic).
    • zemvpferreira 5y ago
      Sorry if I sound blunt but you're clearly not a resident of the Lisbon metro if you think public transit is serviceable. Maybe some 20% of commuters would have to trade 45 minutes in a car for 2 hours minimum in public transit. Lisbon =! the city centre. And our public transit is impossible to improve as seen in the last 50 years - we just can't make public works work. Maybe it's a sign of old age but I've grown tired of idealistic solutions to persistent problems. Would I prefer a phenomenal public transit system over cars? Absolutely, I hate driving. But it is what it is and pining for Nirvana will not help us whatsoever. Better work with the momentum we have.