The High Cost of Free Parking (2005)
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
It sucked.
Yes, living in the exact center of a bustling city should be efficient - you should be able to walk everywhere for all your needs and it should be efficient.
But the reality was that you couldn't and it wasn't. It took a tremendous toll on your time and the effort to live life was higher.
I think the way people lived a decent life walking and taking public transportation was to live a smaller life, and put up with the inefficiency of slower transportation and more limited choices of jobs to have, places to shop and things to do.
Am I wrong? Do I not understand? Has anyone moved from a semi-dense area where just about anything was within a 10 minute drive, to a situation where they didn't use a car and still lived a decent efficient life?
Example?
Us in New York are going by fine taking the train or biking, and if we really need a car we call a cab or an Uber, and that we have to pay extra makes us really think if we need that car or is that just us being lazy.
I won't ever understand the joy of punting that bill of your joyrides to the next generation, I guess.
For instance, when I lived in Italy, we did have one car for our family of four. We used it to go see the in-laws and stay late at dinner when there were no public transit options to get home.
But we took the tram downtown with our small kids.
And I rode my bike to work often.
And my wife and I would go out on dates riding our bikes.
And I'd walk our kids to school.
And if we wanted to go hiking out in the hills, we'd drive.
So it wasn't so much about a zero-car lifestyle as a 'right tool for the job'.
What kind of crappy places did you live where having a car wasn't possible, yet there was no decent public transit?
Furthermore, living in the built-up suburbs of a large metro in the US, not much was within a 10 minute drive. Sure, the grocery store was, and some shitty chain restaurants, but that's about it. Everything else was much longer because of traffic.
What are you talking about, millions of people do it and live without cars in cities. I did it for years in Paris and it's not a "smaller life" — the main things that are smaller are your transportation budget and stress levels.
Just about everything within 10 minutes drive is a total fantasy in my experience. Whether you’re in the suburbs driving or walking in the urban centre. The only difference is that walking is much more pleasant.
That said, if you expand your time radius to 15 minutes, and allow the use of bikes and/or a good subway system, “just about everything” becomes very realistic.
I also have no interest in waiting around for a subway car. It’s nice to just hop into my car and get to my destination (most within 15 minutes of my home) and get back. I don’t have time to wait around or ride a bike in the rain.
The entire northern suburbs in my city have been designed around my “evil” car beliefs. It’s worked so well that our city population keeps declining and my area just keeps adding more and more houses and businesses.
You like your way, I’ll live mine.
I've lived without a car in London and San Francisco and it's been fantastic.
I lived without a car in Mountain View and it was pretty awful.
Not sure which cities the person you're replying to is talking about. I imagine a lot of American cities just suck without a car, even if they "have" public transportation.
I think the only way to think objectively about this sort of thing is with a very careful analytical framework. Think about the amenities you need, and how you acquire them, and then really -measure-, rather than just "think back" about the burden of acquiring them. Not many people live 10 minutes from their work, for instance. Google thinks the average is just under a half hour each way.
If you try to analyze the number of jobs within <x minutes> of a particular domicile, it's my expectation that you'll find more, not fewer, options in urban setting. I reccomend https://app.traveltime.com/ as a way to tinker with your expectations there. Toss a 10 minute drive around your town. You might be surprised at how modest that span is.
According to Google Maps it's no more than 10 minutes to any edge of the city. It's also near stores and a rail station with service to Albuquerque.
While I lived north-east of there, most places I went to in Santa Fe were within a 10 minute drive of where I lived. I rarely went to the SW corner of town.
I worked from home.
I used to live in Sante Fe, New Mexico in the US. The city was founded in 1610. The city core for the first 300 years was of course walkable, but the last grocery store downtown closed around 2000 so it's a mile walk to the nearest store (biking isn't really an option in Santa Fe).
When I lived there the population was about 65K. I lived in a post-war suburb about a 30 minute walk from the center of town. When built it was on the outskirts of town, connected to downtown via a gravel road. It's all paved now, and a great place to live with a car as just about everything was a 10 minute drive away (though I would need to pay for parking downtown).
The city extends many miles away from the center of town. Going along Cerrillos Road you can see the effect of zoning changes over time. In the center parking is very tight. Further out there are stores with a few parking spots, until you get to the more modern big box stores surrounded by a sea of parking.
After I moved away I came back for a month and tried living without a car. I chose the very best rental location I could, about 13 minute walk to the center of town. While I managed, it required a lot of walking to get to the places I wanted to visit, "a tremendous toll on [my] time" as you say". Santa Fe does have a bus service, but running once per hour and only a few routes. I would not have lived without a car long-term.
I now live in Trollhättan, Sweden, population 60K. While people have lived here for a long time, it didn't become a city proper until a bit over 100 years ago. Sweden was a pretty poor country and it wasn't until the post-war era that people could afford cars. The modern city core was built before widespread car ownership. The apartment building I live in was built around 1960. It's literally on Main Street ("Storgatan" in Swedish). There are two grocery stores in the city center, plus a few others within a mile radius. Both kids (ages 4 and 6) walk to school, which are 3/4 mile away.
The city library, our medical center, the dentist, bank, and more are all within 1/2 mile. That option was not possible in Santa Fe. I had to do a 10 minute drive.
Sweden has become a wealthy country and many Swedes have a single family home with one or two cars. Trollhättan has a lot of suburbs which are not as central as where we live. But they do have frequent bus service with a good network. During peak time I think some of the lines run at 10 minute headways. The regular public busses are also used to carry kids to/from school - Sweden doesn't have dedicated school busses.
We also have big box stores, about 3 miles from where I live, surrounded by a sea of parking. And I can see how it's drawing stores away from the center of town. But unlike Santa Fe, in Trollhättan I can get on the bus (2 blocks away), get a direct bus to the complex, and be dropped off in the middle of the complex area. And those stores are mostly side-by-side and walkable, not separate islands in the sea. See https://www.google.com/maps/place/Överby/@58.313516,12.29464... .
We've lived here now for 10 years, without a car, and I think it's a decent efficient life.
Genuinely curious, what makes biking not an option in Santa Fe?
These days, I love riding my bike everywhere. When I was living in southern Japan for a while, summers there were at least as hot as that summer in Tucson and just about maxed on the humidity. With more age and grit I still rode my bike everywhere, plus took weekend trips through the mountains of the island.
I think not everyone has the patience to build up this grit or, in some cases, might have medical conditions that prevent it. Heat stroke is a concern, as is just showing up places drenched in sweat. Also, looking at a bike lane map of Santa Fe, their infrastructure today is not great.
All this is to say, I think biking in Santa Fe would be an option, but for many it might not be convenient, safe, or desirable.
When I was there there was essentially no dedicated bike paths. You had to ride on the street, with not even a bike lane. It's a bit better now, with a bike path next to the RailRunner line.
There is a lot of gravel in town, with places where the gravel gets on the side of the road where people park, as when a dirt road or dirt driveway comes onto the road.
In my first few months of living in Santa Fe, I got driving off the road by someone cutting in front of me.
Checking now, it's gotten better. I lived around 601 28 W San Mateo Rd, Santa Fe, NM 87505, USA and worked 309 Johnson St, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA (the apartments have gone condo, and the company I worked for has long since gone bust).
Nowdays I would be able to take the rail trail to the Railyard, but then either bike with traffic or on the sidewalk the rest of the way.
Or I could bike along some busy streets, like take a bike lane on Galisteo into the center of town.
Neither are that appealing.
I certainly know people did bike there, but that does not mean I felt comfortable doing so, even after 10 years of often using a bike for errands in Tallahassee, FL, Urbana/Champaign, IL, and Mountain View, CA.
People who live far away from metro/train stations (where parking is actually affordable, or free if they live in a house with a personal garage) usually just drive to the station and then board a train when commuting. Taking the train is faster than the car.
When I am a car-bound suburbanite, I instead organize trips once or twice a week to the grocery store, where I load up on supplies; I maybe drive to meet someone and go out to eat on one day of the weekend; and otherwise I sit in my house, until I plan an "outing". In general, suburban life seems to require more intention and planning for all the little things, but it makes some big things easier, like "I need to go buy a sofa".
In the urban environment, I save money on a car, but spend more on rent. And dining/entertainment can be cheaper -- it varies -- but I consume more of it.
Life just adapts to whatever environment it finds itself in.
America has paid a steep price for parking:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36197206
The force that shapes everything around us: Parking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36758355
Parking Laws Are Strangling America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUNXFHpUhu8
Austin Preparing To End Parking Mandates Citywide in 2023: https://austin.towers.net/austin-preparing-to-end-parking-ma...
I don't see a meaningful distinction between a consolidated parking lot and one that's distributed along the side of the road when it comes to tree and grass cover. For dense urban situations car parking buildings allow more than either surface lots or surface street parking.
Parking lots are mostly used only half of the day and empty otherwise, because typically people drive their car around in a few different parking lots. Streets are useful all day long.
I'm unconvinced removing street parking would allow for smaller streets because that space is also used for bus stops and snow management in winter. Chance are street parking don't take place in itself but merely maximize usage of space that would be used up by the streets anyway.
I don't think we need private parking buildings to park our private cars when not in use, ie, most of the time. We need fewer, always in use, public cars to drive on our already public roads.
someone in the chain just needs to bite the short term bullet to start a cascade of events that will make american cities more liveable
...and housing is too expensive because cities strongly resist increasing density. We have indeed found ourselves in a cycle of dysfunction.
They make it more difficult to visit multiple stops in one trip. Instead of parking downtown, going to an appointment and grabbing lunch I have to move my car in between those trips, generating more emissions and waste.
Sounds like they could make them much smaller
> They make it more difficult to visit multiple stops in one trip. Instead of parking downtown, going to an appointment and grabbing lunch I have to move my car in between those trips, generating more emissions and waste.
A general, private garage is an existing possible solution to this problem.
You're not really adressing the point of what they were saying. If they were smaller and utilised more efficiently, there would be at least some days where you shop up and its full, so you go somewhere else. Walmart want your money, so they're incentivised to have more parking lots than they'll ever need. Pushing everything into private lots only will exacerbate this problem
This is usually regulated by zoning laws, and Walmart (et al) have no say in the matter.
My neighborhood has less off-street parking than newer ones. Which means all the extra parking goes on the street. The streets are narrow, parking makes them safer by forcing cars to share a single lane. There is no conflict with bikes because the cars are going slowly. There are other neighborhood nearby that have too much street parking and should probably charge more for parking passes.
Many American cities on the other hand have grown up with the car, with wide streets dividing neighborhoods, and essential facilities scattered far away from one another. Reducing car usage in a typical American city (not downtown Manhattan) is not just a matter of banning cars or replacing them with public transportation. The city itself needs to be redesigned in a more compact way. Property values will skyrocket in the CBD, and crash everywhere else.
Europe picked up on this trend too a little delayed in many places, but luckily not to the same degree and realized the bad direction more quickly.
Walking anywhere in the older areas is easy, though a lot of the amenities like mom and pop stores are now gone. Walking anywhere in the newer areas is pretty much impossible. The streets don’t connect and there is nowhere to walk to.
It would be easy to build new suburbs like this but without the location. Or add features to existing suburbs.
Although Ford had taken great care to blend into Earth society, he had "skimped a bit on his preparatory research," and thought that the name "Ford Prefect" would be "nicely inconspicuous." The Ford Prefect was a popular British car manufactured from 1938 to 1961, and Adams later clarified in an interview that Ford "had simply mistaken the dominant life form" of Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Prefect_(character)
Happily, we eliminated parking minimums here in Bend, Oregon and civilization has not collapsed. Leaving things to the market is actually a pretty incrementalist reform. Plenty of developers continue to provide parking because they figure their customers want it. But not all of them... And that means we can gradually adapt to different needs over time.