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I really don't understand the whole commentary engendered by this question. If you ask your local Building Department, they will specify the number of required parking spaces for what ever type of building is being built. Who ever builds the building is required to provide the parking spaces. Any commercial space or multi-housing sort of project will have a required number of parking spaces. Which have to be built by whoever is building the building.
If you want to do anything other than that, you'd probably be required to apply for a variance. Good luck with that!
I'll try one more time. I was lamenting the conditions which make it impossible for parking to be free, namely the very high value of land caused by density. When I wrote that parking OUGHT to be free, I was advocating for the way things were when I was growing up; I was not saying I thought it possible just to pass a law and make parking free in places like Manhattan. I am not unrealistic. A crude analogy might be my opinion that there OUGHT to be no murders. Well we all know that such a statement will not prevent murders just as I know very well that when demand exceeds supply there will be costs for parking, hence my emphasis on overpopulation.
It seemed irrationally biased in the same sense that some actually like those places. You've complained about irrational anti-car bias, it read as irrationally pro-car or maybe anti-urban. Places that are crowded enough that parking has significant land costs [which I think is some of the dispute on the thread, some are discussing different places] generally have convenient walking and transit. You win some, you lose some. So I don't find the negative. In general older cities are more likely not to have free parking. Particularly denser ones, but even small cities sometimes charge for parking in their central area. Leaving out Manhattan, cities like Boston and San Francisco parking always imposed some land costs. I like both places, partially for how they're laid out. Your statement leads to there ought not to be places built like.
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The real difference of opinion here, it seems to me, is between those who celebrate high parking costs as a means to discourage car usage by making it both more expensive and more inconvenient and those who remember the Garden of Eden days of the 1950's and 1960's when car use was axiomatic.
Car use was lower in the 50s and 60s than today and so was ownership. Partially because less women owned cars and stayed at home, but transit was higher in most cities by a large margin. Some of it was a greater % of the population lived in areas with usable transit or had things in walking distance. As for myself, I grew up in a suburb of NYC where just about everyone drove and few places charged for parking but nearby NYC presented a very different example. The same would have been true decades ago, how common free parking was in both places I doubt was any different in the 60s, my guess is it would if anything been less common. I remember reading a children's book written in the 50s and set in what seemed like suburbia (writer was from Oregon), there was a mention of going to a mall over another spot as the mom didn't have to go back and feed a nickel into the meter. I found that a bit surprised that the author described free parking it as noteworthy.
It's difficult to get a nice town/neighborhood center with free parking, if it's large enough eventually land will be scarce. I like those areas more than just a bunch of strip malls with big parking lots and few pedestrians, which appear rather sterile. I've spent some time (long visits) in England when I was younger, parking was often paid. It seemed just as natural as our setup. I was rather impressed how busy a neighborhood center like was, and of course parking wasn't free.
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The very phrase "car-dependent" I find jarring and nonsensical. Well of course we are car dependent. How could it be otherwise? It's like saying we are clothes-dependent because we are not allowed to go naked in public. I have no objection to someone who chooses to live near a bus or transit line and not own a car, but I have no understanding of someone who finds that "liberating" unless the person has a very low income. Owning a car is one of the major keys to the good life. There is no contradiction at all that my father used transit in the 1950's. One can own a car and use transit. One can own a car and also own a bicycle.
I don't think the phrase has anything to do with not owning a car, but that in many neighborhoods it's horribly inconvenient to get anywhere without a car. Certainly, owning a car presents more options than not owning a car, but you can manage much better without a car than with a car. I didn't own a car (though biked a lot) until several years out of college, some places are ok without one others you'd feel trapped.
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I submit that I know as much or more about cycling as anyone on this forum. My ex-wife and I bicycled from Seattle to Los Angeles in 1978 - spending three weeks and averaging 75 miles a day. It was gorgeous and fantastic. But we still owned two cars. There is no contradiction. I wouldn't be without a car, but neither do I advocate spending every waking moment in one.
I've done long distance cycling, including part of the West Coast (Portland to roughly Garberville). Though I started before I owned a car, back then I biked everywhere and that's how I thought of the idea. If I had gotten a car near the end of high school as most of my peers, perhaps I wouldn't have gotten into cycling. Or maybe not. Can't say.
I really don't understand the whole commentary engendered by this question. If you ask your local Building Department, they will specify the number of required parking spaces for what ever type of building is being built. Who ever builds the building is required to provide the parking spaces. Any commercial space or multi-housing sort of project will have a required number of parking spaces. Which have to be built by whoever is building the building.
If you want to do anything other than that, you'd probably be required to apply for a variance. Good luck with that!
It's very simple; required parking takes space which reduces the number of apartments that can be built, which in turn increases the rent required for profitability.:
e.g. without required parking, a developer can build 50 apartments and can charge $1000/mo rent...with required parking the developer can build 40 apartments and now charges $1250/mo rent.
Should someone without a car have to pay an additional $250/mo in order to provide parking for others?
I'll try one more time. I was lamenting the conditions which make it impossible for parking to be free, namely the very high value of land caused by density. When I wrote that parking OUGHT to be free, I was advocating for the way things were when I was growing up; I was not saying I thought it possible just to pass a law and make parking free in places like Manhattan. I am not unrealistic. A crude analogy might be my opinion that there OUGHT to be no murders. Well we all know that such a statement will not prevent murders just as I know very well that when demand exceeds supply there will be costs for parking, hence my emphasis on overpopulation.
The real difference of opinion here, it seems to me, is between those who celebrate high parking costs as a means to discourage car usage by making it both more expensive and more inconvenient and those who remember the Garden of Eden days of the 1950's and 1960's when car use was axiomatic.
The very phrase "car-dependent" I find jarring and nonsensical. Well of course we are car dependent. How could it be otherwise? It's like saying we are clothes-dependent because we are not allowed to go naked in public. I have no objection to someone who chooses to live near a bus or transit line and not own a car, but I have no understanding of someone who finds that "liberating" unless the person has a very low income. Owning a car is one of the major keys to the good life. There is no contradiction at all that my father used transit in the 1950's. One can own a car and use transit. One can own a car and also own a bicycle.
I submit that I know as much or more about cycling as anyone on this forum. My ex-wife and I bicycled from Seattle to Los Angeles in 1978 - spending three weeks and averaging 75 miles a day. It was gorgeous and fantastic. But we still owned two cars. There is no contradiction. I wouldn't be without a car, but neither do I advocate spending every waking moment in one.
Cars are more than transportation - cars are a joy in themselves.
I do realize I am a fish out of water here, and so I think I am done here. I know that will be much to the delight of most posters here, and that is O.K. too. Some gulfs are too wide to bridge.
Your whole argument rests on the false premise that owning a car is the key to a good life. That's not true for everyone. Go to NYC, DC, Boston, San Francisco or other places where the car ownership rate is fairly low. You'll find plenty of people who are far from low income and could afford a car but have no need of one. It's unnecessary for their lifestyle. For them, "the good life" is not owning a car.
By the way, those cities I mentioned also had plenty of affluent people not owning cars in the 50s and 60s, so there goes your claim that owning a car was "axiomatic" in the 50s and 60s. As somebody already pointed out, car ownership was actually LOWER then compared to today.
You are welcome to your opinion but stop acting like your individual conception of "the good life" is "THE good life."
It's not that the "gulf is too wide of a bridge." It's that your argument makes no sense.
I would add that even if one accepts that cars are inherently good and key to a good life, it doesn't follow that parking should always be free. Food is inherently good and key to a good life. Yet, unless you are very poor and on food stamps, you still have to pay for food. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Price is the regulator of excess. If everyone could buy as much as food as they wanted with no concern for price, the obesity rate would certainly be even higher if it is now. When people can just drive as much as they want and park anywhere with no concern for price because the government has guaranteed free parking through minimum parking requirements, the result will be more traffic and more air pollution than if there was a price on parking.
Last edited by stateofnature; 10-18-2014 at 09:10 AM..
I do realize I am a fish out of water here, and so I think I am done here. I know that will be much to the delight of most posters here, and that is O.K. too. Some gulfs are too wide to bridge.
Actually, I wish you would stay. We need some diversity of opinion on this forum.
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Originally Posted by freemkt
Not really, there are rooming houses and SROs for that. I reted a room in a house without kittchen privileges.
Well, sure, you can do that. But there are also people who want to live in an apartment, or even a house, who don't really want to cook. One of my co-workers says she doesn't cook. I guess she keeps some peanut butter and bread around for PBJs, breakfast food, eats out somewhere at lunch (she doesn't eat in the caf; she often runs errands), and that's about it. She just bought a large-ish house with a full kitchen. My daughter and her bf don't cook much, from what I can tell, and yet they want a regular apt. with living room, bedrooms, home office (for him), and a kitchen for the rare times when they feel the call to cook. Actually, he'd like a house with a yard.
In places where there is lots of demand for parking the parking often does not sit unused. In places with bad parking people rent extra space out.
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Originally Posted by Malloric
At this point I know almost no one without a car. There's a couple people living in San Francisco I know that don't one a car... but they regularly use Lyft/Uber and ZipCar. I use them as well when I sometimes need to get from place to place, but that's because who wants to drive in San Francisco? Option A pay someone $15 and get there in 10 minutes dropped off at the door. Option B take transit which takes 45 minutes. Option C walk to your car parked farther away than the transit stop, pay the $10 you owe for parking for half an hour, drive, spend 15 minutes driving around in circles looking for a parking garage that isn't full that will cost you $30...
San Francisco is the opposite. The good life is paying someone to drive you around.
Depends. San Francisco has horrible traffic. After work it is definitely faster for me to walk than attempt to drive or uber.
The good life is having choice. And perhaps an ebike to get you up the hills and access to free parking.
Not really. In olden days the wife used to drop the husband off at work or just get stranded at home.
In the current days mom and dad work and there is no guarentee they'll be commuting in the same direction. My family needed 2 cars, dad was driving around for work.
Depends. San Franciscohas horrible traffic. After work it is definitely faster for me to walk than attempt to drive or uber.
The good life is having choice. And perhaps an ebike to get you up the hills andaccess to free parking.
Exactly.
And as I've said before, no desire to live in San Francisco. I certainly don't begrudge those who do anything, but I'll elect to live somewhere else. Having choices is definitely important.
Car use was lower in the 50s and 60s than today and so was ownership. Partially because less women owned cars and stayed at home, but transit was higher in most cities by a large margin. Some of it was a greater % of the population lived in areas with usable transit or had things in walking distance. As for myself, I grew up in a suburb of NYC where just about everyone drove and few places charged for parking but nearby NYC presented a very different example. The same would have been true decades ago, how common free parking was in both places I doubt was any different in the 60s, my guess is it would if anything been less common. I remember reading a children's book written in the 50s and set in what seemed like suburbia (writer was from Oregon), there was a mention of going to a mall over another spot as the mom didn't have to go back and feed a nickel into the meter. I found that a bit surprised that the author described free parking it as noteworthy.
It's difficult to get a nice town/neighborhood center with free parking, if it's large enough eventually land will be scarce. I like those areas more than just a bunch of strip malls with big parking lots and few pedestrians, which appear rather sterile. I've spent some time (long visits) in England when I was younger, parking was often paid. It seemed just as natural as our setup. I was rather impressed how busy a neighborhood center like.
Having lived in the city free parking is one of the reasons why malls became so popular in the 60ies and 70ies. Shopping in an city with limited parking can be an pain in the neck. Metered parking exists both as an tax and it also exists to encourage people to move their cars due to an lack of on the street parking. The trouble with metered parking is the fact that you have to worry about the meter while shopping. Very few stores will charge for parking but they will have your car towed if you park in their lot and go elsewhere. The kind of shopping where you can spend hours causally browsing and having an nice meal in the food court does not exist in an city and can only be found in an strip mall at best.
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