6 ms·

remove or charge for parking and people park on the street...no one is giving up their cars, all of the social engineering just ends up creating more problems

by newaccount2021 5y ago

remove or charge for parking and people park on the street...no one is giving up their cars, all of the social engineering just ends up creating more problems in many Bay Area communities you will see cars as tightly aligned on both sides of residential streets as is physically possible...homeowners don't even have room to put out trash bins without blocking their own drives. and why? because apartment complexes and offices don't provide spaces for their users. so, people just clutter up the streets. win? any time there are measures to make parking inconvenient, you end up with annoying ordinances banning street parking...or "members only" local passes...or meter maids who exist to torment us all how can the government get us out of our cars when they otherwise encourage car use as broadly as possible?

davidw 5y ago
> all of the social engineering Do you mean forcing, by law, business and homebuilders to provision parking?
- newaccount2021 5y ago
  no, I mean the laws that mandate that they can only build a maximum of 80% of parking needed these laws aren't new...when Yahoo's "new" campus was built in 1999, only 8 parking spots per 10 employees were allowed to "encourage mass transit use" (lol)...so people just wasted hours driving around aimlessly
  - jjav 5y ago
    Yes, saw the same when my employers new campus in Santa Clara was built around the same timeframe. Parking was impossible, so people would drive around for a long time wasting fuel to find someone leaving. I settled on working from home the mornings and timing my arrival at lunchtime when spots were available. This of course left people coming back from lunch driving around for a long time. A huge waste.
chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
> no one is giving up their cars When you live in the downtown of a city, and parking at your apartment is $300/month, that's a strong incentive to give up your car
- 0_____0 5y ago
  As I've found out first hand, when you live in a neighborhood where it's more convenient to walk to the grocery, gym, bar, friends' houses, it really makes you wonder what you're spending all that money on that car for. Not just the parking spot, but depreciation, fuel, maintenance, insurance, parking tickets...
  - eertami 5y ago
    > it's more convenient to walk to the grocery, gym, bar, friends' houses, it really makes you wonder what you're spending all that money on that car for I would never use my car for any of those examples (living in a small EU city). The car is just there for leisure activities, to access skiing in winter and mountain biking/hiking/camping spots in the summer. Yeah it's more expensive than not owning a car but for some hobbies it's hard to give it up.
    - 0_____0 5y ago
      Same. Most places in the US aren't built in a way where everyday errands are walkable. I feel insanely lucky to have semi-randomly ended up in one of the few places that are. I'm in love with the format of small European cities, enough that I'm considering attempting to emigrate before trying to start a family.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        Even if day to day errands are reasonably walkable/bikable/transitable, in most US cities you're adding a lot of overhead and inconvenience for carless people who want to regularly get out of the city on weekends. Very few people I know (so somewhat older folks) don't own cars even in walkable cities.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
0_____0 5y ago
The last line of your reply there really says it all. Every facet of how our cities are built caters to the automobile owner. Universal street parking, parking minimums, highways through urban cores, not prioritizing public transit infrastructure... these things all reinforce automobile dominance, and they've been public policy for the last 70 years. In order to fix the issue of congested and dangerous streets, we need to get drivers to shift to other transit modes, and part of the answer is to stop coddling them with free parking.
- ars 5y ago
  > we need to get drivers to shift to other transit modes No thank you. I've tried them all, and driving is better than all of them. > and part of the answer is to stop coddling them with free parking. Yup, can't make the other options better, so instead the only alternative is to make driving worse. Great plan.
- criddell 5y ago
  I've been thinking about other transit modes for medium and long distances and I'm having a hard time thinking of great ideas for where I live (central Texas). Public transportation is one, but the last thing many of us want to do right now is get on a crowded train. Bicycles are great until it gets too hot or too cold which is a pretty large chunk of the year. They also aren't an option for many of us with health issues. Ride sharing and taxi services are available, but they can be more expensive and unreliable. In smaller neighborhoods I think electric golf carts can work, but the range isn't great and they usually don't have heat or air conditioning. I saw an older Waymo video where the car was somewhere between a golf cart and a regular car. I think something like that has a lot of promise, but nobody is making them. If downtown areas get rid of free parking, I wonder if that would just push business out to the 'burbs where there's unlimited parking? That's not great for cities either.
  - 0_____0 5y ago
    If you try to conceive of The One Weird Trick that will solve urban mobility, it's an impossible problem. The best general purpose plan I can conceive of is to build mixed housing and commercial in places where there is already decent transit. No parking minimums. Build in earnest for a city where people can literally walk to any errand they may need. European planners actually do this -- they require neighborhood plans that offer a mix of residential, commercial (restaurants and nightlife), schools, other amenities. If the local grocery store is 2 blocks away, you don't need to get on a crowded train at all!
_dain_ 5y ago
>any time there are measures to make parking inconvenient, you end up with annoying ordinances banning street parking...or "members only" local passes...or meter maids who exist to torment us all "annoying ordinances banning street parking", as if street parking isn't itself extremely annoying to pedestrians and cyclists. "free" parking is not free. just like any other scarce good that the government mandates to be "free", someone, somewhere is paying for it.
alkonaut 5y ago
> remove or charge for parking and people park on the street... Parking in the street is still parking. The first parking to charge for (and the one to charge most for) is street parking.

davidw 5y ago

> all of the social engineering Do you mean forcing, by law, business and homebuilders to provision parking?

newaccount2021 5y ago
no, I mean the laws that mandate that they can only build a maximum of 80% of parking needed these laws aren't new...when Yahoo's "new" campus was built in 1999, only 8 parking spots per 10 employees were allowed to "encourage mass transit use" (lol)...so people just wasted hours driving around aimlessly
- jjav 5y ago
  Yes, saw the same when my employers new campus in Santa Clara was built around the same timeframe. Parking was impossible, so people would drive around for a long time wasting fuel to find someone leaving. I settled on working from home the mornings and timing my arrival at lunchtime when spots were available. This of course left people coming back from lunch driving around for a long time. A huge waste.

chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago

> no one is giving up their cars When you live in the downtown of a city, and parking at your apartment is $300/month, that's a strong incentive to give up your car

0_____0 5y ago
As I've found out first hand, when you live in a neighborhood where it's more convenient to walk to the grocery, gym, bar, friends' houses, it really makes you wonder what you're spending all that money on that car for. Not just the parking spot, but depreciation, fuel, maintenance, insurance, parking tickets...
- eertami 5y ago
  > it's more convenient to walk to the grocery, gym, bar, friends' houses, it really makes you wonder what you're spending all that money on that car for I would never use my car for any of those examples (living in a small EU city). The car is just there for leisure activities, to access skiing in winter and mountain biking/hiking/camping spots in the summer. Yeah it's more expensive than not owning a car but for some hobbies it's hard to give it up.
  - 0_____0 5y ago
    Same. Most places in the US aren't built in a way where everyday errands are walkable. I feel insanely lucky to have semi-randomly ended up in one of the few places that are. I'm in love with the format of small European cities, enough that I'm considering attempting to emigrate before trying to start a family.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Even if day to day errands are reasonably walkable/bikable/transitable, in most US cities you're adding a lot of overhead and inconvenience for carless people who want to regularly get out of the city on weekends. Very few people I know (so somewhat older folks) don't own cars even in walkable cities.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

0_____0 5y ago

The last line of your reply there really says it all. Every facet of how our cities are built caters to the automobile owner. Universal street parking, parking minimums, highways through urban cores, not prioritizing public transit infrastructure... these things all reinforce automobile dominance, and they've been public policy for the last 70 years. In order to fix the issue of congested and dangerous streets, we need to get drivers to shift to other transit modes, and part of the answer is to stop coddling them with free parking.

ars 5y ago
> we need to get drivers to shift to other transit modes No thank you. I've tried them all, and driving is better than all of them. > and part of the answer is to stop coddling them with free parking. Yup, can't make the other options better, so instead the only alternative is to make driving worse. Great plan.
criddell 5y ago
I've been thinking about other transit modes for medium and long distances and I'm having a hard time thinking of great ideas for where I live (central Texas). Public transportation is one, but the last thing many of us want to do right now is get on a crowded train. Bicycles are great until it gets too hot or too cold which is a pretty large chunk of the year. They also aren't an option for many of us with health issues. Ride sharing and taxi services are available, but they can be more expensive and unreliable. In smaller neighborhoods I think electric golf carts can work, but the range isn't great and they usually don't have heat or air conditioning. I saw an older Waymo video where the car was somewhere between a golf cart and a regular car. I think something like that has a lot of promise, but nobody is making them. If downtown areas get rid of free parking, I wonder if that would just push business out to the 'burbs where there's unlimited parking? That's not great for cities either.
- 0_____0 5y ago
  If you try to conceive of The One Weird Trick that will solve urban mobility, it's an impossible problem. The best general purpose plan I can conceive of is to build mixed housing and commercial in places where there is already decent transit. No parking minimums. Build in earnest for a city where people can literally walk to any errand they may need. European planners actually do this -- they require neighborhood plans that offer a mix of residential, commercial (restaurants and nightlife), schools, other amenities. If the local grocery store is 2 blocks away, you don't need to get on a crowded train at all!

_dain_ 5y ago

>any time there are measures to make parking inconvenient, you end up with annoying ordinances banning street parking...or "members only" local passes...or meter maids who exist to torment us all "annoying ordinances banning street parking", as if street parking isn't itself extremely annoying to pedestrians and cyclists. "free" parking is not free. just like any other scarce good that the government mandates to be "free", someone, somewhere is paying for it.

alkonaut 5y ago

> remove or charge for parking and people park on the street... Parking in the street is still parking. The first parking to charge for (and the one to charge most for) is street parking.