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Comment by mjevans | Hacker News Reader

My opinion on parking is still that the actual solution for the real world is /moving/ the parking to dedicated structures at the edges.

In this way my car would be stored in a secure (either monitored or physical) area outside of the city core.

Given that, it is logical to restrict the use of in-city travel to electric vehicles, bicycles / other human powered devices, and foot traffic. Maybe we could even have nice people mover beltways and fully covered ways between the buildings. (turning the city in to more of a mega 'mall')

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Long-term ideas are cool, but it's more important to figure out what useful incremental steps we can take today. Getting rid of parking minimums seems like a good first step.

(In my (European) city we actually have the opposite - new developments are unlikely to be approved unless they're "zero parking", because we already have as many cars as the streets can take).

Building massive parking garages at suburban rail stations is easy. Then just increase the frequency of trains. In many cases these stations are already surrounded by parking lots, or old garages that don't meet current demand. But yes parking minimums should also go.

That's met with vigorous opposition in the Bay Area, by people who think we should instead be building more apartments near the BART stations.

Of course, the parking lots service ~1000 people, while apartments obeying the height limits might accomodate a few dozen and would of course be even more desirable/expensive now that commuting to the station from far away is harder.

Well those people are right. The parking garage should be built underneath the apartments. Unfortunately then they'll complain about traffic concerns.

Step 1:

Taxpayer owned, profits (after maintenance, expansion of the program, etc) going to decrease taxes, parking structures at the edges of cities located at nexus points of vehicle and intra-city transit grids: preferring density on both.

Step 2:

Make movement /intra/ city on public transit and systems free (possibly only for uses of the parking system).

Step 3:

Affordable 'carts' designed to be used with the transit system for people to move goods from their cars and/or shopping trips back to their homes. Bonus points if there are 'pod' versions that are lockable, trackable (smart phone app), and which other delivery services can be paid to bring to your apartment/condo/etc.

Step 4:

Expand the jurisdiction limits of the city to the point that it encompasses the metro area, to make planning actually work.

Step 5:

Encourage development of the right kind of housing in the right areas; encourage it by carrot and stick until the price of housing is where you desire it.

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