Should onsite parking be required in new apartment construction? (versus, Houston, walkable)

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by nei

He wasn't on a commercial street, it's possible the resident didn't really want visitors to use their street for parking anyway. Many urban residential streets are limited to those with resident's permits (depending on city).

When people from the nearby college didn't park on our street, it was only about 65% full, which had plenty of room for when anyone came over to visit.

[46H]

Originally Posted by darkeconomist

Let's be clear: estimations will always be wrong to some degree. Government estimations, doubly so. And the reality is that most parking requirements are arbitrary or based on terrible, unreliable data.

More than likely, the problem you face is underpricing of the parking (probably $0, as it's "free" to use). Some people stay too long, meanwhile employees have no incentive to find alternatives. If the choice was between a parking space at work or more money each paycheck, some employees would be incentivized to not drive at all or to carpool.

There is no underpricing of parking.

The parking problem underscores a bigger problem in NJ. Besides places for people to live, the towns also try to add commercial RE to add to the property tax collections (like medical buildings). In most cases it is impossible to commute from one town to a town 10 miles away by mass transit. Since each town has bedrooms and each town has commercial, people are random point to point commuters. This makes it very difficult to carpool. Even is a case where a carpool might be feasible, a household with 2 working parents with children makes carpool scheduling even more difficult. If you could use a train to get from your town to a work destination or Dr appt (other than end point commuting into NYC, Hoboken, or Jersey City) the office destination could be as far as 5 miles away from the station.

Sadly, it is too late to fix this mixed use mess.

The other problem in NJ is water drainage control. When entire building lots are paved there are increased chances of local flooding. With out some zoning, entire lots would be paved and buildings would be 30 stories tall and there would be no place for the workers and visitors to park.

Kind of like Houston.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by chirack

More people get injured but less severely....not an good trade I think. I would rather not be injured at all.

Exactly, and that's what I think the goal should be.

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

It is a common practice in Urban Planning schools that on street parking creates a buffer from moving cars for pedestrians on the sidewalk. It feels much safer to walk on the sidewalk with parked cars on the street than it does having moving cars next to the sidewalk.

I never felt safer with parked cars on the street, and I grew up in a town with on-street parking in its downtown. You never know when one of these cars is going to pull out onto the street, into the line of traffic.

Originally Posted by chirack

The trouble with minor injuries is that they don't always stay minor. Once the skin is broken, an route for infection has be established and should those minor injures get complications....best not to get injured at all.

Exactly.

Originally Posted by eschaton

I didn't think we were discussing commercial in this thread, just residential. Still, even in these cases, if a developer has wrong-sized parking too much, the tenants will look for other digs with more ample parking when their lease is up. So I'm not sure it's something which needs to be solved via government fiat.




I admit I wasn't thinking about railroad suburbs in particular, although they are essentially an exclave of urban development within the suburbs. They also have some characteristics of tourist traps, in that they're commercial draws that encourage people from nearby communities to come there during the day to shop, or at night to socialize.

I also admit that, unlike in cities or college towns, relatively few people would willingly choose to live in such a place without a car, even if they tend to use their car a bit less than most people would. However, I'm also going to hazard a guess that not only are these areas desirable, but on a price-per-square-foot basis, they are costlier than the not walkable areas which surround them.

Parking problems are basically a sign of success for a neighborhood, not a failure. In the modern era every desirable walkable area develops them. I don't see that changing any time soon, unless self-driving cars really do make remote parking a possibility. Regardless, we have a lot of past experience that putting too many parking lots into urban neighborhoods makes them less desirable, not more. And I have never heard of a gentrified, traditionally walkable neighborhood which has lost desirability because parking was difficult. So I think the status quo will remain.



I'm no fan of capitalism, but you really shouldn't be using an image of a (publicly-funded) highway to prove this point.



There are plenty of housing market studies available online if you want to peruse them which have been produced by cities or nonprofits. Developers of major apartment complexes usually at least undertake a cursory market study of their own to determine the correct pricing for their project.

I have no doubt a developer could come up with a more accurate estimate of parking needs than is established by city zoning. I think Pittsburgh is better than most, but the way it works here is that any residential development needs to provide at least one space per unit, unless it's located Downtown. The thing is, there are many cases where you might not need this much parking. For example, if it is a senior condo, or a student-focused apartment. And while it's not a huge deal if you're building a townhouse development, if you're building an apartment with a few hundred units in a busy urban area, that either means you're talking about probably burying 1-2 levels of parking partially underground, and then having a few more above ground level. Structured parking like this is ridiculously expensive, meaning in order to recoup their costs developers will need to charge high rents.



I've dealt with streetside parking here in Pittsburgh for nearly ten years, and before that in many other cities. You inevitably eventually end up with someone scuffing your bumper who can't parallel park, and occasionally get your mirror clipped, but that's about it. I'm sorry your daughter and her boyfriend have had bad luck, but as with nei, I don't think the experience is typical.



The argument is basically this:

Most people drive in one of two ways. First there is active, alert driving. This is how we tend to drive when we are going somewhere for the first time. Then there is the "autopilot" driving which happens when we are traveling along a route we know well. In this case our mind wanders, and alertness drops. As should not be surprising, most accidents happen when we are in "autopilot." We tend to speed up, and not expect to see obstacles on the road. And indeed, most places where we can go fast things obstructing the road are rare, but when they do happen, collisions at high speed are of course fatal.

On-street parking (particularly on narrow streets) is one way in which our mind is forced to be more "active" while driving. We have to actually pay attention to not clip mirrors, make sure we're leaving enough room for cars to pass us on the other side, etc. For similar reasons, two-way streets are safer than one-way streets. A full on Dutch "woonerf" model complements this by eliminating any grade change between the sidewalk and the road, along with adding slight turns to the road to break up sight lines from block to block. All of which makes driving a bit more "edgy" in some senses, but also ensures no one is driving fast, and they always have time to brake to a full stop if a child runs into the road or something.

Bold #1-Having to relocate a business is not a trivial issue. The business might just fold.

#2-A college-oriented apt building could actually yield more cars than a singles/couples oriented one. Each student might have their own car.

#3I don't understand why an avowed socialist would eschew the need for government intervention. And I can tell you, as a semi-libertarian who lives in an area that has seen a lot of growth, if you give developers and inch, they'll take a mile. Their goal is to put up as many units as possible. They do not generally live in the areas they develop, so they could care how the development looks. They could not care at all if the streets are packed with cars from the development, leaving no parking for shoppers in these vaunted mixed-use areas, no parking for guests, deliveries, the police (which seem to be a constant presence in my daughter's neighborhood), etc.

#4-You and nei might not think my DD's experience is typical, but that doesn't mean it's not. Heck, she lived in Aurora, Colorado, high-crime capital of CO and no one ever ran into her car. He lived in Boulder, which is not high crime but is a place where no one cares about anyone else (OK, slight exaggeration for your argumentative types, but not by much) and it never happened to him before.

Originally Posted by stateofnature

The study I linked to found that on-street parking led to lower fatal crash rates. Which one is better to reduce, injuries or fatalities? To me it is obvious that reducing fatalities is where the focus should be.
There might be a point if we are talking about thousands and thousands of injuries compared to just one life saved where I would admit it is better to reduce the injuries than save the one life, but I have not seen any evidence that the injury/fatality ratio between on-street and off-street parking is so stark. I doubt anyone has even done research on that question.
In light of that uncertainty, I'm not going to say street parking should be mandated everywhere, but I'm certainly going to say it would appear to be preferable to take the option that reduces fatalities overall.

You're generalizing from that study. And it's only one study. Has it been replicated? In health care, everything has to be replicated numerous times before it's considered settled. As chirack and I have said, it's better to try to reduce the accidents entirely. Maybe an effort could be put into figuring out how to do that. It is certainly no better to increase the the injuries. Sometimes an injury is worse than a fatality, such as a head injury which renders the person unable to ever think again.

ETA: It's ironic that supposedly the parking spaces required by zoning are considered "excessive", yet you reference studies produced by cities or non-profits as reliable.

[urbanlife78]

Originally Posted by Katiana

I never felt safer with parked cars on the street, and I grew up in a town with on-street parking in its downtown. You never know when one of these cars is going to pull out onto the street, into the line of traffic.

I think we are talking about two different things.....did you walk in the streets in the town you grew up?

[freemkt]

Originally Posted by nei

There's the Japanese method: to buy a car one must show proof you have an off street parking, either through ownership or renting. The roads are too narrow to have room for parked cars.

What if you want to rent a car?

[nei]

Originally Posted by Katiana

#3I don't understand why an avowed socialist would eschew the need for government intervention. And I can tell you, as a semi-libertarian who lives in an area that has seen a lot of growth, if you give developers and inch, they'll take a mile. Their goal is to put up as many units as possible. They do not generally live in the areas they develop, so they could care how the development looks. They could not care at all if the streets are packed with cars from the development, leaving no parking for shoppers in these vaunted mixed-use areas, no parking for guests, deliveries, the police (which seem to be a constant presence in my daughter's neighborhood), etc.

If your hope is to increase development in dense, urban areas (or even as many units as possible), you won't support things that make it harder for developers. There are limits, but I'm not that bothered streets packed with cars, and eschaton chooses to live on one.

It is certainly no better to increase the the injuries. Sometimes an injury is worse than a fatality, such as a head injury which renders the person unable to ever think again.

Yes, but the other study at the same time said severe injuries, which a head injury would count in, would be lessened.

ETA: It's ironic that supposedly the parking spaces required by zoning are considered "excessive", yet you reference studies produced by cities or non-profits as reliable.

Huh?

[nei]

Originally Posted by Katiana

#4-You and nei might not think my DD's experience is typical, but that doesn't mean it's not. Heck, she lived in Aurora, Colorado, high-crime capital of CO and no one ever ran into her car. He lived in Boulder, which is not high crime but is a place where no one cares about anyone else (OK, slight exaggeration for your argumentative types, but not by much) and it never happened to him before.

Didn't you say they had off-street parling before?

[nei]

Originally Posted by freemkt

What if you want to rent a car?

Seems like you can without a space.

Car Rental in Japan

[nei]

Originally Posted by nei

Plenty of people don't follow speed limits, I'll often go a bit over. The narrow street near me full of parked cars you often can't go 25 mph practically, even 20 mph might difficult. If my street were wider, it would be easier for cars to go faster.

This is a similar example to what I was describing



when two cars approach, there's little space, so cars have to sow down and get to the side as much as possible .

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by urbanlife78

I think we are talking about two different things.....did you walk in the streets in the town you grew up?

Yes. I sure as heck wasn't driving when I was 11 and "allowed" to go downtown with friends. When I learned to drive, my family only had one car and my dad took it to work. Later, we got another car, to be shared by my mom, brother and I.