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.
I grew up in a snowbelt city and currently live in a different snowbelt city...and don't know of anywhere in either of these snowbelt cities that has only onstreet parking.
We had a neighbor who had a visitor from another part of the country who refused to move his car off the street, despite the snow hammering down one night and a forecast for 8"+ of it. We ended up with a freak snowstorm of almost 5 feet and of course the snowplows were going by all night long. The car was parked in an area where they were accumulating the snow piles so the guy woke up to his car being buried under 5 feet of snow as well as being obscured by a mountain of plow snow He didn't leave his car on the street again after that.
I always hated on-street parking at any rate; it makes the road narrower and harder to navigate if you have to drive in the area.
My daughter lives in St. Paul MN and there are indeed places there with no off-street parking. She lived in one such apt. building. They had some kind of odd/even snow parking policy. Her car and her bfs were both hit while parked by people who left no contact information. "Minnesota Nice".
This isn’t a good thing to me. Yes, frontal driveways in urban areas suck, but alley parking is better. Transit alone isn’t enough.
Alley parking is expensive in several ways.
1) It increases the amount of impermiable surface which increase stormwater runoff. This is a problem in many urban and suburban areas and in fact has become a criteria thatdevelopers in my state (Maryland) have to allow for in developments. In a recent development in our town it completely changed a development which had very nice alleys and rear garages and forced them to go with traditional front loading garages.
2) Alleys require more maintenance either by an HOA or the municipality. Besides normal maintenance if garages that people are expected to use are on them they have to have snow removal, salt/sanding, etc in winter months. Alleys usually have no place to push snow to the side so it is necessary to use 'bucket loaders' and trucks to actually remove the snow. This is very time consuming and expensive
3) If alleys are used for trash removal they need to be wide enough for large trucks which makes them almost the size of streets. Most municipalities around here have the trash (and recycling) picked up at the front curb for these reasons even if alleys are present.
These factors make alleys very expensive. The adjacent property owners in many cases would prefer to have the extra space as yard instead of alley.
1) It increases the amount of impermiable surface which increase stormwater runoff. This is a problem in many urban and suburban areas and in fact has become a criteria thatdevelopers in my state (Maryland) have to allow for in developments. In a recent development in our town it completely changed a development which had very nice alleys and rear garages and forced them to go with traditional front loading garages.
2) Alleys require more maintenance either by an HOA or the municipality. Besides normal maintenance if garages that people are expected to use are on them they have to have snow removal, salt/sanding, etc in winter months. Alleys usually have no place to push snow to the side so it is necessary to use 'bucket loaders' and trucks to actually remove the snow. This is very time consuming and expensive
3) If alleys are used for trash removal they need to be wide enough for large trucks which makes them almost the size of streets. Most municipalities around here have the trash (and recycling) picked up at the front curb for these reasons even if alleys are present.
These factors make alleys very expensive. The adjacent property owners in many cases would prefer to have the extra space as yard instead of alley.
And I get that you don't want to spend time looking for a parking spot if you live in an area with poor public transit. But are you really gonna tell me there's no appeal of all of the brownstone/prewar apartment neighborhoods in New York that have good subway access?
And I get that you don't want to spend time looking for a parking spot if you live in an area with poor public transit. But are you really gonna tell me there's no appeal of all of the brownstone/prewar apartment neighborhoods in New York that have good subway access?
Believe it or not 'urban planning' is not just about New York and London. Those are two of the largest and most extensively developed urban areas in the world. Many if not most of us are concerned about more modest sized urban and suburban areas that have other concerns, such as providing sufficient parking for households who seem to be getting MORE vehicles per residence rather than less. With grown children staying 'at home' longer and households having extended families finding solutions for the extra cars that were never thought about when the houses were built 75 or 100 ( or even 175) years ago is a concern.
Solutions like paving the front yard are becoming common in this area and we are having to handle such issues thru zoning and land use regulations. And we don't have the superb public transit that New York has (some areas don't have any public transit)
Believe it or not 'urban planning' is not just about New York and London. Those are two of the largest and most extensively developed urban areas in the world. Many if not most of us are concerned about more modest sized urban and suburban areas that have other concerns, such as providing sufficient parking for households who seem to be getting MORE vehicles per residence rather than less. With grown children staying 'at home' longer and households having extended families finding solutions for the extra cars that were never thought about when the houses were built 75 or 100 ( or even 175) years ago is a concern.
Solutions like paving the front yard are becoming common in this area and we are having to handle such issues thru zoning and land use regulations. And we don't have the superb public transit that New York has (some areas don't have any public transit)
I know that what works for New York doesn't work for everywhere. My point is that it is peak urban form when done in presence of good public transportation. I don't think highly urban city cores should cater to people who want to own 4 cars at once.
I think that there are few places in the United States where land is at such a premium where there’d be no space for single-family homes to have a garage. If you live in a place where there is not a driveway, garage, or assigned parking, then even owning a car at all is a luxury. I for one would never live in a neighborhood without garages and driveways, and I don’t ever intend on living in a hyper-dense region such as New York.
We lived in an area with on street parking. The plow went down the center, and people just had to dig out their plowed-in cars. Not fun. Hence the dug out on-street parking wars in Boston.
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.
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.
He didn't leave his car on the street again after that. 
