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This article goes too far and yet not far enough. By trying to build more buildings that increase parking in yet smaller footprints and then charge for the adde

This article goes too far and yet not far enough. By trying to build more buildings that increase parking in yet smaller footprints and then charge for the added expense of all of that, why not just eliminate cars in these districts altogether. Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within the city. Now you aren't trying to extract value from the simple act of wanting to exist in a space leaving more value to core economic goods and services. We need to attack The Modern Moloch (99pi).

okr 9mo ago
It is not convenient. It's freezing cold and icy, no walk, no bike, no scooter. Use mass-transit, sure, when you don't care about your life, when it's working, when it's coming regularly, when i don't have to exchange stations, but still, walking from home to a station and back, nah, it all sucks. Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote.
- antisthenes 9mo ago
  That giant 5-level parking lot monstrocity could be a transport hub instead that has a warm metro stop, much better lighting and safety and perhaps even some light convenience retail. > Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote. They already have this. It's called a metro.
- rimbo789 9mo ago
  Cars aren’t remotely cozy. They are incredibly stressful to drive, are a huge cost, and are dangerous to those inside and out. Every complain about public transit being unsafe is twice as true about cars
  - okr 9mo ago
    Nope. The first thing i do in the warm car, is to turn the music on, making a stop at my favourite coffee shop and then i hit the road, humming my favourite songs. I barely drive anyways, its all automatic. In mass-transit facilities all the people look at their screens, using headphones, waiting to be coughed on, scared to be not talked to, anxiety all around. Nope, not for me. Never looking into a dirty public toilet again, while the society yells: "but its free!". Progress, folx, not regress. Come out of your bubbles, ignore the voices, that tell ya, hundreds of human bodies efficiently transported in an iron can is progress! Live! Expand! Use everything!
    - rimbo789 9mo ago
      You should like a scary driver to share the road with. Your whole description of the “joy” of driving is all about how little attention you are spending on the actual driving part. When you drive you are responsible for a massive complex device moving at high speeds. It must take your full focus
- hamdingers 9mo ago
  An unfortunate side effect of car dependence is people forgetting how to dress outside in the place they live, a skill humans had for thousands of years but apparently lost some time in the last ~100.
  - shiroiuma 9mo ago
    Don't be silly. Humans haven't forgotten this, only Americans have.
Spivak 9mo ago
I mean that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it. All the downsides of a car with all the downsides of a bus. The solution, which has done in my city to genuinely smashing success is to nationalize the parking garages meaning government builds them, maintains them, and they're free forever. Dot them around a dense mixed use area and quite literally watch the money pour in. Everything is within grandpa walking distance of at least one garage, they're specced to over capacity so each one is never full, and it provides parking to the workers and apartments.
- ipdashc 9mo ago
  > that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it ... do people hate park and rides? Where I'm from (suburbs outside a US city) it's completely standard to park outside the city (in a garage or big lot at a train station) and take the train in. I find it quite comfortable personally. It sounds like yours is specifically for buses, but I think it's that people generally don't like buses, they're slow and uncomfortable. The park and ride is fine when you can walk from it to a subway/train.
  - Spivak 9mo ago
    Parking at a train station or even a subway entrance sounds like heaven compared to ours which is a surface lot with a bus stop. But I'm not sure if "just have a subway or train network" is going to work for cities like Syracuse that don't already have them.
    - ipdashc 9mo ago
      That's fair, yeah. I do think parking garages are a pretty good solution, though obviously expensive (but cheaper than building out trains, like you said)
- scottious 9mo ago
  That sounds like a recipe for getting a ton of cars into your city. Think of parking garages as "traffic generators". If you cater to cars you shouldn't be surprised if what you get is more cars. It's literally sending the signal to people that it's fine (and encouraged) to drive cars everywhere. After all, your tax dollars are paying for all that infrastructure Maybe some people are fully car-pilled, but many people want to live in an area that isn't so car-dependent, it tends to make everything more spread out, noisy, polluted, and congested. It also imposes very large personal costs.
Lammy 9mo ago
> Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within Very telling how these arguments are always the most ableist shit you've ever heard and yet people seem to think they're Very Progressive for making them.
- doubletwoyou 9mo ago
  Cars suck for anybody who doesn’t have all of their faculties in order. Broke a leg, trains were my saviour.
  - Lammy 9mo ago
    Cars are great for people who do have all their limbs but lack the stamina to walk long distances, stand for long periods of time, carry large weights, etc.
    - snovv_crash 9mo ago
      Dense cities mean you only need to walk short distances, and doing that often enough builds the stamina for long distances.
      - Lammy 9mo ago
        I see you've never had chronic respiratory issues or you would know that's not true.
        wpm 9mo ago
        Sorry the poster didn't put a specific, individualized carve out for all of the disabled groups of people who would obviously be allowed to use whatever method in whatever imagined, hypothetical future, and not kicked to the curb like trash. It is generally more productive to assume charity in the people you are talking to, that of course no one is going to ignore that some people need cars to get around.
drewg123 9mo ago
In a large metro with an extant, functional, mass transit system, sure. But do this in a cold place with no existing mass transit, and all you'll do is kill off downtown businesses and reduce property values to 0. This experiment was kind of done in Buffalo in the 70s. They blocked off large swathes of downtown to build the above ground section of metro rail. This encouraged business to close downtown locations and move to suburban malls. That kind of retail never came back to downtown in the roughly 1 decade after completion of the metro. So you had a mass transit system that went effectively from nowhere to nowhere, and managed to kill the downtown retail corridor.
Ekaros 9mo ago
I think someone should try banning absolutely everything but emergency vehicles. No cars, no taxis, no vans, no trucks. Only cargo bikes, hand carts and maybe palanquins. Add some sort of uber type platform where you can hire someone to push wheelchair around. Limit speeds of mopeds and bicycles to say 10 or 15 km/h for pedestrian safety. This should make extremely liveable city if those promoting these things are right.
- CalRobert 9mo ago
  There's this - bloommerwede.nl - it looks awesome.
  - Ekaros 9mo ago
    Look like there is still at least two bridges to block entirely. I think you could maybe build some sort of permanent market place on them.
- BuyMyBitcoins 9mo ago
  There’d be a revolt. You might be able to get away with doing this in some small area, maybe a city block or two. But anything more than that is just begging for a backlash from the local population.
- spankalee 9mo ago
  Large swaths of many European cities are like this. Copenhagen has a huge pedestrianized shopping area and it's amazing.
- bgnn 9mo ago
  My city, Utrecht, in the Netherlands is quite close this. No cars in the city center, no diesel vans for delivery, only busses and taxis can drive in certain roads in the center, bikes have priority on most roads cars can drive outside the center, mow they are reducing the speed limit to 30km/h everywhere in the city (following Amsterdam on this), and they are building a new car-free neighborhood for 40k people with no parking spaces and car roads.

okr 9mo ago

It is not convenient. It's freezing cold and icy, no walk, no bike, no scooter. Use mass-transit, sure, when you don't care about your life, when it's working, when it's coming regularly, when i don't have to exchange stations, but still, walking from home to a station and back, nah, it all sucks. Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote.

antisthenes 9mo ago
That giant 5-level parking lot monstrocity could be a transport hub instead that has a warm metro stop, much better lighting and safety and perhaps even some light convenience retail. > Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote. They already have this. It's called a metro.
rimbo789 9mo ago
Cars aren’t remotely cozy. They are incredibly stressful to drive, are a huge cost, and are dangerous to those inside and out. Every complain about public transit being unsafe is twice as true about cars
- okr 9mo ago
  Nope. The first thing i do in the warm car, is to turn the music on, making a stop at my favourite coffee shop and then i hit the road, humming my favourite songs. I barely drive anyways, its all automatic. In mass-transit facilities all the people look at their screens, using headphones, waiting to be coughed on, scared to be not talked to, anxiety all around. Nope, not for me. Never looking into a dirty public toilet again, while the society yells: "but its free!". Progress, folx, not regress. Come out of your bubbles, ignore the voices, that tell ya, hundreds of human bodies efficiently transported in an iron can is progress! Live! Expand! Use everything!
  - rimbo789 9mo ago
    You should like a scary driver to share the road with. Your whole description of the “joy” of driving is all about how little attention you are spending on the actual driving part. When you drive you are responsible for a massive complex device moving at high speeds. It must take your full focus
hamdingers 9mo ago
An unfortunate side effect of car dependence is people forgetting how to dress outside in the place they live, a skill humans had for thousands of years but apparently lost some time in the last ~100.
- shiroiuma 9mo ago
  Don't be silly. Humans haven't forgotten this, only Americans have.

Spivak 9mo ago

I mean that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it. All the downsides of a car with all the downsides of a bus. The solution, which has done in my city to genuinely smashing success is to nationalize the parking garages meaning government builds them, maintains them, and they're free forever. Dot them around a dense mixed use area and quite literally watch the money pour in. Everything is within grandpa walking distance of at least one garage, they're specced to over capacity so each one is never full, and it provides parking to the workers and apartments.

ipdashc 9mo ago
> that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it ... do people hate park and rides? Where I'm from (suburbs outside a US city) it's completely standard to park outside the city (in a garage or big lot at a train station) and take the train in. I find it quite comfortable personally. It sounds like yours is specifically for buses, but I think it's that people generally don't like buses, they're slow and uncomfortable. The park and ride is fine when you can walk from it to a subway/train.
- Spivak 9mo ago
  Parking at a train station or even a subway entrance sounds like heaven compared to ours which is a surface lot with a bus stop. But I'm not sure if "just have a subway or train network" is going to work for cities like Syracuse that don't already have them.
  - ipdashc 9mo ago
    That's fair, yeah. I do think parking garages are a pretty good solution, though obviously expensive (but cheaper than building out trains, like you said)
scottious 9mo ago
That sounds like a recipe for getting a ton of cars into your city. Think of parking garages as "traffic generators". If you cater to cars you shouldn't be surprised if what you get is more cars. It's literally sending the signal to people that it's fine (and encouraged) to drive cars everywhere. After all, your tax dollars are paying for all that infrastructure Maybe some people are fully car-pilled, but many people want to live in an area that isn't so car-dependent, it tends to make everything more spread out, noisy, polluted, and congested. It also imposes very large personal costs.

Lammy 9mo ago

> Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within Very telling how these arguments are always the most ableist shit you've ever heard and yet people seem to think they're Very Progressive for making them.

doubletwoyou 9mo ago
Cars suck for anybody who doesn’t have all of their faculties in order. Broke a leg, trains were my saviour.
- Lammy 9mo ago
  Cars are great for people who do have all their limbs but lack the stamina to walk long distances, stand for long periods of time, carry large weights, etc.
  - snovv_crash 9mo ago
    Dense cities mean you only need to walk short distances, and doing that often enough builds the stamina for long distances.
    - Lammy 9mo ago
      I see you've never had chronic respiratory issues or you would know that's not true.
      - wpm 9mo ago
        Sorry the poster didn't put a specific, individualized carve out for all of the disabled groups of people who would obviously be allowed to use whatever method in whatever imagined, hypothetical future, and not kicked to the curb like trash. It is generally more productive to assume charity in the people you are talking to, that of course no one is going to ignore that some people need cars to get around.

drewg123 9mo ago

In a large metro with an extant, functional, mass transit system, sure. But do this in a cold place with no existing mass transit, and all you'll do is kill off downtown businesses and reduce property values to 0. This experiment was kind of done in Buffalo in the 70s. They blocked off large swathes of downtown to build the above ground section of metro rail. This encouraged business to close downtown locations and move to suburban malls. That kind of retail never came back to downtown in the roughly 1 decade after completion of the metro. So you had a mass transit system that went effectively from nowhere to nowhere, and managed to kill the downtown retail corridor.

Ekaros 9mo ago

I think someone should try banning absolutely everything but emergency vehicles. No cars, no taxis, no vans, no trucks. Only cargo bikes, hand carts and maybe palanquins. Add some sort of uber type platform where you can hire someone to push wheelchair around. Limit speeds of mopeds and bicycles to say 10 or 15 km/h for pedestrian safety. This should make extremely liveable city if those promoting these things are right.

CalRobert 9mo ago
There's this - bloommerwede.nl - it looks awesome.
- Ekaros 9mo ago
  Look like there is still at least two bridges to block entirely. I think you could maybe build some sort of permanent market place on them.
BuyMyBitcoins 9mo ago
There’d be a revolt. You might be able to get away with doing this in some small area, maybe a city block or two. But anything more than that is just begging for a backlash from the local population.
spankalee 9mo ago
Large swaths of many European cities are like this. Copenhagen has a huge pedestrianized shopping area and it's amazing.
bgnn 9mo ago
My city, Utrecht, in the Netherlands is quite close this. No cars in the city center, no diesel vans for delivery, only busses and taxis can drive in certain roads in the center, bikes have priority on most roads cars can drive outside the center, mow they are reducing the speed limit to 30km/h everywhere in the city (following Amsterdam on this), and they are building a new car-free neighborhood for 40k people with no parking spaces and car roads.