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Very good post kim racer. The parking minimums have killed and blighted a lot of areas that could be rezoned for dense small space commercial purposes that don't require much if any parking. Parking minimums need to be completely eliminated. Let the market decide how much parking is needed.
Here is one of the worst ones:
I mean come on, MOD CUT?
Last edited by NewToCA; 04-09-2010 at 10:08 PM..
Reason: language
Street frontage, small footprint strip, small minimum parking in the back, street side parking (even though there is none on the pic below, it can be included in other areas). This is what our suburbs should be rezoned to resemble:
While I am not a big fan of regulating how much parking to provide, I vacillate about regulating the location of where to put the parking. The problem with legislating parking is two fold. As long as the government is in the business of regulating parking, there are going to be people interested in influencing that regulation (and I suspect that will use there influence to try to get more of it).
But the second problem is that its really tough to get parking regulation right. In certain situations parking out in front is exactly what you want to accomplish. If you didn't have the angled parking out in front of the business as in this photo, you likely wouldn't have the thriving street front businesses that you have in this photo either. The angled parking also serves a traffic calming function here. People aren't driving through this neighborhood as 40 mph because they don't know when the next car is going to pull out of the angled parking. I prefer the reverse back in angled parking because it makes it safer for the people in bikes. But angled parking in this situation is a really good thing. With your parking ordinance, you don't want to ban this type of street front parking.
The direction of parking is also the direction that businesses will orientate themselves. If you look at Stockton Blvd and Florin Road (on the south eastern corner) and again at Stockton Blvd and Mack Road (on the southwestern corner), you have developments that were pushed close to the street by the city doing exactly what you said. But the businesses themselves aren't actually orientated toward the street. Instead the businesses face the parking lot and ignore the street because most of their customers are coming from the parking lot, not on foot from the sidewalk.
To reverse the orientation of the businesses at some point in the future the city needs to put more angled parking on Stockton Blvd itself.
But the problem with regulating parking is coming up with an ordinance that allows the angled street front parking in the situations I described, but doesn't function as a back door way of permitting the creation of more mini-malls.
What I am leaning towards right now is somehow grandfathering in the existing off street parking spaces, but limiting the creation of any new off street parking spaces to the local government itself or alternatively treat the current parking spaces like NYC treats it taxi medallions. The current land owners would be given parking medallions proportionate with the number of parking spots they have on there property but they could sell those parking rights to others who want more parking for there new developments.
If there was a limited number of free parking spots in the region, that would make exiting parking spots in blighted areas into a valuable asset, that they could either sell or just now use the promise of limited number of parking spots in the region an asset for recruiting businesses that still need free parking to thrive.
I am not entirely convinced that parking deregulation would work as well as you presume. But lets assume that you are right and I am wrong. I would say that Davis is probably the local government furtherst to the left of any government in this region, there might be parts of midtown and East Sac that are similiarly to the left, but there are a lot more middle of the road people overall in the City of Sacramento than in Davis. But not even Davis are people really organizing to get rid of free parking. In short I see no momentum to enact the type of changes you are proposing.
But the second thing is that by the time you get rid of enough free parking spaces to turn Sacramento into some sort of transit friendly place, will the need still be as pressing? VW has a concept car capable of doing 170 mpg and a more production ready model capable of getting 70 mpg. Nissan is releasing an electric car later this year. GM and Toyota are getting ready to introduce plug in hybrids that for day to day driving probably won't use any gasoline. This stuff probably won't be taking over the auto market next year. But twenty years from now I am not so sure.
I suspect the way to respond to climate change isn't to have the government to pick a specific technology to push as much as it should just push a gas tax. If gas is $9 a gallon some people probably will go for transit, some might go for bikes, but I think a lot are just going to respond by getting a plug in hybrid.
That "concept car" is a one-seater--in order to carry four people (such as, say, a family of four) you would need four of them, which would result in an overall fuel consumption of 42.5 miles per gallon per person, which is no better than a Prius can do now. How much would a production model cost? What would the ongoing maintenance costs be--how much does it cost to replace the battery pack (which wears out) or the special tires? Can a person who can afford to spend $3-4K for a used car afford to spend $30-50K (with consequent higher insurance and maintenance costs) on a plug-in hybrid or electric car? Would a person with a lower income be better off with a moped or scooter, or a bicycle, or taking public transit, or living close enough to work to walk?
Opposition to (or support for) parking has nothing whatsoever to do with one's place on the political spectrum, so I'm not sure how the political environment of Davis has anything to do with their desire for (or against) free parking.
edit: Okay, I knew that car looked kind of familiar...it reminds me of the tiny Messerschmitt Sam Lowry drove in the Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil." That got about 80 mpg, and seated two (so, in terms of MPG per person, got performance comparable to VW's "unique concept car" in 1952!)
edit: Okay, I knew that car looked kind of familiar...it reminds me of the tiny Messerschmitt Sam Lowry drove in the Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil." That got about 80 mpg, and seated two (so, in terms of MPG per person, got performance comparable to VW's "unique concept car" in 1952!)
Then comes the difference. I bought a brand new VW "unique concept car," aka: Bug, in 1979 when I returned from a bit of a shootin' war. I paid cash for it 'cause it cost about $2,000, give-or-take a couple of hundred. Now they're running about $19-26K and probably aren't nearly as dependable or long-lasting.
If you don't like the vw concept car, according to the New York Times, next year GM is supposed to release the Volt, it has an EPA estimated epa mileage of 230 mpg. Later this year, Nissan is supposed to release the the Leaf, it has an EPA estimated 367 mpg. I agree next year, these type of cars probably won't grab a huge market share.
However twenty years from now, I see it much more likely that this type of technology has half the US car market than transit capturing more than 4% of the commuters in the Sacramento region. When a neighborhood goes in to decline its new occupants may be much less educated or not speak English as well as the original occupants, but that doesn't mean the buildings they live in will get bulldozed and something new will replace it. The building stock has a really long expected life. Most of the housing and buildings that were around in 1990 (20 years ago) are still around today. Twenty years (2030) from now most of the buildings that we have today will still be around then. In that sense, I think land use is pretty locked in for the future and that is the biggest reason, I don't see much change in transit usage.
Electric motors have much longer mean time to failures than internal combustion engines. If anything the shift to electric motors is probably going to reduce maintenance costs and probably extend the useful life of the vehicle.
I do think that opposition to free parking is related to political affiliation. 42% of the population doesn't believe that global warming is a serious problem. I am going to take flier here and assume most of these people are Republicans. If you don't think that global warming is real, then you are probably skeptical of the need to get rid of free parking, you are also probably pretty indifferent to whether or not more people take transit. Only 33% of the population blame humans for global warming, I am going to assume most of these folks are liberals. If you think global warming is real and you think that using transit will help alleviate it, then you are probably much more willing to get rid of free parking with the expectation that it will drive more people to transit and alleviate global warming. In this sense, I am pretty confident that support or opposition to free parking is predicted by political orientation at least to the extent that people are familiar with the issues involved.
Now there are other possible categories out there, I myself think global warming is real and is caused by humans, but I don't see much evidence that mass transit usage nor planned land use changes are going to do much to allieviate it. I am even willing to get rid of minimum parking requirements for the reasons kim racer identified, but I still doubt such a change will have much effect. Neither Ty Schuiling, the planning director for the San Bernadino Council of Governments nor Hasan Ikhrata, the executive director of the Southern California Council of governments think land use regulation is the cost effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Ikhrata said: “I don’t think 375 should be thought of as a global warming bill. I don’t think it’s the most cost-effective way to reduce GHG emissions. … When I speak about 375 I speak about a land use bill, an urban form bill.”
Schuiling said: “To achieve federal clean air standards, this region has little choice but to reduce the very GHG emissions targeted by SB 375 to near-zero,” the air district’s letter to the I-710 Technical Advisory Committee says. “Clean vehicle penetration far beyond levels assumed by the ARB have been identified as the most likely – perhaps only - way to do it.”
These people aren't ideologues, they aren't paid lobbiests for the oil companies. These are the people charged with implimenting the legislation. If you watch the conference video, these people are pretty clear that we are going to have mandate electric cars/plug ins. They don't think any other measure is strong enough nor has a big enough impact fast enough to meet the requirements of the legislation.
Are those first-generation immigrants going to be able to afford those electrics? Even if they buy them used, they would still have to pay for replacement battery packs that older electrics or hybrids would need.
Economically and ecologically, hybrids don't stack up compared to housing proximity. I had a co-worker a few years ago who drove a Prius, who chided me for not buying a hybrid (at the time, I had a job that required that I have a car, although I lived very close to work.) He lived in Elk Grove, so his commute was about 175 miles per week. I lived in Midtown, with a commute of 20 miles per week. So even though his Prius got 45 miles per gallon and my 15 year old station wagon got 20 mpg, he was still using 4 times as much gas per week as I was...plus a car payment of about $500 a month (I bought my car for $3K a few years earlier, so no car payment) and much higher insurance rates (due to my limited driving and cheap car, my insurance cost about $50 a month--I drive even less now, and pay about $25-30. Not sure how much insurance on a new Prius is, for someone who commutes from Elk Grove to Sac, but I'd wager it would be more than that!) Add to that the environmental footprint of creating a new car (resources used and energy consumed) and those green-mobiles don't seem quite as green anymore.
If you look at the introduction of new technologies, they are initially priced higher to recover the higher costs of development, but then the technology migrates to the rest of the line up to take advantage of the economies of scale. When air bags and anti-lock brakes were first introduced, initially they were only available on the most expensive luxury cars, today they are widely available in just about all makes. I see no reason why this shouldn't be the case for hybrids, plug in hybrids or electric cars.
The biggest expense in owning an auto is depreciation. I am sure that plenty of people will seek to avoid that expense by buying used cars including first generation immigrants. With used cars right now, people have to occasionally replace the auto batteries. More importantly, replacing the battery is going to extend the useful life of the car. In an electric car, the batteries and tires are probably going to be the only thing that wears out. If you compare a 20 year old internal combustion vehicle vs a 20 year old electric vehicle, the electric motor doesn't have pistons wearing themselves down over time. At worst on the electric motor you need to replace the brushes but that is a comparatively simple operation. The electric vehicle also doesn't have a transmission, so again, you are getting rid of a fairly complicated bit of technology that requires a lot of maintenance. Lastly the electric cars are using regenerative braking to slow down. Instead of using brake pads which rely on friction and produce a lot of heat to slow down and wear out, the electric motors are reversed to function as generators to re-charge the battery to slow down the vehicle.
If you look at the reason that people scrap today's cars generally they don't want to buy a new transmission or replace a cracked block, well the electric cars don't have those expensive bits of technology to go wrong. So the useful life of the vehicle should be that much longer. Moreover swapping out batteries is something that even a someone who isn't that mechanically inclined should still be able to do. The reason most back yard mechanics don't swap out the transmission is that the procedure is just too complicated for them to do so and if they have to pay for someone else's labor to do it, it just becomes cheaper to take the car to the salvage yard.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Sacramento Regional Blueprint seems to encourage/mandate a tremendous amount of green wash. Look at the Regional Housing Needs Assessments for the period between 2006 and 2013 below. It assesses more than 10,000 units to Lincoln and Rancho Cordova in that period. It assesses more than 11,000 units in Elk Grove and more than 15000 units to the incorporated parts of the County.
Now if the majority of these units were being built within a 1 mile radius of an existing or even planned light rail station or even a bus rapid transit line. I wouldn't be objecting to building out light rail stations or bus rapid transit. But that isn't what is happening or what is even contemplated by the various plans tasked with implementing the Sacramento Regional Blueprint.
20,000 acres to be opened under plan - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/2009/09/03/2157468/20000-acres-to-be-opened-under.html - broken link)
Elk Grove's southward growth plan -- three perspectives - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/15/2607063/elk-groves-southward-growth-plan.html - broken link)
If you look at where Rancho Cordova is planning its new growth, the overwhelming majority of it is going to happen on land currently owned by Aerojet, out near Anatolia in its sphere of influence. Roseville is planning to grow in the Placer Vinyards in west Roseville.
As far as the blueprint is concerned if the growth is planned inside the urban services boundary its infill. So all of this growth is technically the smart growth infill development envisioned by plan.
Which brings up the question in my mind of why the hell are we building out all of these expensive light rail lines when the new growth by and large isn't anticipated going anywhere near them? In fact the regional growth plan mandates a tremendous amount of growth in places that have no light rail nor even plans for ever having it.
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