Minneapolis Moves to Eliminate Mandatory Parking
usa.streetsblog.org
usa.streetsblog.org
The closest analogy is a city requiring that all housing units contain at least 2 bedrooms, then eliminating that requirement. 2 bedrooms will still be available and, if they’re valued, will appreciate and then more will be built.
If buyers pay a higher premium for parking than for other uses of that square footage and expense, developers will still build parking. This is the city accepting that the city isn’t the best entity to decide how valuable parking spaces are; buyers are.
Where are people going to park their cars if parking is not mandatory for all these triplexes being built? There won't be enough space on the street and you and I both know that developers will save costs by simply not building parking for low or medium income housing projects.
So then you've got people who can't own a car because they have no where to keep it, who are then reliant on the bus system to get to work.
Great,if the bus goes from your house to where you are working. Too bad it doesnt most of the time.
This is a huge problem right now in north Minneapolis: there aren't a lot of good bus routes running through the area that go to where the jobs are and the people who live there that can't afford cars therefore don't have access to good employment.
Sure, just do more routes, right?
There is already a shortage of bus drivers in Minneapolis and the transit system is hemorrhaging money. How are we gonna pay for it?
Or maybe build more train lines?
We've already been planning the new sw metro line for a decade and surprise surprise it's still not built.
The 2040 plan is not a good solution to the reality of the Minneapolis metro area's problems at all.
The excess of parking subsidizes driving leading to more congestion, less density, and less utilization of public transportation.
People simply aren't that stupid when it comes to their self interest. If transportation options suck somewhere, then property/rent values go down. This isn't libertarian pipe-dream economics, this is basic direct effects.
If anything, it gives developers the choice between building the parking, or lobbying for better bus service, etc. Perhaps if parking wasn't so absurdly subsidized, the bus system would improve markedly?
http://www.startribune.com/declining-metro-transit-ridership...
In non-mandatory parking garages.
Minneapolis gets very cold in the winter. Walking won't be pleasant in the open.
Very few people that work in Minneapolis actually live in Minneapolis.
Essentially this is just the city of Minneapolis making it harder for people to get to work. This will result in a decrease in companies based in Minneapolis without affecting the overall number of companies in the Metro Area.
For example, 3M is based in the Metro Area but their campus is not in Minneapolis.
Medtronic is based in the Metro Area but their campus is not in Minneapolis.
Boston Scientific is based in the Metro Area but their campus is not in Minneapolis.
Overall this is a short sighted move by the city of Minneapolis that will have lots of negative consequences and very few benefits.
I think this matters a lot more for, say, my neighborhood in SE (down by Minnehaha Park), which is almost exclusively single-family, and a pretty expensive place to live. A lot of 100 year old bungalows are getting torn down and replaced by ugly oversized single-family houses. I'd rather see some small apartment buildings to get more density, but it won't happen if there are strong parking restrictions.
I'm pretty sure the idea is actually the exact opposite. Mandatory parking is expensive, this drives up the cost of housing. 2040 is about reducing the costs of housing and not making the same mistakes that San Francisco continues to make every day. 2040 is about getting ahead of NIMYism and making sure there is housing that is affordable inside the city so people don't have to drive from the suburbs.
>very few people actually live in downtown minneapolis.
This way people can live closer to work and not have to drive cars. Its more sustainable, its better for the environment, its better for people. So the idea is to change Minneapolis into a city where people do live downtown again.
> a commuter city
The result of terrible city planning starting in the mid century that is going to be expensive and difficult to undo. 2040 is a good plan that will fix this.
Parking is horrendous in Minneapolis. I moved away and now live in rural MN but take the bus into the city. It is far less stressful than driving and then wasting time trying to find a place to park. Especially as the surface lots are sold off to build apartments and condos. The parking situation will only get worse.
If it weren't for MetroTransit, etc., building massive Park&Ride lots in the far suburbs, many of us would refuse to even work in the cities, likely causing an outflux of talent to better areas.
I am happy to report that San Francisco recently voted to eliminate minimum parking requirements:
http://www.sfexaminer.com/minimum-parking-requirements-way-s...
How will they get to work? How will they get to other places?
Seems pretty unrealistic to think that a large number of people will be able to arrange their lives to not need a car at all. And Minneapolis winters? Forget walking/biking unless you like frostbite.
Even if there's good mass transit, that doesn't go everywhere, all the time.
I can imagine living in a situation where I didn't need a car for my daily trip to work. I've done it in Chicago. But I can't imagine not having a car at all. It would just be too inconvenient. And if I own a car, I need to be able to park it somewhere. And if that arrangement is too expensive or impossible downtown, I will live in the suburbs.
Or the result of people that want a yard and a house that isn't 4ft from their neighbor.
No plan is going to fix the fact that not everyone wants to live downtown.
Minneapolis proper needs more livable core communities that aren't dominated by cars and commuters. I'm glad they are taking these steps because even though you are right that it makes the status quo more difficult in some ways, the status quo is not good and makes Minneapolis much less attractive long run.
Ah yes, much like those transit-friendly, job-deficient cities of NYC, Boston, and SF.
Cities are cities. They shouldn't be suburbs but bigger, and trying to make them that way just causes problems.
Even if what you say is true, a big reason why everyone has to drive is because of policies -- like, say, mandatory parking -- that favor driving at the expensive of transit, biking, and walking. Look at cities where people use transit, and a big part of that is that they usually don't take up enormous swathes of space with parking and huge roads or stroads everywhere. Leaving those policies in place just prolongs the problem.
oh you mean all those non-existent metro transit buses and trains that run out to Plymouth? and the ones that run to Apple Valley? and the ones that go out to Wisconsin? and Roseville? and South St. Paul? and Rodgers? and Orono? and Wayzata? and Edina? and Golden Valley? and the literally dozens of other cities that are in the Metro Area?
the cities that everyone actually lives in all have very limited bus routes (sometimes only 2 trips per day: one in the morning and one in the evening) and the 2 existing train lines and the 1 proposed train line simply do not go there.
Buses and trains are worthless for the majority of people who work in Minneapolis because they don't run any where near where the people are living!
Then they don't have a say in what happens in Minneapolis. You're literally arguing against yourself.