Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Urban Planning
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 01-14-2014, 08:45 AM
 
Location: Monmouth County, NJ & Staten Island, NY
406 posts, read 498,197 times
Reputation: 661

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
I haven't heard of 24 hour restrictions, just once or twice a week. Still, I'm not sure how people deal with going on a trip with those restrictions, I think asked once in the NYC forum. I guess ask someone with extra off-street parking, say a long driveway? Probably would difficult in the city, but if you know someone (esp family) in the burbs that'd work.

I went away for a trip and left my car down with my parents for a while, took the bus up to here rather than having it sit unattended for several weeks.

A lot of older places in New England have long driveways to the side where many cars blocked in. Usually, some put their car on the street, but for snow move into the driveway.
Staten Island doesn't have any issues with regards to leaving cars around in the street (as long as there are no timed parking restrictions). If it was an unregulated, unmetered parking spot, it would essentially take several weeks and the efforts of neighbors to call it in to 311 for a car to be tagged and removed, I believe its considered an abandoned vehicle and NYC Sanitation handles this. If it was in say a business district or on a major road with rush hour parking restrictions (extra lanes), the car would probably be ticketed (now possibly booted) and ultimately towed within a matter of days. I've left an old car at the end of my street in an area of overflow parking which is rarely filled up for several weeks, only starting it and moving it around a few times to keep the battery from dying. The paperwork on the car was good and it was left untouched, though we lost track of the inspection expiration and within 2 days of it expiring, it had TWO tickets from two separate days for the inspection. Needless to say, we don't have this car anymore as our holding onto it was temporary anyway lol.

As far as someone elsewhere in the city in regards to leaving their car, they have several options. They could leave their car on pretty much any street in Staten Island, as we have no alternate side regulations. There's also several outer borough parking garages which would charge not too bad of a rate for a week rather than risking leaving it on the street. Finally, if you're flying, the airports usually offer private off-site parking for much less than the PANYNJ rates, such as this one that I used at Newark last summer. Car was secure, I got to keep my keys and only paid about $60 for the week, well worth the peace of mind and convenience of getting off the plane and being able to get right in my car and drive home.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 01-14-2014, 08:46 AM
 
2,081 posts, read 3,556,636 times
Reputation: 2375
Even when street parking is limited, there is no need for minimum parking requirements. If there is sufficient demand for parking, then someone can capitalize on that demand by selling commercial parking spaces. If there is some kind of restriction in place that is preventing parking to meet that demand from being built, then that is the issue policy should focus on. Trying to solve it through minimum parking requirements will just lead to an inefficiently large amount of space being devoted to parking because short of allowing the market to try to meet the demand, there is no way to really know in advance what the minimum really is.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 08:58 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,259,082 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by stateofnature View Post
Even when street parking is limited, there is no need for minimum parking requirements. If there is sufficient demand for parking, then someone can capitalize on that demand by selling commercial parking spaces. If there is some kind of restriction in place that is preventing parking to meet that demand from being built, then that is the issue policy should focus on. Trying to solve it through minimum parking requirements will just lead to an inefficiently large amount of space being devoted to parking because short of allowing the market to try to meet the demand, there is no way to really know in advance what the minimum really is.
You can't just manufacture a parking space out of thin air. Certainly for residences you can figure how much parking is needed per unit. The research has been done. I think property owners should be required to provide at least one space per unit, except in extenuating circumstances, e.g. midtown Manhattan or somewhere like that. Now "provide" can mean have available for rent, I guess, say, in the Chicago Loop, to give another example. Do you expect your guests to rent a commercial parking space to visit you?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:09 AM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,204,802 times
Reputation: 15174
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
You can't just manufacture a parking space out of thin air. Certainly for residences you can figure how much parking is needed per unit. The research has been done. I think property owners should be required to provide at least one space per unit, except in extenuating circumstances, e.g. midtown Manhattan or somewhere like that. Now "provide" can mean have available for rent, I guess, say, in the Chicago Loop, to give another example. Do you expect your guests to rent a commercial parking space to visit you?
What determines a "need"? You can have the limit lower than 1 per unit if you're ok with many people relying on street parking. It's not as convenient as you mentioned but it's functional. Boston does not average close anywhere near to one car per adult, so the minimum if at all should be much lower. That friend living near Downtown Chicago, the only one way I could visit by car (I think) would be to rent a commercial space. NYC outside of Manhattan I can find a space usually in a few minutes and I also often take transit.

People make threads looking for walkable neighborhoods, they also make threads looking for neighborhoods with convenient parking.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:17 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,259,082 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
What determines a "need"? You can have the limit lower than 1 per unit if you're ok with many people relying on street parking. It's not as convenient as you mentioned but it's functional. Boston does not average close anywhere near to one car per adult, so the minimum if at all should be much lower. That friend living near Downtown Chicago, the only one way I could visit by car (I think) would be to rent a commercial space. NYC outside of Manhattan I can find a space usually in a few minutes and I also often take transit.

People make threads looking for walkable neighborhoods, they also make threads looking for neighborhoods with convenient parking.
Street parking is not functional. Many communities have ordinances about cars having to be moved every 24-48 hours. It should be the responsibility of the property owner to provide at least one space per unit in residential areas. In my daughter's case, she lives in a house converted to two apartments. There are three women living upstairs. That makes five cars for this dwelling, and NO off street parking. That's a burden on the neighborhood. In addition, lots of cities have no parking on one side of a street, ever, and so forth.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:35 AM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,204,802 times
Reputation: 15174
How is that not functional? Then move your car and deal with it. Plenty of urban residents rely only street parking and manage.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:41 AM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,259,082 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
How is that not functional? Then move your car and deal with it. Plenty of urban residents rely only street parking and manage.
It's a little hard to "move your car" when the whole neighborhood is essentially in the same situation, e.g. way more cars than spaces available on the street.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:43 AM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,204,802 times
Reputation: 15174
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
It's a little hard to "move your car" when the whole neighborhood is essentially in the same situation, e.g. way more cars than spaces available on the street.
Maybe, all the city neighborhoods I'm familiar with the residents manage. There's always a few spaces that open up, some people are using their car. I'm not sure how that neighborhood could be worse.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:49 AM
 
2,081 posts, read 3,556,636 times
Reputation: 2375
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiana View Post
You can't just manufacture a parking space out of thin air. Certainly for residences you can figure how much parking is needed per unit. The research has been done. I think property owners should be required to provide at least one space per unit, except in extenuating circumstances, e.g. midtown Manhattan or somewhere like that. Now "provide" can mean have available for rent, I guess, say, in the Chicago Loop, to give another example. Do you expect your guests to rent a commercial parking space to visit you?
Of course you don't manufacture it out of thin air. You manufacture it by capitalizing on the demand that exists when people are willing to pay for parking. A developer builds a commercial parking garage. A private citizen rents out his driveway or garage.
But if you put in place a requirement that some arbitrary amount of free parking be built, this demand will be suppressed. People won't be willing to pay for what they can get for free. As a result, the most efficient solution won't be found. This is exactly why in so many cities and towns a massive amount of space is wasted by unused parking.

As for expecting guests to rent a space, if I wanted guests to visit me by car, I would move somewhere with available free parking. If I choose to live somewhere with very limited parking, there is no reason for the city to subsidize my guests by giving them free parking. It was my choice to live there.

But really, the cases where there is no street parking for guests are pretty rare. Yes, there are many neighborhoods in the densest cities like NYC, DC, Boston and San Francisco where street parking is almost impossible to find. Those cities also have great alternatives to driving such as walking or public transit, so it's not a huge problem. If I live in those neighborhoods, guests can visit me via other means than driving.
In most places, though, the difficulty of finding street parking only comes up when people are too lazy to learn how to parallel park well or too lazy to search for a spot a few blocks away from their destination and walk. I would argue that this laziness is an exact product of the excessive minimum parking regulations found in most places that have made people think that having a massive parking lot outside every destination is a reasonable thing.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 01-14-2014, 09:55 AM
 
Location: Monmouth County, NJ & Staten Island, NY
406 posts, read 498,197 times
Reputation: 661
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
Maybe, all the city neighborhoods I'm familiar with the residents manage. There's always a few spaces that open up, some people are using their car. I'm not sure how that neighborhood could be worse.
They can manage, but it usually sucks. The tradeoff of this sucky parking arrangement is usually that the density provides more walkability or transit usage, but if you own a car and either want or need to use it on a regular basis (or just let it sit), it kinda sucks.

This is of course partially biased, but I think if you were to ask many urbanophiles living in arrangements like that, they would agree that the parking arrangement kinda sucks. They make do because of the above mentioned reasons. For someone who values automobile transportation more, I don't think its the optimal solution. Even on my block where parking isn't terrible, it gets really frustrating when spots run out in my immediate vicinity of my house. I'm glad that we can at least squeeze all three of our cars in the driveway if we need to, but it's a hassle to keep moving them or to have to park around the block. Is it doable? Yes. Does it suck for a lot of people? Yes lol.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Urban Planning
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top