4 ms·

I think one reason for the "missing middle" is that it's dense enough to make parking a serious challenge, but not dense enough to make a completely car-free li

I think one reason for the "missing middle" is that it's dense enough to make parking a serious challenge, but not dense enough to make a completely car-free lifestyle attractive. I am not sure I'd give up a car for anything less than Manhattan subway (multiple redundant grade-separated tracks, that go everywhere you need, every 2-3 minutes) and you aren't getting public transit that good on just duplexes.

micromacrofoot 5y ago
there are still a lot of single-family houses near existing public transportation! if parking is really the limiting factor to medium density… we need more remote workers, bike support, and must improve our public transit!
- closeparen 5y ago
  I think more often than not that "existing public transportation" is a bus that goes to a pretty limited subset of the city, 2-3 times an hour. If you happen to be going to somewhere on that line and leaving near a scheduled departure, great, but you'll still want your car for the many times you're not.
  - folkrav 5y ago
    You hit the nail right on the head. Right after high school, both my parents lived in the same small town on the outskirts of a larger city. From my father's house, it was a 30min walk to get to the bus stop, which had one passage every 30 minutes. Even from my mother's place, going to school was ~2h to get halfway to downtown. My only decent option was driving to the train stating further from home, and going straight downtown that way. Cut a good 30-40 min off my commute, just mean I hit traffic every day. Anyway, all this to say, public transportation gets pretty light past a certain distance from city center, and you most definitely needed a car if you want to have some sort of life outside commuting. Admittedly, we're 17 years past that time, but from what I've heard from a friend still living there, it's still the very same situation.
folkrav 5y ago
I'm in a 3-4 story area, barely any garage doors and we can park on both sides, still parking is a shitshow.
Scarblac 5y ago
This is where the Netherlands can contribute something: with awesome infrastructure for bicycles, you don't have to be that dense before using the car becomes a once or twice a week thing. I often have to park my car streets away because all the closer spots are taken. But it doesn't matter as much because we don't use it much. Car sharing systems are the next step, our car is old so the economics don't quite work yet. But when it breaks down we won't buy a new one, just sign up for one of the services that have cars parked nearby.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

there are still a lot of single-family houses near existing public transportation! if parking is really the limiting factor to medium density… we need more remote workers, bike support, and must improve our public transit!

closeparen 5y ago
I think more often than not that "existing public transportation" is a bus that goes to a pretty limited subset of the city, 2-3 times an hour. If you happen to be going to somewhere on that line and leaving near a scheduled departure, great, but you'll still want your car for the many times you're not.
- folkrav 5y ago
  You hit the nail right on the head. Right after high school, both my parents lived in the same small town on the outskirts of a larger city. From my father's house, it was a 30min walk to get to the bus stop, which had one passage every 30 minutes. Even from my mother's place, going to school was ~2h to get halfway to downtown. My only decent option was driving to the train stating further from home, and going straight downtown that way. Cut a good 30-40 min off my commute, just mean I hit traffic every day. Anyway, all this to say, public transportation gets pretty light past a certain distance from city center, and you most definitely needed a car if you want to have some sort of life outside commuting. Admittedly, we're 17 years past that time, but from what I've heard from a friend still living there, it's still the very same situation.

folkrav 5y ago

I'm in a 3-4 story area, barely any garage doors and we can park on both sides, still parking is a shitshow.

Scarblac 5y ago

This is where the Netherlands can contribute something: with awesome infrastructure for bicycles, you don't have to be that dense before using the car becomes a once or twice a week thing. I often have to park my car streets away because all the closer spots are taken. But it doesn't matter as much because we don't use it much. Car sharing systems are the next step, our car is old so the economics don't quite work yet. But when it breaks down we won't buy a new one, just sign up for one of the services that have cars parked nearby.