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I think he really hit the nail on head here: "Part of this is a result of poor planning and ordinance-making that long ago overcompensated for the wide use of

I think he really hit the nail on head here: "Part of this is a result of poor planning and ordinance-making that long ago overcompensated for the wide use of automobiles. Henry Grabar, a staff writer at Slate, mentions this in a book published last year, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. ”On a national level, certainly, there’s far more parking than we need,” Grabar said in an interview. “There are at least four parking spaces for every car, meaning that the parking stock is no more than 25 percent full at any given time. And some of those cars are moving at any given time, so parking may be a good deal emptier than that.”

ayberk 3y ago
I'm still reading this book, but so far it's been one of the few books I'd recommend to anyone. I try to be as stoic as possible, but contents of this book has managed to actually anger me. It makes it so clear that how much corruption and bad policies impact our lives.
MichaelZuo 3y ago
> There are at least four parking spaces for every car What's the original source for that statistic?
- jbrins1 3y ago
  https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/01/access39_parking.pdf https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/20...
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    Thanks, but the linked source seems very sketchy, it never actually cites or even specifies where it got the information. e.g. >In addition, using data from a nationwide inventory, we reach a figure of 105 million metered spaces. It never mentions what the source of this 'nationwide inventory' is, who made it, when, etc...
nonameiguess 3y ago
I'd also question how realistically anyone can estimate the number of parking spots that exist nationally, but regardless, parking space isn't exactly an elastic resource. To be able to meet peak demand, you have to overprovision, and peak demand isn't evenly spread out, so it's not like any particular neighborhood or business can just compute what percentage of land area they take up in a city and multiply that by the number of cars registered in that city. Roads are the same way for the same reason. There is far more available road area than could be taken up by all cars in the world even if they were all driving at the same time. Even in residential areas, the rise of AirBNB is causing an accordion effect in parking availability, at least in my neighborhood. I live downtown in a place that doesn't have much in the way of garage space or driveways so the streets are heavily used for parking and there is enough space generally speaking for everyone who lives here, but come weekends and event times now that so many condos have become temporary party houses people rent so they can trash, this floods the streets with cars from out of the area and suddenly the people who actually live here have nowhere to park.

ayberk 3y ago

I'm still reading this book, but so far it's been one of the few books I'd recommend to anyone. I try to be as stoic as possible, but contents of this book has managed to actually anger me. It makes it so clear that how much corruption and bad policies impact our lives.

MichaelZuo 3y ago

> There are at least four parking spaces for every car What's the original source for that statistic?

jbrins1 3y ago
https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/01/access39_parking.pdf https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/20...
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Thanks, but the linked source seems very sketchy, it never actually cites or even specifies where it got the information. e.g. >In addition, using data from a nationwide inventory, we reach a figure of 105 million metered spaces. It never mentions what the source of this 'nationwide inventory' is, who made it, when, etc...

nonameiguess 3y ago

I'd also question how realistically anyone can estimate the number of parking spots that exist nationally, but regardless, parking space isn't exactly an elastic resource. To be able to meet peak demand, you have to overprovision, and peak demand isn't evenly spread out, so it's not like any particular neighborhood or business can just compute what percentage of land area they take up in a city and multiply that by the number of cars registered in that city. Roads are the same way for the same reason. There is far more available road area than could be taken up by all cars in the world even if they were all driving at the same time. Even in residential areas, the rise of AirBNB is causing an accordion effect in parking availability, at least in my neighborhood. I live downtown in a place that doesn't have much in the way of garage space or driveways so the streets are heavily used for parking and there is enough space generally speaking for everyone who lives here, but come weekends and event times now that so many condos have become temporary party houses people rent so they can trash, this floods the streets with cars from out of the area and suddenly the people who actually live here have nowhere to park.