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> But I wonder how far this can really be taken in my city. It can and should be taken to 100%. Even Los Angeles and Dallas – much bigger cities than Alexandri

> But I wonder how far this can really be taken in my city. It can and should be taken to 100%. Even Los Angeles and Dallas – much bigger cities than Alexandria – are studying eliminating parking minimums. Practically, eliminating parking minimums does not mean there will be no parking built: developers will still include enough parking that makes sense (and sometimes that's – gasp – none!) for a project, because in real life a large apartment buildings with absolutely no parking makes just as little sense as an apartment building with twice the number of parking spaces as tenants, especially in an urban area where car ownership is certainly not 100% (or in some neighborhoods, much less than 50%). This is something that almost every other major city in the world figured out long ago. Philosophically, parking minimums are only something Americans think is necessary because it's been that way for so long. Why don't we have bike rack minimums? Parking maximums? Anecdotally, my single family home in Los Angeles technically has a parking minimum of 8(!) cars, due to weirdness with the zoning laws. I live right near transit and don't even have one car. I'd love to replace part of my driveway with a deck and expanded backyard, still leave a few spots for guests, and it would effect literally no one, but doing so would mean my home is no longer up to code.

SeanLuke 5y ago
> Even Los Angeles and Dallas – much bigger cities than Alexandria Well... LA is huge but Dallas is not that much bigger than DC.
- thebradbain 5y ago
  Dallas is the 9th (soon to be 8th) biggest city in the US at 1.4M people in its city limits alone. DC is about half that size. That’s not including the 800k within Fort Worth just 30 miles away from downtown Dallas. DFW metro area is about 7-8M people as of 2022. That puts its the fourth largest metro area in the country, behind only NYC, Los Angeles, and Chicago (which it will also soon pass, if migration trends continue), respectively. I think by all metrics Dallas is much bigger than DC. Though if you’ve only ever lived on the coasts, that may surprise you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_are...
  - SeanLuke 5y ago
    I have lived in many places out west, thanks. Metro areas are kind of arbitrary things with surprisingly arbitrary definitions. But going by USGS, the Washington DC metro area alone is about 6.4 million people, surprisingly close to the Dallas metro area. If you're going to insist on including Fort Worth, then you probably should also allow the DC metro area to include Baltimore, whose city center is under 40 miles from the White House. The combined DC and Baltimore metro area is about 9 million people, larger than DFW I believe. I understand that everything is bigger in Texas. But everyone seems to want to restrict DC to the diamond, which is like restricting New York to Manhattan. DC is much larger than many people realize. Regardless, my point is: from the perspective of the impact on population size, Dallas and DC are roughly equivalent environments.

SeanLuke 5y ago

> Even Los Angeles and Dallas – much bigger cities than Alexandria Well... LA is huge but Dallas is not that much bigger than DC.

thebradbain 5y ago
Dallas is the 9th (soon to be 8th) biggest city in the US at 1.4M people in its city limits alone. DC is about half that size. That’s not including the 800k within Fort Worth just 30 miles away from downtown Dallas. DFW metro area is about 7-8M people as of 2022. That puts its the fourth largest metro area in the country, behind only NYC, Los Angeles, and Chicago (which it will also soon pass, if migration trends continue), respectively. I think by all metrics Dallas is much bigger than DC. Though if you’ve only ever lived on the coasts, that may surprise you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_are...
- SeanLuke 5y ago
  I have lived in many places out west, thanks. Metro areas are kind of arbitrary things with surprisingly arbitrary definitions. But going by USGS, the Washington DC metro area alone is about 6.4 million people, surprisingly close to the Dallas metro area. If you're going to insist on including Fort Worth, then you probably should also allow the DC metro area to include Baltimore, whose city center is under 40 miles from the White House. The combined DC and Baltimore metro area is about 9 million people, larger than DFW I believe. I understand that everything is bigger in Texas. But everyone seems to want to restrict DC to the diamond, which is like restricting New York to Manhattan. DC is much larger than many people realize. Regardless, my point is: from the perspective of the impact on population size, Dallas and DC are roughly equivalent environments.