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I mean, it's great that there's people that can afford to spend $80,000 and another $2,880 per year to park a car, but that's not feasible for 99% of the population. It's a stupid model to follow when looking at what zoning should look like on a large scale. I'm not saying you don't have certain neighborhoods. Seattle or San Francisco both have areas that are anti-car where zoning is designed to artificially inflate the cost of driving, but they aren't most of the city. I mean, honestly, who wants to use someplace where half the traffic is just people driving around in circles looking for parking rather than going anywhere doing anything productive? Bad model. Doesn't mean there aren't trendy yurbies that don't want to live someplace that inconvenient anymore than there aren't burbies that will live in someplace like Rancho Murieta (golf course exurb 30 minutes outside of Sacramento with nothing around there). Different strokes for different folks. Modeling zoning after Park Slopes would just be similarly retarded to requiring that housing be 15 miles from any employment. Doesn't mean you don't allow either both are terrible "models" for what zoning should look like in general.
I'm sorry, but while the rest of your argument has some merit, this one part is laughable. Parking minimums are creations of zoning policies, and things like downtown parking garages are typically heavily subsidized by city governments, if not built directly by a parking authority. Land value in high-cost urban neighborhoods (and CBDs) is typically too costly to allow for ample parking. The movement of some neighborhoods to "anti-car" zoning is basically leaving one aspect of zoning (the allotment of parking) more to the free market. In a true zoning-free city (which would take more than Houston's simple lack of separation of residential, commercial, and industrial) the highest-cost urban neighborhoods would become "car hostile" through natural evolution regardless. It doesn't artificially raise the price of driving - it accurately accounts for it.
You can get run over on the sidewalk if a car jumps the curb and there are no parked cars to create a safe buffer.
Try walking next to a busy road with no parallel parking and see how safe you feel, then walk on a sidewalk with parked cars separating you from moving cars and tell me how safe you feel then.
This is just a simple urban planning 101 design.
You can get run over while sitting inside a restaurant if a car plows into the building. The point was that cars are not jumping curbs and running over pedestrians very often.
Urban planning design 202 would have you design the street for on-street parking if that's what you want. That means make it wide enough for cars to park, in marked spaces, and still allow traffic to safely pass in both directions. An alternative would be to add barriers such as hedges or trees.
You can get run over while sitting inside a restaurant if a car plows into the building. The point was that cars are not jumping curbs and running over pedestrians very often.
Urban planning design 202 would have you design the street for on-street parking if that's what you want. That means make it wide enough for cars to park, in marked spaces, and still allow traffic to safely pass in both directions. An alternative would be to add barriers such as hedges or trees.
Trees? OMG! Actually Lafayette, CO did that, though not with trees, but with planters.
All I am doing is stating a simple point in Urban Planning. Also, urbanists don't hate wide roads when it is used for multiple purposes rather than just for cars.
Like street dances or something? The other uses you stated later are all motor vehicles except for bike lanes, and some "real" bicyclists don't like bike lanes. A bicyclist is not required to use a bike lane in Colorado. Rules of the road: City of Fort Collins
I did not realize all urbanists thought alike on the subject of wide roads (or any subject).
I mean, it's great that there's people that can afford to spend $80,000 and another $2,880 per year to park a car, but that's not feasible for 99% of the population. It's a stupid model to follow when looking at what zoning should look like on a large scale. I'm not saying you don't have certain neighborhoods. Seattle or San Francisco both have areas that are anti-car where zoning is designed to artificially inflate the cost of driving, but they aren't most of the city. I mean, honestly, who wants to use someplace where half the traffic is just people driving around in circles looking for parking rather than going anywhere doing anything productive? Bad model.
There's nowhere in Park Slope that actually has zoning that restricts building parking, so it doesn't count as artificially restricting parking, the reverse is true (there are minimum parking requirements). The lack of parking also greatly reduces traffic, so it partly cancels out. Most residents don't have off street parking there, less than half have cars, and of those more use on street parking. Apparently plenty of people want to use that neighborhood, the pedestrian volume is very high there. My parents thought it was a nice neighborhood, they never tried driving there.
I'm sorry, but while the rest of your argument has some merit, this one part is laughable. Parking minimums are creations of zoning policies, and things like downtown parking garages are typically heavily subsidized by city governments, if not built directly by a parking authority. Land value in high-cost urban neighborhoods (and CBDs) is typically too costly to allow for ample parking. The movement of some neighborhoods to "anti-car" zoning is basically leaving one aspect of zoning (the allotment of parking) more to the free market. In a true zoning-free city (which would take more than Houston's simple lack of separation of residential, commercial, and industrial) the highest-cost urban neighborhoods would become "car hostile" through natural evolution regardless. It doesn't artificially raise the price of driving - it accurately accounts for it.
What do parking minimums have to do with those areas? They don't have them. Seattle's entire downtown area has no such thing as parking minimums. It has the opposite. Parking maximums. The explicit intention is to artificially make driving more costly to ease congestion. You really think it's amusing that you're ignorant?
I mean, it's great that there's people that can afford to spend $80,000 and another $2,880 per year to park a car, but that's not feasible for 99% of the population. It's a stupid model to follow when looking at what zoning should look like on a large scale. I'm not saying you don't have certain neighborhoods. Seattle or San Francisco both have areas that are anti-car where zoning is designed to artificially inflate the cost of driving, but they aren't most of the city. I mean, honestly, who wants to use someplace where half the traffic is just people driving around in circles looking for parking rather than going anywhere doing anything productive? Bad model.
There's nowhere in Park Slope that actually has zoning that restricts building parking, so it doesn't count as artificially restricting parking, the reverse is true (there are minimum parking requirements). The lack of parking also greatly reduces traffic, so it partly cancels out. Most residents don't have off street parking there, less than half have cars, and of those more use on street parking. Apparently plenty of people want to use that neighborhood, the pedestrian volume is very high there. My parents thought it was a nice neighborhood, they never tried driving there. In any case the minimal parking requirements did not create the current situation: it wouldn't change that much with or without them since most structures predate parking requirements (late 50s?) or even cars. Requiring remodified buildings to have parking would have some effect but don't see the need as it would mess with the neighborhood's appeal, anyone's who really prioritizes driving convenience isn't living there anyway.
What do parking minimums have to do with those areas? They don't have them. Seattle's entire downtown area has no such thing as parking minimums. It has the opposite. Parking maximums. The explicit intention is to artificially make driving more costly to ease congestion. You really think it's amusing that you're ignorant?
You didn't say that they have parking maximums, which are unusual in American cities (Chicago has none, I'm not sure if Boston has one, if it does it's very limited, nowhere in Brooklyn does much of it being denser than anywhere in Seattle at least in the residential sense). I assumed you were referring to parking minimums as that was the subject of the conversation. You could have just mentioned they had them being insulting. Lack of a parking minimum isn't really artificially increasing the cost of driving, a parking minimum is artificially decreasing the cost of driving whatever its merits.
There's nowhere in Park Slope that actually has zoning that restricts building parking, so it doesn't count as artificially restricting parking, the reverse is true (there are minimum parking requirements). The lack of parking also greatly reduces traffic, so it partly cancels out. Most residents don't have off street parking there, less than half have cars, and of those more use on street parking. Apparently plenty of people want to use that neighborhood, the pedestrian volume is very high there. My parents thought it was a nice neighborhood, they never tried driving there.
And put it in Kansas where all the residents would drive.
Zoning isn't just about the neighborhood level. It's about how the city and region interacts. It's obviously perfectly acceptable to have half the traffic in Park Slope just be people aimlessly circling for parking and people obviously are willing to spend $80,000 and $240/mo for off-street parking in Park Slope. That doesn't mean it's a good model.
Heck hard to argue against parking minimums even somewhere like Park Slope where parking is so impacted. Of course, if they just priced parking appropriately that would help. But it's free street parking mostly so you obviously can never use the free market to allocate free.
They could charge for street parking or create some type of resident permit system. In any case, with more parking you'd likely get more driving overall there and why pave over more space? There's also something odd from your link:
In the survey, the average length of residents’ searches for parking was 27 minutes, though a lucky 40 percent said they found parking in 10 minutes or less.
40% is close to the median, but 27 minutes is much higher than 10 minutes.
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