http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21720269-dont-let-peo...
> For a fast-food restaurant, the city demands one space for every three seats; for a bowling alley, seven spaces per lane plus one for every worker.
I've read a bunch of articles about the negative externalities of minimum parking requirements, but haven't really seen one explore the why behind these rules. What does it matter to the city if a bowling alley doesn't have enough parking spaces? Wouldn't that just be bad for the bowling alley's business? If it's about ensuring the supply of street parking why not just install meters to make the city money when the bowling alley fails to build sufficient parking?
I'm usually the first to mock this kind of trite 'invisible hand' supply-and-demand explanation, but this really seems like something that would be very well left to the business to figure out.
Public transit in the city was underfunded so it was only realistic for certain commutes within the city.
I have no idea why suburban Cupertino would be worried about this risk; it sounds like an underhanded way to limit occupancy and capacity (you build a 1000-person office instead of 2000, because you had to have extra space for parking).
This is a solved problem: Charge for parking and the shortage goes away. Meter technology is decades old and well understood. https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193...
In the meantime, what sane city council member is going to tell residents they need to pay for parking in front of their own townhouses?
There's a similar mechanism to what you proposed, resident-only parking permits. This pits the business owners against the residents. It also means that a resident can't have their friends come to visit without risking a ticket.
The knee-jerk HN-ism of quick fixes doesn't work here.
The only actual solution is the long-term dual-pronged approach: parking structures in the interim, while improving public transit coverage overall.
Washington State also makes some zoning decisions and targets some growth targets at the state level (see http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a..., although I can't find a better piece off the top of my head), which helps matters.
The only actual solution is the long-term dual-pronged approach: parking structures in the interim, while improving public transit coverage overall.
The actual solution is people paying for what they use, i.e. markets: If people want parking structures, they'll pay for them. I'd really suggest that you look at the link in the comment I posted above.
Your Japan link is not applicable to this conversation (though I love that article, it comes up whenever NIMBY stuff is discussed on HN). I consider that arguing in bad faith.
Zoning isn't going to magically help residents get parking, nor is it going to provide a place for paying customers to put their cars while eating and drinking.
> They'll pay for them
Who? The customers would all love to pay for parking, but there wasn't a structure. You're arguing against some point you think I'm making but I'm not.
People who live there can park for free, anyone else has to pay a meter.
This solves the issues.
Problem solved.
And that’s how my city got $1/min parking spots.
In urban planning, one has to be careful to solve the correct problem. The problem is not too many cars parked on a residential street. The problem is getting customers to businesses with minimal bad side effects.
Any "parking solution" that kills the businesses to fix the parking is not actually a solution.
The problem is getting people to different places, without them using too much space within the city. This means as little car usage as possible.
The example I mentioned – combined with cheap public transit – is very effective.
Parking meters are just one way to get people to use it, and not a very good one: by the time people find out there are meters (when trying to park), it's too late to take the transit!
The money it cost to install meters would have been better spent on a marketing campaign to raise awareness of the transit option, or subsidizing the transit prices.
Veeery cheap compared to actual meters.
And no, no marketing campaign or subsidy can be as effective as the parking costs. As long as parking isn't at least twice or thrice as expensive as transit no one will use transit. Its a serious issue IRL here. For a while they even did free transit, ads on every single billboard, bus and train, and still people rather parked for 10$ a 30min in the cuty, or even parked illegally.
And this enables apps where you basically press [start parking] and [stop parking] and you won't even need to walk.
Second, if urban planning is done properly, residential streets don't experience parking problems. That's the whole point of this thread.
And if urban planning is not done well, then it doesn't matter where businesses move--they'll still run into problems.
Oh, and if they all leave, then the neighbors will have a nice blighted block with empty buildings next door. Problem solved?
Parking meters do not magically create more parking spots. They create an incentive to use an alternative, but first there needs to be a good alternative.
If urban planning is done properly, there are no residential streets. Every street mixes residential, offices, and commercial properties.
Most mall parking lots are sized for the demand of the busiest day of the Christmas shopping season, and are consequently underused for most of the year.
Keep in mind, the US had 200 million fewer people in 1945. More of America has been built since WWII than existed during it.
Cupertino demands it because businesses have abused public streets before (e.g. relying on public parking for business purposes); if Apple had gone to Cupertino with an actual plan, they may have allowed fewer spaces, but since Apple didn't and just accepted the requirement it is because Apple has no plans to reduce it.
That's the problem with these kind of engagements. Companies and cities generally don't care to work together on something like this. When they do, however, it usually results in something pretty good.
... the idea that Comcast couldn't possibly have any influence over municipal policies is laughable.
it's like thinking Microsoft can't make things done in Redmond or Google in Palo alto
wow, you got me there, sure the other option would be much worse... let's strictly follow dumb rules instead of trying to change them for people benefit
it doesn't even need to be exception, you can change rules for everyone if it's good idea, no mater who is proposing change
You're not even trying.
that's like saying that chain of nonsmoking restaurant is bad bad company if they try to push stricter local nonsmoking laws. that brand of electric vehicles is bad bad company if they try to push ban on old polluting cars. that bike company is bad bad for trying to influence city to build more roads
I fail to see what's wrong with anyone trying to influence local policies for better. Company is not some imaginative entity, in the end it's people after all.
it's not about business dictating rules, it's about 9000 parking spots for 12000 people, which sounds for someone from Europe completely insane
In Bay Area any new development faces all kinds of criticism from the city & residents. Most of the world would love to have all the tech companies in the backyard but in Bay Area they are more treated with contempt.
In someways I'm even surprised they managed to build this mostly in a way they wanted.
Yes, it would be great if people didn't have to drive. But we don't live in that world yet, and it would be foolish and stupid to impose that on your employees.
A proper urbanist would have put the HQ on top of a hub of subway or tram lines, and you bet the managers' houses would be sorted by rank along the stations, the cleaning contractor being at the last station, as opposed to the current situation (richest farthest in the outback).
Of course, if you want happy productive employees within walking distance of their office, you don't build a centralized 15,000-job building with no residential area intersticed, so whoever signed off for such a building wouldn't understand walking distances, tram lines or subways.
And would certainly die from cancer.
If you just "bribe" the organization, there's no conflict of interest. "We want to build this" "we dont want you to" "heres some money" "ok".
Its a bit like negotiating with the CEO vs. bribing a lone DBA about getting access to proprietary data.
Even if a fire service has ladder trucks, the existing ladder trucks may be berthed outside the area served by the local fire station and therefore the fire service cannot provide an appropriate response time and needs another ladder truck. Because ladder trucks are big, this may mean that the local fire station needs to be expanded to house the ladder truck.
Providing a ladder truck and possibly funds may, in some cases, remove the reasons for the height restrictions...with the premise that height restrictions are occasionally the result of careful consideration rather than or in addition to nimbyism.