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Weren't vehicles supposed to get smaller as we get into the 2020's and 2030's? They keep getting bigger and people just don't know how to drive, let alone park while still being considerate to everyone else. I guess we'll just live with door dings everywhere.
"Increasingly, cars are too big for parking spaces, especially in parking garages and other paid parking lots where developers pay close attention to space size. Like the proverbial frog in a slowly heating pot of water, our cars have gotten ever-so-gradually bigger with each passing year, but the parking space standards have barely budged. Now, in the third decade of the growing car size trend, people are starting to notice."
I didn't read the article but agree parking spaces are too small. I have an old Corolla and trying to park it is tough w/so many massive SUV's, etc. (and I'm a very small person and often have to squeeze out of the car) - I blame it on the people that are designing parking lots.
I didn't read the article but agree parking spaces are too small. I have an old Corolla and trying to park it is tough w/so many massive SUV's, etc. (and I'm a very small person and often have to squeeze out of the car) - I blame it on the people that are designing parking lots.
Also blame New Urbanist town planners who want to make driving as hard as possible to force people into public transportation even where it doesn't exist.
Urban planners are social engineers. They want to change society and change people's preferences. They think if they shrink the size of parking spaces, people will respond by buying smaller, more fuel efficient cars.
It doesn't work. It never works. People just buy what they want, and then ding up each other's full size SUVs cramming them into small parking spaces that urban planners force them into with their Utopian dreams of fuel efficient micro cars.
The same urban planners think that if they provide 500 parking spaces downtown where 5000 are needed, then people will take transit instead.
Nope, it never works. You just get downtowns overflowing with people cramming into available spaces and having to walk further from the available parking areas. Opportunists then see that demand is not being filled and they demolish old buildings, converting the lot into $20/hour surface lots, and people pay because they have no choice.
I'm disabled from a back injury and can't contort myself to get in and out of my car if I can't get the car door open even halfway, so I frequently have to use my placard for a handicapped parking spot, even though I could walk the distance into the store. The problem isn't the car being bigger, it's the parking spaces being smaller.
I didn't read the article but agree parking spaces are too small. I have an old Corolla and trying to park it is tough w/so many massive SUV's, etc. (and I'm a very small person and often have to squeeze out of the car) - I blame it on the people that are designing parking lots.
Well you may be small, but, especially in the city, parking spaces tend to be small due to the high cost of real estate, and then if you couple that with huge American vehicles and huge American occupants, you've got a perfect storm ;-)
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