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I'd even go a step further and set a maximum amount of parking in a given area to disincentivize driving. As an extreme example, if a mall is only allowed to ha

I'd even go a step further and set a maximum amount of parking in a given area to disincentivize driving. As an extreme example, if a mall is only allowed to have 5 parking spaces then they'll need to design around supporting public transit. So many places in the US are almost impossible to live in without owning a car - you might have bike paths if you're lucky, and in many places there aren't even sidewalks

rtkwe 3y ago
That's an ideal state but is a real chicken and egg problem, the same problem that's soft locked US cities as car centric as they are, you can't mandate away car reliance without the public transit to back it up and transit will have low ridership if it's even slightly less convenient than driving.
- mkaic 3y ago
  I think underground metros, while expensive to build, solve this, because they are always more convenient compared to any traffic-ridden area. A bus can get stuck in the same traffic as the cars, and bikes taking over any significant portion of American commuting in the near-term feels laughable to me — we are quite culturally different from the Dutch :P
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Don't forget that metros can also go on elevate viaducts for much less money. Underground is the best solution for dense areas, but the elevated is enough cheaper that you can afford to run a metro a long way out into the suburbs - then those become prime real estate to rebuild to mid rises making the entire city denser (assuming zoning allows this)
  - rtkwe 3y ago
    I would love to see metros in every reasonably sized city but it's going to run into the built in sprawl problem of US suburbs making it very expensive to run lines out to the outlying suburban areas at high enough density to make them viable. Best work around option I suppose is to build them out to the edges of the city and build a big park and ride infrastructure. I've long thought of the issues with public transit in the majority of US cities as being trapped at a local maximum where we're forced to implement inferior solutions because we're so far into the car infrastructure getting people to abandon their suburban homes to move to a more dense less car dependent urban structure until the underlying shape of cities would adjust to denser clusters again if they ever did.
bluGill 3y ago
The problem is either you cannot get the number perfect and so you must make it too large thus doing nothing over not setting a limit at all. If the number is too low you will discover next election people who think they need to park (they may or may not be right) are mad enough to vote you out and undo things. By just not setting a limit you let every property owner decide for themselves what is right - and if they discover they are too low they can hire someone to build more parking (at their expense), while if they decide they have too many they can replace parking with something else - like another building.
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Shopping centers are a bad example for this, because if you buy stuff, you somehow have to take it home, and carrying a carton of 12 liters of milk, 2 10-packs of toilet paper, a bag of frozen stuff and shower curtain rod, all of that in your hands on a bus, is well.. a pain. Also, at least over here, most shopping centers have underground parking. The "historic city center" and all that crap... that I understand... noone goes there for weekly shopping, but instead people go there to hang out, drink coffee, eat, etc.... public transport works great for that. Malls, shopping centers or even larger stores? Nope.
- ryukafalz 3y ago
  > The "historic city center" and all that crap... that I understand... noone goes there for weekly shopping, but instead people go there to hang out, drink coffee, eat, etc.... public transport works great for that. Malls, shopping centers or even larger stores? Nope. When there's a lot of housing there, people sure do do their weekly shopping downtown - but it's mostly the people who live in the area. I lived in central Philadelphia for 7 years or so and when I needed groceries, I walked to one of the grocery stores in the neighborhood. I mostly wasn't carrying a ton of stuff on the train, but that's because there were shops close enough to walk to instead anyway. (Though also, you can fit a lot of stuff in a cargo bike.)
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    Sure, if you need some bread, you go to the local bakery and buy that.. or if you need some onions, you buy those in the local store. But here, in my (relatively small, but still...) city, if you need weekly 'supplies', you drive to larger stores and get 100, 150eur of stuff, so you don't have to go to the store every day.
- djrobstep 3y ago
  I get most of my grocery shopping delivered, or I go to the supermarket in my cargo bike, dump it all in the front, and ride home. You really don't need a car for this stuff at all.
angarg12 3y ago
Be careful what you wish for, as this kind of rules can quickly have unintended consequences. I used to live in an English town that set up maximum number of parking spaces for new homes. On paper looks good, as they were trying to incentivize public transport as you mention. However the outcome was that single family homes were virtual unaffected, as they usually have a double garage plus driveway, while people on apartment blocks had severe parking limitations. In other words, if you were well off enough to buy a house you were gold, and the less well off people had to bear most of the burden.

rtkwe 3y ago

That's an ideal state but is a real chicken and egg problem, the same problem that's soft locked US cities as car centric as they are, you can't mandate away car reliance without the public transit to back it up and transit will have low ridership if it's even slightly less convenient than driving.

mkaic 3y ago
I think underground metros, while expensive to build, solve this, because they are always more convenient compared to any traffic-ridden area. A bus can get stuck in the same traffic as the cars, and bikes taking over any significant portion of American commuting in the near-term feels laughable to me — we are quite culturally different from the Dutch :P
- bluGill 3y ago
  Don't forget that metros can also go on elevate viaducts for much less money. Underground is the best solution for dense areas, but the elevated is enough cheaper that you can afford to run a metro a long way out into the suburbs - then those become prime real estate to rebuild to mid rises making the entire city denser (assuming zoning allows this)
- rtkwe 3y ago
  I would love to see metros in every reasonably sized city but it's going to run into the built in sprawl problem of US suburbs making it very expensive to run lines out to the outlying suburban areas at high enough density to make them viable. Best work around option I suppose is to build them out to the edges of the city and build a big park and ride infrastructure. I've long thought of the issues with public transit in the majority of US cities as being trapped at a local maximum where we're forced to implement inferior solutions because we're so far into the car infrastructure getting people to abandon their suburban homes to move to a more dense less car dependent urban structure until the underlying shape of cities would adjust to denser clusters again if they ever did.

bluGill 3y ago

The problem is either you cannot get the number perfect and so you must make it too large thus doing nothing over not setting a limit at all. If the number is too low you will discover next election people who think they need to park (they may or may not be right) are mad enough to vote you out and undo things. By just not setting a limit you let every property owner decide for themselves what is right - and if they discover they are too low they can hire someone to build more parking (at their expense), while if they decide they have too many they can replace parking with something else - like another building.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

Shopping centers are a bad example for this, because if you buy stuff, you somehow have to take it home, and carrying a carton of 12 liters of milk, 2 10-packs of toilet paper, a bag of frozen stuff and shower curtain rod, all of that in your hands on a bus, is well.. a pain. Also, at least over here, most shopping centers have underground parking. The "historic city center" and all that crap... that I understand... noone goes there for weekly shopping, but instead people go there to hang out, drink coffee, eat, etc.... public transport works great for that. Malls, shopping centers or even larger stores? Nope.

ryukafalz 3y ago
> The "historic city center" and all that crap... that I understand... noone goes there for weekly shopping, but instead people go there to hang out, drink coffee, eat, etc.... public transport works great for that. Malls, shopping centers or even larger stores? Nope. When there's a lot of housing there, people sure do do their weekly shopping downtown - but it's mostly the people who live in the area. I lived in central Philadelphia for 7 years or so and when I needed groceries, I walked to one of the grocery stores in the neighborhood. I mostly wasn't carrying a ton of stuff on the train, but that's because there were shops close enough to walk to instead anyway. (Though also, you can fit a lot of stuff in a cargo bike.)
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Sure, if you need some bread, you go to the local bakery and buy that.. or if you need some onions, you buy those in the local store. But here, in my (relatively small, but still...) city, if you need weekly 'supplies', you drive to larger stores and get 100, 150eur of stuff, so you don't have to go to the store every day.
djrobstep 3y ago
I get most of my grocery shopping delivered, or I go to the supermarket in my cargo bike, dump it all in the front, and ride home. You really don't need a car for this stuff at all.

angarg12 3y ago

Be careful what you wish for, as this kind of rules can quickly have unintended consequences. I used to live in an English town that set up maximum number of parking spaces for new homes. On paper looks good, as they were trying to incentivize public transport as you mention. However the outcome was that single family homes were virtual unaffected, as they usually have a double garage plus driveway, while people on apartment blocks had severe parking limitations. In other words, if you were well off enough to buy a house you were gold, and the less well off people had to bear most of the burden.