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> ICE cars should be banned from cities > a city filled with parked EV cars is not very different > Curbside parking should be abolished > just park in under

> ICE cars should be banned from cities > a city filled with parked EV cars is not very different > Curbside parking should be abolished > just park in underground garages > walk the remaining 200m I appreciate the humor. I certainly hope that's how it was intended. The last part was particularly funny. I get it. Let's dig-up every city and build huge underground car garages --which require massive amounts of concrete, materials, digging, etc.-- generate monumental amounts of pollution and CO2 doing so. And then we park our electric cars underground. And this is where you really got me: The requirement is to be able to walk 200 meters to every destination within a city. Brilliant! I mean, can you imagine the digging under every city on earth to build massive swiss-cheese networks of parking caverns every, say, 400 meters or so? What are we going to do with all the underground water lines, gas, sewer and, in some cases, power lines? Yes, as a joke, it's really funny.

jupp0r 3y ago
[flagged]
newaccount74 3y ago
Every new development in my city already includes underground parking. The cost of land in the city is way too high to waste it on parking lots. They are also building lots of underground garages everywhere. I don't know what they do about power lines and sewer lines, but they seem to have figured out a way to do it, considering how many garages are being constructed. Removing curbside parking would provide some additional economic incentive to build more garages. It's absolutely doable, a single garage can provide a lot more parking lots than the curbs in a 200m radius.
- robomartin 3y ago
  Think about the environmental impact of digging-up and constructing massive underground parking caverns. I haven't done the math, yet, I have done a lot of construction projects of various types. I can assure you that building underground parking structures is probably one of the worst kinds of projects in terms of environmental effects. Not just CO2 generation. Absolutely everything conspires against you for such a project. I would almost be willing to bet that just one of those underground garage projects generates more CO2 and other negative environmental impacts than all the electric cars you could park in there for their useful lifetimes. Remember that EV's are not environmentally neutral at all. Start from this basis: Environmentally speaking, the least impactful place to park vehicles of any kind is where you do not have to move one gram of dirt and add one gram of concrete. The simple answer to that is: Existing infrastructure. Which, yes, means, existing streets. Do that and your baseline is mostly reduced to just the environmental impact of the EV's and not much else at the infrastructure level. Anything else --anything-- surely means increased environmental impact. Second to that might be to go vertical. In other words, above-ground parking structures with the building on top or coexisting on every level. I was recently in Singapore and saw a building fitting this description. Imagine offices around the periphery of every floor and parking for those offices on every floor at the "core" of the building. I can't say I know with certainty how the two approaches compare. I think I can say that not having to dig-up massive amounts of dirt to build a cavern that can support an entire building is likely far worse from an environmental impact perspective. Don't forget that the minute you place anything underground you are going to have the need for such things as 24/7 ventilation and air management, which means a constant energy load, well, forever. Not so for street parking or above ground parking. I think this idea of hating on street parking is largely misplaced. As the world evolves towards self-driving vehicles some of the density problems will sort themselves out. You can have your vehicle drop you off at work and then go park somewhere. We can use existing infrastructure more effectively and manage density without incurring massive environmental costs for the life of a city.
  - newaccount74 3y ago
    Above ground parking puts a limit on density. And it causes a huge amount of traffic. On the road in front of my old office, 90% of traffic were cars circling in an attempt to find a parking lot (there were rarely free spots). And there were regularly cars honking at each other when someone took too long to get into a space. Obviously cars are environmentally a disaster, but people like them too much to give them up altogether. But if you drive a car, the least you can do is park it somewhere where it isn't taking away public space. (Parking cars are also in the way of other cars that try to get somewhere)
    - robomartin 3y ago
      A better approach, over time, would be to create incentives to decentralize work hubs. Not only are underground garages environmentally horrible, they don't fix the root cause of the problem at all. Looking at early morning and evening traffic on Google maps for lots of cities around the world shows just how badly we have done in this regard.
esel2k 3y ago
If thats the problem to solve: - remove cars from the sidewalks/streets - get to a store not more than 200m of walking If think the concept of public transport within cities does not work so bad: metro/tram etc. at least here in Europe. The problem is the integration of them. I lives in Belgium for a while and was happy to use park&ride parking and hope on a tram with the same ticket. If we want to do this, lets create parkings in and outside the city with a seemless transit - direct exit of the parking to the right perron/app parking with included fare for the public transport. I am up for this (even with a stroller).

jupp0r 3y ago

[flagged]

newaccount74 3y ago

Every new development in my city already includes underground parking. The cost of land in the city is way too high to waste it on parking lots. They are also building lots of underground garages everywhere. I don't know what they do about power lines and sewer lines, but they seem to have figured out a way to do it, considering how many garages are being constructed. Removing curbside parking would provide some additional economic incentive to build more garages. It's absolutely doable, a single garage can provide a lot more parking lots than the curbs in a 200m radius.

robomartin 3y ago
Think about the environmental impact of digging-up and constructing massive underground parking caverns. I haven't done the math, yet, I have done a lot of construction projects of various types. I can assure you that building underground parking structures is probably one of the worst kinds of projects in terms of environmental effects. Not just CO2 generation. Absolutely everything conspires against you for such a project. I would almost be willing to bet that just one of those underground garage projects generates more CO2 and other negative environmental impacts than all the electric cars you could park in there for their useful lifetimes. Remember that EV's are not environmentally neutral at all. Start from this basis: Environmentally speaking, the least impactful place to park vehicles of any kind is where you do not have to move one gram of dirt and add one gram of concrete. The simple answer to that is: Existing infrastructure. Which, yes, means, existing streets. Do that and your baseline is mostly reduced to just the environmental impact of the EV's and not much else at the infrastructure level. Anything else --anything-- surely means increased environmental impact. Second to that might be to go vertical. In other words, above-ground parking structures with the building on top or coexisting on every level. I was recently in Singapore and saw a building fitting this description. Imagine offices around the periphery of every floor and parking for those offices on every floor at the "core" of the building. I can't say I know with certainty how the two approaches compare. I think I can say that not having to dig-up massive amounts of dirt to build a cavern that can support an entire building is likely far worse from an environmental impact perspective. Don't forget that the minute you place anything underground you are going to have the need for such things as 24/7 ventilation and air management, which means a constant energy load, well, forever. Not so for street parking or above ground parking. I think this idea of hating on street parking is largely misplaced. As the world evolves towards self-driving vehicles some of the density problems will sort themselves out. You can have your vehicle drop you off at work and then go park somewhere. We can use existing infrastructure more effectively and manage density without incurring massive environmental costs for the life of a city.
- newaccount74 3y ago
  Above ground parking puts a limit on density. And it causes a huge amount of traffic. On the road in front of my old office, 90% of traffic were cars circling in an attempt to find a parking lot (there were rarely free spots). And there were regularly cars honking at each other when someone took too long to get into a space. Obviously cars are environmentally a disaster, but people like them too much to give them up altogether. But if you drive a car, the least you can do is park it somewhere where it isn't taking away public space. (Parking cars are also in the way of other cars that try to get somewhere)
  - robomartin 3y ago
    A better approach, over time, would be to create incentives to decentralize work hubs. Not only are underground garages environmentally horrible, they don't fix the root cause of the problem at all. Looking at early morning and evening traffic on Google maps for lots of cities around the world shows just how badly we have done in this regard.

esel2k 3y ago

If thats the problem to solve: - remove cars from the sidewalks/streets - get to a store not more than 200m of walking If think the concept of public transport within cities does not work so bad: metro/tram etc. at least here in Europe. The problem is the integration of them. I lives in Belgium for a while and was happy to use park&ride parking and hope on a tram with the same ticket. If we want to do this, lets create parkings in and outside the city with a seemless transit - direct exit of the parking to the right perron/app parking with included fare for the public transport. I am up for this (even with a stroller).