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The parking problem seems to be the exact opposite in many European cities. New apartment blocks are build without providing the required parking, and people ar

The parking problem seems to be the exact opposite in many European cities. New apartment blocks are build without providing the required parking, and people aren't willing to pay for parking when visiting the city center. Some people really do need a car to get to work, but if they also want to live in the center of a large city, then they are frequently not even given the option of paying for a parking spot. The city of Copenhagen famously sold more parking permits than there are actual parking spaces to people living in the city center. For when you're just going to a cafe, restaurant, or shopping, I don't get why people can just pay the parking fee, it's often not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be.

maccard 5y ago
> Some people really do need a car to get to work, but if they also want to live in the center of a large city, Why does someone living in NYC, Chicago, London, Paris need a car to get to work? There are some very rare cases yes, but the vast vast majority don't need a car, they want a car. > The city of Copenhagen famously sold more parking permits than there are actual parking spaces to people living in the city center. I would almost always expect that to happen. There is far more demand than there is parking, and a permit doesn't give you a right to a space. I would also be hugely surprised if much money (if any) was made from permits. (Enforcement of the CPZs being a different thing that almost certainly does make money). > I don't get why people can just pay the parking fee, it's often not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be. It's £4.50 per hour in the city center here, (plus £0.20 to pay by card - and this is a recent option too. 2-3 years ago it was coins only), and most areas have a 2 hour limit. For anyone actually living in the city, it's almost certainly cheaper to get an Uber each way.
- prasadjoglekar 5y ago
  This may not translate to London etc., but remember that NYC is a lot larger than Manhattan. There are large parts of NYC that are not serviced by trains/subways, and the only option is a bus. My wife would take a train to a train to a bus to get from one part of Queens to another. 90 minutes on a good day. Driving - 25 mins including finding parking.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    Ignore the next sections, I can’t read and the comment is just wrong. This is a thread about parking in European cities. Experiences of NYC aren’t exactly useful data points. Also as a related point. It’s a real shame that the US doesn’t invest in proper bus lanes and busses. Buses don’t need to a shitty form of transport, it’s really on in the US where busses are worse than driving in city centres.
    - prasadjoglekar 5y ago
      Parent comment asked: Why does someone living in NYC, Chicago, London, Paris need a car to get to work? There are some very rare cases yes, but the vast vast majority don't need a car, they want a car. I'm positing that the assertion that the vast majority don't "need a car" is incorrect, certainly in NYC.
      - avianlyric 5y ago
        My apologies, clearly I need to read more carefully.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- mrweasel 5y ago
  > Why does someone living in NYC, Chicago, London, Paris need a car to get to work? There are more cities than that, and many have terrible public transport, even in Europe. I live just outside a city with around 125.000 people. Public transport is terrible, it takes an hour or more to use the bus for traveling 15km (I need to leave home at 6:30 to be at work at 9:15, if I take the bus, but it's a 20 minute drive). Also most of the jobs aren't actually within the city center. Many can bike and do so, but that's not an option for everyone, especially during the winter and autumn.
  - maccard 5y ago
    > There are more cities than that Sure, but the person I replied to said _large_ city. 125k is definitely not a large city, and having grown up in a similar sized one (~100k) they're poorly served. This is (anecdotally) because those towns and cities used to be small enough to not warrant mass transit, and now that they are people are convinced that it's not worth it because it's slow.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      125k is rather large where I live, large enough to make it one of the countries four major cities. But fair enough, if you talk about large cities as Berlin, London and other cities with millions of people, the argumentation changes.
- long_time_gone 5y ago
  There are reasons for needing a car other than “work”. Getting your kid to doctor’s office, taking your kid to school, taking your kid to daycare, visiting family, fitting all your bikes/kayaks/gear to go outdoors, groceries and errands, etc. Note, I live in Chicago with 2 kids under 5. Neither my wife or I drive to work and we have one car.
avianlyric 5y ago
> New apartment blocks are build without providing the required parking, and people aren't willing to pay for parking when visiting the city center. What exactly is the “required parking”? Here in london most new developments are prohibited from building parking, and are also frequently ineligible for parking permits, because we want less cars on our roads not more. The roads are already full to bursting, and you can’t build more of them. The number of people who need a car to go work in London is minuscule. We have fantastic public transport, and rapidly growing cycle infrastructure. Today travelling by bike or tube is normally twice a fast as a car. And when I say bike, I don’t mean Lycra clad speeders, I’m talking about casual cycle through the city in normal clothes and no sweat. > For when you're just going to a cafe, restaurant, or shopping, I don't get why people can just pay the parking fee, it's often not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be. Most on street parking is 1. Full, so you probably can’t park. Not an issue with a bike, bus or tube. 2. Strictly time limited. Unless you wanna move your cat every hour or two, parking probably isn’t going to work for you.
- mrweasel 5y ago
  Does it need to be on street parking though? I'd argue that most new building should just be built with a parking basement. Under ground parking can provide most, if not all of the parking required within modern cities. Developers just don't want to add them, due to cost of construction. There are a few new apartment building going up in the city center 20 minutes from my home. Each apartment is required to provide 1.7 parking spot per apartment. It's not required to be on street, or even above ground.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    To be clear, the restriction is no parking, not, no on street parking. The city wants these developments to add exactly zero parking or cars to the city. Underground or otherwise. Parked cars don’t pollute or cause traffic, the issue is when people start driving them. In my new build the developer was restricted (not required to build, a maximum allowed to build) to 0.3 spaces per apartment. That was two years ago, in one years time, a new build here will be restricted to zero spaces per apartment.

maccard 5y ago

> Some people really do need a car to get to work, but if they also want to live in the center of a large city, Why does someone living in NYC, Chicago, London, Paris need a car to get to work? There are some very rare cases yes, but the vast vast majority don't need a car, they want a car. > The city of Copenhagen famously sold more parking permits than there are actual parking spaces to people living in the city center. I would almost always expect that to happen. There is far more demand than there is parking, and a permit doesn't give you a right to a space. I would also be hugely surprised if much money (if any) was made from permits. (Enforcement of the CPZs being a different thing that almost certainly does make money). > I don't get why people can just pay the parking fee, it's often not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be. It's £4.50 per hour in the city center here, (plus £0.20 to pay by card - and this is a recent option too. 2-3 years ago it was coins only), and most areas have a 2 hour limit. For anyone actually living in the city, it's almost certainly cheaper to get an Uber each way.

prasadjoglekar 5y ago
This may not translate to London etc., but remember that NYC is a lot larger than Manhattan. There are large parts of NYC that are not serviced by trains/subways, and the only option is a bus. My wife would take a train to a train to a bus to get from one part of Queens to another. 90 minutes on a good day. Driving - 25 mins including finding parking.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  Ignore the next sections, I can’t read and the comment is just wrong. This is a thread about parking in European cities. Experiences of NYC aren’t exactly useful data points. Also as a related point. It’s a real shame that the US doesn’t invest in proper bus lanes and busses. Buses don’t need to a shitty form of transport, it’s really on in the US where busses are worse than driving in city centres.
  - prasadjoglekar 5y ago
    Parent comment asked: Why does someone living in NYC, Chicago, London, Paris need a car to get to work? There are some very rare cases yes, but the vast vast majority don't need a car, they want a car. I'm positing that the assertion that the vast majority don't "need a car" is incorrect, certainly in NYC.
    - avianlyric 5y ago
      My apologies, clearly I need to read more carefully.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
mrweasel 5y ago
> Why does someone living in NYC, Chicago, London, Paris need a car to get to work? There are more cities than that, and many have terrible public transport, even in Europe. I live just outside a city with around 125.000 people. Public transport is terrible, it takes an hour or more to use the bus for traveling 15km (I need to leave home at 6:30 to be at work at 9:15, if I take the bus, but it's a 20 minute drive). Also most of the jobs aren't actually within the city center. Many can bike and do so, but that's not an option for everyone, especially during the winter and autumn.
- maccard 5y ago
  > There are more cities than that Sure, but the person I replied to said _large_ city. 125k is definitely not a large city, and having grown up in a similar sized one (~100k) they're poorly served. This is (anecdotally) because those towns and cities used to be small enough to not warrant mass transit, and now that they are people are convinced that it's not worth it because it's slow.
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    125k is rather large where I live, large enough to make it one of the countries four major cities. But fair enough, if you talk about large cities as Berlin, London and other cities with millions of people, the argumentation changes.
long_time_gone 5y ago
There are reasons for needing a car other than “work”. Getting your kid to doctor’s office, taking your kid to school, taking your kid to daycare, visiting family, fitting all your bikes/kayaks/gear to go outdoors, groceries and errands, etc. Note, I live in Chicago with 2 kids under 5. Neither my wife or I drive to work and we have one car.

avianlyric 5y ago

> New apartment blocks are build without providing the required parking, and people aren't willing to pay for parking when visiting the city center. What exactly is the “required parking”? Here in london most new developments are prohibited from building parking, and are also frequently ineligible for parking permits, because we want less cars on our roads not more. The roads are already full to bursting, and you can’t build more of them. The number of people who need a car to go work in London is minuscule. We have fantastic public transport, and rapidly growing cycle infrastructure. Today travelling by bike or tube is normally twice a fast as a car. And when I say bike, I don’t mean Lycra clad speeders, I’m talking about casual cycle through the city in normal clothes and no sweat. > For when you're just going to a cafe, restaurant, or shopping, I don't get why people can just pay the parking fee, it's often not nearly as expensive as people make it out to be. Most on street parking is 1. Full, so you probably can’t park. Not an issue with a bike, bus or tube. 2. Strictly time limited. Unless you wanna move your cat every hour or two, parking probably isn’t going to work for you.

mrweasel 5y ago
Does it need to be on street parking though? I'd argue that most new building should just be built with a parking basement. Under ground parking can provide most, if not all of the parking required within modern cities. Developers just don't want to add them, due to cost of construction. There are a few new apartment building going up in the city center 20 minutes from my home. Each apartment is required to provide 1.7 parking spot per apartment. It's not required to be on street, or even above ground.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  To be clear, the restriction is no parking, not, no on street parking. The city wants these developments to add exactly zero parking or cars to the city. Underground or otherwise. Parked cars don’t pollute or cause traffic, the issue is when people start driving them. In my new build the developer was restricted (not required to build, a maximum allowed to build) to 0.3 spaces per apartment. That was two years ago, in one years time, a new build here will be restricted to zero spaces per apartment.