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This make excellent sense, and the only solution would necessitate public transportation. Unsurprisingly, whether it’s public housing or public transportation,

This make excellent sense, and the only solution would necessitate public transportation. Unsurprisingly, whether it’s public housing or public transportation, there really is no way around investing in public infrastructure if you want to have a healthy society.

rufus_foreman 4y ago
I don't agree. As people get richer, they (at an aggregate level) choose private housing and private transportation over public. You can have a healthy society with private transportation and private housing, it just needs to be a rich society.
actionablefiber 4y ago
Public transportation is one piece of the puzzle. Cities that are truly great for car-free living are also walkable and cyclable, and have dedicated infrastructure to this end. Public transit gets you part-way there, since unlike cars, public transit, even buses, do not really make the streets dangerous and hostile the way that individual transport vehicles do. Still, it's important to remember that public transit is a key part of a broader approach to the problem and not the end-all solution itself.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  I'm not in zoning, so no idea if this is already done, but it would be great to have a (probably national-level) standardized formula for calculating a transit credit for a development that could be applied to decrease required parking spaces. I.e. having a light or heavy rail stop within 2 miles gives an X credit, having a grocery or mixed use commercial (food and services) within 2 miles gives a Y credit, having bike storage and lanes gives a Z credit Essentially, attempt to quantify the holistic experience of residents, when talking about parking requirements. If we make the kind of housing / communities we'd like to see cheaper, developers will start building it naturally. Edit: From the linked Reddit post: "In January 2013, LA enacted its first major parking reduction, essentially giving developers the option of replacing up to 15% of their required residential parking with bike parking if they are within 1500ft of a major light rail or metro station. However, these bike spaces must be “long term” spaces, which require locked cages, a dedicated bike servicing area." (But also notes some requirements around the bike spaces that increase the cost of making that trade-off)
  - actionablefiber 4y ago
    Why not just abolish parking minimums so that car-free neighborhoods are legal to build from the get-go?
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Because then everyone would always build no-parking developments to maximize profit, even in neighborhoods unsuitable for it. E.g. no public transit, no nearby grocery store.
      - actionablefiber 4y ago
        Market dynamics would solve for this pretty quickly. If a neighborhood of no-parking developments had no grocery store, then building one would be a blindingly obvious opportunity. If the neighborhood is actually incorrigibly unsuitable for zero parking, then developers would have to build parking to attract buyers. But if you mandate parking minimums based on a formula then you have absolutely no mechanism for A) discovering how much or how little parking is actually required in each neighborhood (only top-down prescriptions based on a system that may or may not reflect the reality on the ground), and B) you categorically shut out the scenario where a neighborhood densifies before the commerce/transit is there for it, which then in turn attracts commerce/transit to move in and meet the demand.
        ethbr0 4y ago
        Ha! Development is... substantially less organized and intelligent, less agile, and happens over longer timeframes than you're thinking. Most developers would have no problem building two apartment buildings right next to each other, on every foot of available space, with no parking, selling everything, and then never giving their futures a second thought. Zoning exists precisely because all building parties involved in are absolutely mercenary, and yet the city has to deal with the mess in the subsequent decades. The entire parking requirement was created because previously developers had overburden street spaces without care.
- nopenopenopeno 4y ago
  It’s the politically difficult, or more often politically impossible, part of the puzzle.
  - actionablefiber 4y ago
    Oh, completely. There's a whole host of problems strongly linked to American car-dependent development for which the solutions already exist and have been in use for some time elsewhere. Air quality, street congestion, traffic fatalities, obesity, high cost-of-living, poor accessibility for the disabled, children growing up with little independence or hobbies outside the home, housing shortage, and the general unhappiness of people who have no choice but to drive everywhere to do anything in a congested suburban town. The obstacles are not technological and have not been for some time. It's fully a social and political problem.

rufus_foreman 4y ago

I don't agree. As people get richer, they (at an aggregate level) choose private housing and private transportation over public. You can have a healthy society with private transportation and private housing, it just needs to be a rich society.

actionablefiber 4y ago

Public transportation is one piece of the puzzle. Cities that are truly great for car-free living are also walkable and cyclable, and have dedicated infrastructure to this end. Public transit gets you part-way there, since unlike cars, public transit, even buses, do not really make the streets dangerous and hostile the way that individual transport vehicles do. Still, it's important to remember that public transit is a key part of a broader approach to the problem and not the end-all solution itself.

ethbr0 4y ago
I'm not in zoning, so no idea if this is already done, but it would be great to have a (probably national-level) standardized formula for calculating a transit credit for a development that could be applied to decrease required parking spaces. I.e. having a light or heavy rail stop within 2 miles gives an X credit, having a grocery or mixed use commercial (food and services) within 2 miles gives a Y credit, having bike storage and lanes gives a Z credit Essentially, attempt to quantify the holistic experience of residents, when talking about parking requirements. If we make the kind of housing / communities we'd like to see cheaper, developers will start building it naturally. Edit: From the linked Reddit post: "In January 2013, LA enacted its first major parking reduction, essentially giving developers the option of replacing up to 15% of their required residential parking with bike parking if they are within 1500ft of a major light rail or metro station. However, these bike spaces must be “long term” spaces, which require locked cages, a dedicated bike servicing area." (But also notes some requirements around the bike spaces that increase the cost of making that trade-off)
- actionablefiber 4y ago
  Why not just abolish parking minimums so that car-free neighborhoods are legal to build from the get-go?
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Because then everyone would always build no-parking developments to maximize profit, even in neighborhoods unsuitable for it. E.g. no public transit, no nearby grocery store.
    - actionablefiber 4y ago
      Market dynamics would solve for this pretty quickly. If a neighborhood of no-parking developments had no grocery store, then building one would be a blindingly obvious opportunity. If the neighborhood is actually incorrigibly unsuitable for zero parking, then developers would have to build parking to attract buyers. But if you mandate parking minimums based on a formula then you have absolutely no mechanism for A) discovering how much or how little parking is actually required in each neighborhood (only top-down prescriptions based on a system that may or may not reflect the reality on the ground), and B) you categorically shut out the scenario where a neighborhood densifies before the commerce/transit is there for it, which then in turn attracts commerce/transit to move in and meet the demand.
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        Ha! Development is... substantially less organized and intelligent, less agile, and happens over longer timeframes than you're thinking. Most developers would have no problem building two apartment buildings right next to each other, on every foot of available space, with no parking, selling everything, and then never giving their futures a second thought. Zoning exists precisely because all building parties involved in are absolutely mercenary, and yet the city has to deal with the mess in the subsequent decades. The entire parking requirement was created because previously developers had overburden street spaces without care.
nopenopenopeno 4y ago
It’s the politically difficult, or more often politically impossible, part of the puzzle.
- actionablefiber 4y ago
  Oh, completely. There's a whole host of problems strongly linked to American car-dependent development for which the solutions already exist and have been in use for some time elsewhere. Air quality, street congestion, traffic fatalities, obesity, high cost-of-living, poor accessibility for the disabled, children growing up with little independence or hobbies outside the home, housing shortage, and the general unhappiness of people who have no choice but to drive everywhere to do anything in a congested suburban town. The obstacles are not technological and have not been for some time. It's fully a social and political problem.