San Diego Mayor proposes allowing some housing projects with no parking spaces | Hacker News Reader

San Diego Mayor proposes allowing some housing projects with no parking spaces

fox5sandiego.com

54 pointsDoreenMichele39 comments

Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking is germane here: https://www.city-journal.org/html/high-cost-free-parking-146.... It is surprising that the article doesn't even name-check it.

Though I live in San Diego, I generally avoid going downtown because the parking costs about $30. In a pinch, I'll park a mile north of the city center and take a scooter or an Uber for the last mile. It's just hard to justify spending $80 on a night out and nearly 40% of the cost goes to parking.

I live in a large Canadian city, and here most people don't own cars. When I want to go out, I usually take uber. No worrying about parking, tickets or driving drunk. No worrying about maintenance, licensing and filling the gas tank either. Not owning a car is wonderful.

> Not owning a car is wonderful.

When you are single.

But if you have children, it gets a lot more complicated. Possible, certainly, lots of people do it, but much more complicated.

And the larger you family, and the younger the children, the harder not having a car is.

My sister and her husband have 4 children ages 1 to 9 and had no problem predominantly going car-free here.

I have a 3 months old, no car, and I buy groceries and go out without it. Sure, I chose an apartment close to transit, but I'm saving a lot by not having car hassle anymore. And I took cabs a bit more often in the first month (no idea how to even hold a baby, let alone wearing a carrier).

When I buy groceries, we bring stuff back with 2 carts, 1 backpack and 2 ikea bags (the ikea bags are kept very empty, to avoid unbalanced weights). Baby travels in the carrier with me, or in the stroller with mom, in which case I pull 2 carts.

Aside from groceries which is the one that requires more organization, we can go anywhere else (except movie theatre, of course )

Have you considered using public transit? A day pass is $5 to $12, depending on how far out you are, assuming you have a $2 Compass Card.

https://www.sdmts.com/fares-passes

Public transit is not always a great option. For example, where I currently live in Washington is a ~1hr bus ride to Seattle, but only a ~20 minute drive. It's awfully hard to justify the loss of ~40 minutes each way just to visit Seattle.

With that said, I do take public transit whenever I can (including basically every day to and from work), but I sure wish some of the "long haul" routes were optimized for city-to-city. Hopefully the light rail system that's being extended to several cities will help.

I have lived without a car for more than a decade. I spent part of that time in San Diego. I am specifically talking about transit in San Diego.

It's pretty good for an American system. That doesn't guarantee it will meet the GPs needs.

> A day pass is $5 to $12

If you are a family with 3 kids that's $25 to $60 just to go downtown (are there child discounts?)

Much cheaper and easier just not to go places that don't have free parking.

From the link in my comment:

Up to two children age 5 and under may ride free with a paying passenger on all MTS and NCTD routes

Family Weekends: On Saturdays and Sundays up to two children (age 12 and under) may ride free with a fare-paying adult (age 18 or older) on all MTS routes.

Holiday Friends Ride Free: On New Year's Day (observed), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day, a friend may ride free with a fare-paying customer on all MTS routes. This promotion will be in effect on December 25, 2017 and January 1, 2018.

Plus, monthly passes for "Youth" (under age 18, or maybe 18 and under) is half the cost of an Adult monthly pass.

I do!

Our trolley system isn't great, but it's better than nothing. I appreciate the free parking.

This is the reason why I have completely stopped going to downtown. Too much traffic, no free parking etc. Just not worth it to me!

Where are you coming from?

That's one data point, but how does that relate to whether the law should force people to build parking garages in their homes?

It's insanely easy to find parking for $5-$10 or at least $20. This is pretty much just wrong, or the side effect of being part of a mob, which is different from visiting a city. It's tourism, whether you live in the county or not. Same idea as $11.50 for a beer at a concert. It's a convenience cost. In my other comment I agree that it's more difficult some places than others, but I went for 3 years so far, never paying $30. I've never paid more than $20, and only then when I was in a huge hurry. Since then I just changed my behavior, did better research, and it was fine.

People coming downtown treat the place like a theme park. It's not. Maybe reorient your expectations.

San Diego is tending toward car-free living anyway, so this is in line with that trend. Downtown we have scooters everywhere, as someone else mentioned. We have free public transit in various forms, for individuals and families alike.

Parking is generally not included in rent, that is a separate charge normally, so in essence it's already "no parking space" and you're just getting a better rate than outside, even when you park under/beside where you live. You're really _also_ getting security, not just parking. That's the real issue, if you have a car downtown, which I do.

All this being said, parking is generally very difficult here compared to other places with less concentrated downtown environments; more in Little Italy than in the Gaslamp Quarter, and more difficult in Gaslamp versus East Village. But again, cars are becoming less of a thing, and people are adapting.

What I hear in the comments so far is a misunderstanding of what a metropolitan area is. It's not designed to be the same as a suburban area. In the suburbs, you need "large vehicle" transportion, versus downtown where you need what's called "last mile" ... like scooters. Any other people need to do their research and see we even have FRED which is _free rides_ ... so you could park somewhere that isn't oppressively priced and get a free ride ( not even pay for an Uber/Lyft or scooter or bike, etc ) and be totally fine.

It's the problem of taking a suburban attitude into a downtown environment that's causing people to miss out on the actual purpose of the space and the infrastructure we already have.

> Downtown we have scooters everywhere, as someone else mentioned.

How do you plan to take children on a scooter? Or is downtown for singles only?

I am not single.

http://thefreeride.com/fred/

Just 2.8 stars on Google Play store. Why?

Downtown San Diego is basically for singles only. It's a city mostly full of transients. Once people decide to have a family, they move away or to the suburbs if they are loaded.

You are incorrect on 66-100% of your statement. I feel like you're just regurgitating a bias here.

And it's not even about cost of living if you really get down to it, it's about inability to adapt to the pace of having so many options, that you choose to have fewer, or preferring a slower pace and less options, which is fine.

But the homeless situation has been dramatically affected by positive changes, so no. There are plenty of families, many types of household, so no. And people generally move away from San Diego entirely, not just downtown, if they leave. It's an overall lifestyle change usually. San Diego as a whole is speeding up, and the cost comes with benefits of being here.

But like I said, if it isn't bias, it's preference, and preference is fine! The bias though, is flawed.

( Major edits since downvote since apparently I needed to spell out exactly why this is biased thinking, not just question the bias. This is really unfair to San Diego which is not perfect, but extremely progressive. We've dealt with the majority of the charges rapidly. Check your assumptions and refactor your thinking please )

It’s just that your statements are incorrect about families. The real numbers are: “In the county, children (ages 0 – 17) are 23 percent of the total population, in downtown, they are only 10 percent of the population.”

The thing is, the statistics have a long-tail, and the truth is that when the paradigm shifts, like it did and is doing, it's important to hear from first-hand accounts and not rely on statistics based on overall trends historically. They track an old dynamic, and the new dynamic is tending toward people living anywhere they want, especially into dense areas more comfortably, and the age-old bias toward moving outward at the point of having kids or retiring is reversing. I've seen it first hand, spoken to numerous people who are early adopters to this trend, and in all brackets of social standing and model of domestic life. It is evidence of an overall shift in how we live as people.

The benefits of being in the denser areas versus the believed drawbacks are changing, so much so it makes me genuinely hopeful about one day having 10 billion people versus 8 on the planet, which for someone who wanted less people not more, is notable at least and hinges on this shift. So I would recheck the numbers often and along new metrics, and favor first-hand information in times of change.

Except that Downtown is the only place in SD where being car-free is generally possible. SD has terrible public transportation especially now that Amtrak won't run later Coaster routes.

It starts in the center and emanates out. I've seen changes in the county center ripple out for decades, but the pace of that in the last 5 years has dramatically quickened.

Honestly it just takes a different outlook, and the more progressive ideas need to start somewhere. I'm so glad I got to see this first hand and am very impressed. Like I said elsewhere, I'm very grateful for this time Downtown. It has changed my outlook and expectations for wherever I live for the rest of my life.

I've invited my family with a large group of kids to come live here in light of that, and they evolved because of living here too!

In the true sense of the word "awesome" ... it really is. So I am excited to see the entire county evolve by what we do here in its core.

As someone from San Diego I find it insane that you think the city is “tending toward car-free living.”

Even in 5-10 years when the trolley maybe hits the beach, how would you get to north county?. What if you’re in north park and you work in spring valley? How is San Diego tending toward making that more available?

I wish I could offer a more constructive response but it’s honestly very surprising to me that someone would ever make that claim.

As a programmer, we have this concept called "yagni" for "You Aren't Gonna Need It" which is based on this idea that you build only what you need: and I question the idea that living in one place and commuting to another is even going to be a thing as it has been historically.

The daily traffic through Downtown and Mission Valley, North 15, South 163, North 125, East 94, etc, then flipping directions later, is all the truly insane thing.

I don't think we "need" transit that anticipates bad choices of where to live relative to work, and Downtown is part of the World more than the Region. The world is changing this way. People used to live near rivers for water, and near animals for food, etc. Still applies if you can't work remotely.

Working remotely, living a more master-planned life, ride-sharing, etc... these are all options. But instead people prioritize this idea of me the individual in my individual car ought to be able to individually drive with all the other individual drivers wherever I want, and I disagree that is a design priority for a civil infrastructure.

So no, San Diego isn't making that more possible, and I applaud that. But when it comes to the original post and questions posed, it's still safe to say San Diego is tending toward car-free, especially Downtown, if you don't maintain backward compatibility with inappropriate circumstances like what you described. I've heard people say they commute to Point Loma from Descanso and we have a word for that: masochism.

Everyone commuting at all is a choice. The best case I can hear for not being car-free is the delivery business, contractors, etc... people who _actually need_ to be that kind of atypical. But to expect the civil infrastructure to give you the option to all rush certain areas at the same time every day, anywhere on the grid, is a bit old.

As far as getting to the beach, that's definitely an option depending on which beach obviously, but again, this isn't an amusement park so I'm not expecting the government to take me where I want to go, and I do have a car, largely for just driving at night all around the county, or for transporting animals, or making some of the trips you mention -- just never commute. And this is the type of thing San Diego has caused me to question. In the future if I wanted to just drive around, I might consider just using a ride-share rental vs. ride-share driver, etc. I never said public transportation itself was the answer, and to be car-free tending is within that definition: still planning to pay what you cost, not needing a huge system to accommodate me and do massive public works projects. I'd rather there be less of that honestly.

It's like how we all had this mental gap for a minute before people started having only a cellphone and no landline.

But now most of us haven't had a landline in a decade or more.

Though it's related to transportation, it's really similar to that. The modality is changing, not just the methodology.

This is a giveaway to developers plain and simple.

After living in Downtown San Diego numerous years now, I've begun actively considering not owning a car _except to transport animals outside the city_ and I feel like that has proactively made me a better person, by my environment.

I'd rethink the basic idea you need a car. I am. San Diego is rethinking that idea.

What is being given away? Someone has land, someone wants to build on it, someone wants to buy the result.

I would imagine at least a few users of that land will use nearby parking, which if it's free is a tragedy of commons case. Tenants of the building should not be allowed to register a car w/o a parking contract.

Even in the East Village parking is scarce, especially when there is some kind of large event downtown, which is often. Under current regulations landlords are required to provide parking for tenants, which as you correctly imply, means that street parking is relatively more available. Parking is bad now, this will just make it worse. It's bad for tenants and it's bad for local businesses. The only people it's good for are real estate developers who will shave some upfront costs by not building garages in their projects. This doesn't address the housing shortage because the set of developers who say "yeah we'd like to build a 200 unit tower, but nevermind because the law says we need to dig a parking garage" is empty.

Edit: What would be cool though is a legal right for tenants to sublet their parking space if they choose not to own a car.

All this sounds accurate but hinges on a few presumptions. I'm leaving the comments I made though I've definitely taken unwarranted down votes for the same reasons I was first resistant to all this myself. I made all your arguments once upon a time. And in Little Italy your case is better, but in Gaslamp it's mostly moot because San Diego is literally the booziest city in the world by some metrics, so people use ridesharing out of different sets of necessity than environment or parking. The police blitz the DUI.

The main presumption is negatively affecting business. Not usually. We're not primarily tourist aimed in East Village. Little Italy is more so and Gaslamp almost exclusively. Yes, Petco Park traffic and Balboa Park traffic is frequent, but that's a vibrant aspect of the neighborhood unless you aren't really part of it and are a commuter. I catch myself taking my own car a few city blocks and trying to get home is intense, but I ought not have been so stupid living near a beautiful stadium as a perk and feature of our home.

Businesses are shifting to catering to the buildings around them, and if those do have parking, we get our guests day passes up to a certain amount per month as part of our parking rent. It's just about forethought again.

If I were a tourist or unintegrated person yes I'd be disgruntled too. But understanding your environment takes work and adaptation. If you live downtown and work elsewhere that's your choice. Live elsewhere and drink or eat out downtown without ridesharing, same. No friends with parking? Bummer. But shops here aren't dying for outside business anymore. We patronize local spots ourselves and Downtown is a short walk from end to end. It's small.

Factoring in all the social changes coming in we're not measured by the old standards and stuffy norms. We drink a lot. We walk around. We ride places. We work around the corner or remotely or cowork. We smoke weed more often easily. We generally get whatever we want delivered. We are here, now, on purpose not as diversion or at an aloof distance. The city is an extension of our home.

I feel like you're in a bracket of time locked expiration and perhaps bitter? People should know their surroundings as a rule and don't blame the place for being itself.

Last, parking doesn't automatically get used if it's there and that's the point of all this. Developers sort benefit but they need to go deep anyway if the building is tall enough. It's a shift away from living Downtown for the look and not actually living here. People actually live here more now, as present and rooted individuals who genuinely love it. I hope you locate that sense.

*country not "world"

Also the arguments read more coherently in Mission Valley than Downtown, but again, not any more.

I also lived there, before Petco was built when Jack Murphy was Qualcomm. Basically a nightmare and not alive enough to justify the hassle because it's a consumer hub not an actual ecosystem.

But Pokez on 10 & E is a great example. The owner literally parks in metered or risky parking every day and caters to undriving locals. The lot next to him is usually reserved for USPS staff.

Tajima a few doors down, similar. Pet stores? Mattress place. These clearly cater to the thousands living above them. Quartyard, Basic, Tavern+Bowl, Kebab, grocery retailers. All local or Postmates / delivery geared. Atmosphere oriented, made for options beyond your own roof already setup for parties and nightlife very often. It's extremely competitive. Make Pizza is another great example. Totally geared toward the students of New School. Basically no parking. IDEA1 has entrances facing into the building and out, not phased by parking. A lot of pet focused business. Clearly local aimed.

East Village in general is secure in itself and when these new buildings on 11 & F, Park, 11 & G, etc all come in, the momentum is already tending this rooted and share economy direction. So basically, honestly who besides the disconnected types care?

People in East Village are by and large pretty happy with their situation and Downtown caters to our whim, our wishes, not just needs, but in a healthy relationship of not just myopic tourist diversion but real variety and home extension. The millenials are really attentive to feelings and aesthetics so let them be I say. And in thier wake comes a new pride in what we live in and don't need outside traffic to sustain. And the older generations level up accordingly as we realize the virtues of being so self centered that you create beautiful environments purely because you feel like it and not to create a draw... then you go ultra minimalist in every other area not related to at... and here we are.

So cancel the free parking. Problem solved.

San Francisco recently held a city council hearing on eliminating parking minimums city-wide. Houston has no parking requirements in its central business district. Mandatory parking is looking pretty dumb at this stage of the climate emergency.

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