Parking reform legalized most of the new homes in Buffalo and Seattle (2023)
sightline.org
sightline.org
A quick look on real estate websites [0] suggests you can buy land in San Francisco quite central for $10k-15k per square meter.
If we take the value of the service, parking prices for San Francisco [1] are as high as $7/h and as low as free (at night).
Unless I looked in all the wrong places or my math needs triple checking, the numbers you're very adamant about look wildly misaligned with reality even for peaks, let alone for average or median. That doesn't bode well at all for any opinion based on them. And it encourages the other side of the conversation to come with equally unrealistic claims about the cost and impact of "my biking lanes".
In your top comment you recommended the Not Just Bikes YouTube channel. But it either didn't correct these views or worse, it encouraged them. Not a stellar recommendation.
[0] Zillow but the URL us ungodly long. Easy to check it by yourself though.
Not even getting into the whole "subsidized parking" gem, as if the normal price is "peak price" or else it's subsidized. This kind of ludicrous statements undermine any point one might try to make along side. Curious about their opinion on their own heavily subsidized bicycle, down from the normal price of $500k [0].
Bonus, there are more places to park for under $10/h in Manhattan than there are for $50 [1].
I don’t know exactly what a fully unsubsidized cost of parking is, but I’m not using hyperbole. It’s closer to $10-20/h than the ridiculously low prices people have grown accustomed to.
That's why I am asking, is really car equal to cancer? Or is it this "I cannot see other people's needs if they are different than mine" or maybe "I will use law to ban other people from thinking otherwise" attitude?
Having said that, given good cycling infrastructure, chances are you could either bring your kids along on a cargo bike [1] or they could just ride there themselves [2].
Here's how the needs of drivers usually work: I want to live outside the city center, therefore I create the need to drive because I chose to live away from transit. This problem is mostly self inflicted out of a privilege of choice. So I am not particularly empathetic towards it.
As far as using laws to ban natural human behaviour, what are your thoughts on: jaywalking? pedestrians crossing against red lights when there is no car traffic in sight? people walking on the shoulder of highways (sometimes the only infrastructure available)? Mandatory use of sidewalks? Parking minimums when building a house? There are laws governing all of these in the US (and some apply in Europe too) which ban the free movement of pedestrians. If cars are so dangerous that we have to enforce laws around simply walking in order to maintain safety, there's something wrong.
This sounds more like a projection than actual fact. Do you seriously believe that motorists generally believe that Hawaii is inaccessible? Puerto Rico? England? Japan? China? Or do you mean on a smaller scale - ski slope tops, trails, parks, and other pedistrian-only areas in the cities? How did you figure this?
These are my observations as a pedestrian, cyclist, and motorist.
And it should be emotional because a commute isn't just about efficiency. One spends a sizeable portion of their life commuting. The human aspect of it can't be ignored. The depressing feeling you get while standing in the middle of a Walmart parking lot is real. At least it was for me.
There is almost a complete lack of anything that feels commercial mixing with anything that feels residential, beyond especially designated spaces, usually the very center of town.
These suburbs are not conventionally pretty, certainly not in the way downtown Amsterdam, Haarlem, or Leiden are. They are both monotonous and discordant, because the Dutch have perfected an architectural style of varied repetition. They will build twenty to fifty of the exact same weird thing, then next door build a hundred to two hundred of a very different weird thing.
While they can have very clashing outward appearances, they are united in a utilitarian practicality with a focus on providing almost everyone an elementary apartment.
The result of this is that there are two very different urban Netherlands — the older downtowns, with exquisite row homes along canals, medieval churches, cafe-heavy central squares that are frozen into place by historical preservation, and jammed with tourists, and then there are the outer rings of bizarre Lego-like perfunctory two-story apartment complexes, with few if any shops, beyond an Aldi, a hair saloon, a weed store, and maybe a bike-repair stand.
https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-the-netherlan... (paywalled, alas)
The thing is that US cities and suburbs are much worse. Let me quote the title of article
> Walking the Netherlands: From Amsterdam to The Hague
Is walking something you can do in the US except in some rare exceptions? There are suburbs in the US i.e. residential ONLY places where there aren't any side walks. And the closest grocery store may be 10-15 minutes away by car. Doesn't that feel suffocating to have a home but not be allowed to walk out on your own two feet?
Depends on where you live
> And the closest grocery store may be 10-15 minutes away by car.
For some people, that's a feature and not a bug. Anecdote - I had a colleague who used to commute from nearby hills because he wanted a house where he can't even see his neighbors.
> Doesn't that feel suffocating to have a home but not be allowed to walk out on your own two feet?
Again, different strokes for different folks. There should be different kind of options catering to different tastes. You want density and walkable cities? Go live in NYC or Boston. You want complete rural wilderness where you don't have to see another fellow human being if you don't want to? There is Alaska or mountain West. You want a big house with a yard in a community where everyone is of the same class and all the daily needs are met (grocery, gas, schools, parks), while being close to a major city to tap into urban amenities (eg. airport)? Go live in a generic suburbia.
Sure, but that's not a suburb.
Depends. Between kindergarten and eighth grade, I caught the school bus for part of sixth grade, otherwise walked or biked. Ninth grade on, I was where the schools were farther away, but I could walk to stores of various sorts.
I don't use a car much these days, though I get to work more by bus than by walking.
This, though:
>there are two very different urban Netherlands the older downtowns [...] jammed with tourists, and then there are the outer rings of bizarre Lego-like perfunctory two-story apartment complexes, with few if any shops, beyond an Aldi, a hair saloon, a weed store, and maybe a bike-repair stand."
is taken to such an extreme I would almost call it a lie. Firstly, there are a lot of beautiful inner cities (and villages) not inundated by tourists. Leiden, which he mentions and is one of the most beautiful cities in the Netherlands, sees very little tourists (I've lived there for 10 years). Secondly, I do not recognize his description of the outer rings at all. They may very well exist as described, but I don't know them. These suburbs are bland an boring, sure, but there's plenty of variety in building-types to be found and there usually are pleny of shops within walking/biking distance.
Rewatch the videos, you'll note you can only enjoy many of the changes if you're an advid year round cyclist who lives in a flatish city with nice weather (and who doesn't need anything too far away, most of the time). Buses need roads. Not everyone can cycle, not even with (very, very expensive, even on the low end) ebikes.
Is that the same everywhere in the country or even the city? No. But it's common enough that you'll see parents carrying their kids around in cargo bikes practically anywhere in the country.
P.S. I was generalizing when I said everything's within a 10 minute bike ride to account for all people who live along the same radius as I do. For me personally, everything's available within a 5 minute *walk* - grocery stores, cafes, restaurants, bars, gym, park, playgrounds, kindergartens, schools, train station, doctor, dentist.
Really his channel should be called “not just cars.” Bikes are just one option he likes as an alternative.
> advid year round cyclist
So all the women, children, and parents doing utility trips each day on their $50 bikes in the Netherlands are "avid cyclists". Got it.
> flatish city
Bikes have had gears for a looong time. Ebikes are nice too.
> with nice weather
Because the Netherlands is known for its excellent weather? Anyhow, public transport is needed too.
> and who doesn't need anything too far away, most of the time
Yes, we're talking about cities here. Also, trains. Small trains are fun too (trams).
> Buses need roads.
...yes. Thankfully nobody's proposing removing roads.
> Not everyone can cycle
Nobody says they can and not everyone can drive either (:O). In fact, more people can cycle than drive, funny that.
> (very, very expensive, even on the low end) ebikes
Show me a calculation that results in ebikes being in any way expensive compared to a car. In any case, arguing about the expense of biking is absolutely hilarious when you can get a perfectly adequate commuter bike for $50.
Nobody's saying cycling is the miracle solution that works for every person in every situation, everywhere. What they are saying is transportation in dense cities must be efficient and the only way to achieve that is a combination of walkability, cyclability, and public transport. Oh, and you can just use a car if you'd like to, just prepare to pay for the burden you place on others by doing so.
See his video "Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
See also Oh The Urbanity!'s various videos on the topic:
* "Winter Isn't a Good Argument Against Bike Lanes": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6153xn_seac
* "Bike Lane Haters Are Wrong About Winter": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdtR3T2Pg4s
* "What Biking in the Winter is Really Like": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sokHu9bhpn8
* "2,000 People Told Us Their Biggest Winter Cycling Challenges": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXETjLqHJmA
And most recent (April 2024), "How Winter Cycling Finally Clicked for Us":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7vickY3yG0
Of course ones doesn't necessarily have to cycle 100% of the time either: do it when you feel most comfortable with it.
Because at the core of it, giving my kids freedom and independence and not having a driver kill them shouldn't require moving to a tiny country below sea level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor...
Anecdotally, even though the Netherlands and my home country of the UK are just next to each other on the ranking of motor vehicle per capita (40th and 37th), during a stay in Limburg I felt that the difference was much more stark. I saw far fewer people driving than I would have done in an equivalent area of Britain. I wonder if that means that the average Dutchman is likely to have a car, but also uses it less frequently than car users in other countries. That might partly account for the low fatality rate.
https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023...
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-fatality-data-show...
Statistics paint a different picture.
"Mobility on Dutch roads has grown continuously since the 1950s and now exceeds 200 billion km travelled per year. With a population of 16.8 million people, this comes down to an average of 32 kilometres (20 mi) per person per day" [1]
Avg UK car mileage per day in 2022 was 18[2]. Given cars are fewer than people, per capita mileage driven will be even lower.
That is also reflect in safety stats. Netherlands has death rates of 3.8/100K people, 4.7/1B vehicle-km. For UK, those numbers are 2.9 and 3.8 respectively [3]. So Netherlands just seems to have a reputation divergent from the actual reality? (I mean, no one talks about how awesome UK is for biking or public transport).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_transport_in_the_Netherla...
[2] https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-car...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
I actually don't think the Netherlands is "good" really, just that almost everywhere else is hellishly bad.
That's life.
It doesn't help to mix your life choices with planning choices as one emotional mass. That's why the videos need to be viewed with that in mind.
But I agree with you in some extent. I prefer his earlier videos because he's become very undiplomatic and I think he's alienating newer watchers.
Here's another article from Catie on some possibilities opening up in Oregon now that we did parking reform ourselves: https://www.sightline.org/2023/06/30/parking-mandates-are-va...
I was proud to speak in favor of my city's implementation of this when it went through city council.
Most of the new housing built may have been illegal under previous parking rules, but it doesn't logically follow that similar housing couldn't have been built without the parking rules change, just that it's cheaper to build without it.
The article/quotes acknowledge this,
> “It’s impossible, really, to tie a specific code change to changes in the market,” explained Brennan Staley, a strategic advisor for Seattle’s Office of Planning and Community Development. Other local regulations, housing prices, and international finance markets all play a part in the real estate market. Michael Hubner, who works on long range planning in Seattle, agreed: “It’s very difficult to point to a causal relationship.”
and also note that off street parking is still present in the majority of new housing
> In both cities, the majority of new buildings still included off-street parking voluntarily
Yes, you can build anything with an infinite budget. In practice, budgets aren't infinite and increasing costs means fewer projects will get built.
Cost is a very real and important constraint. You can't just throw more money at a problem if the problem is that you cannot profitably provide a good at a price that is affordable. You cannot change the price the market will bear, but you can cut your costs by lobbying your city government to cut parking minimums.
Having an exception process seems like a very logical approach to rolling back parking mandates gradually. I've seen both massive lots with no cars (clearly an outdated mandate in effect) as well as brand new suburban neighborhoods inundated with packed street parking (clearly a miss by the builder). It feels to me like rolling these rules back thoughtfully will be important to avoid companies from dropping parking from new low income housing that may legitimately need it.
Meaning, if you are shopping around for housing, you can choose housing with more parking. Which means that to compete with it, housing with less parking will have to compete in other ways, like, say, lower prices. Which is more important than automobile storage in a lot of places with a housing shortage and the consequent skyrocketing prices.
I wrote up something using that corny professor and the rocks analogy: https://bendyimby.com/2022/05/11/cities-are-for-people/
I've started to notice that all the car problems are just in dense cities: Nowhere for kids to play, noise, lack of parking, cost, safety, etc etc.
None of those issues exist in suburbs and rural.
(PS. They don't need more parking just because they have larger units.)
Once the city is dense enough then it's all mass transit. If it's not dense you use cars and there is no trouble with them. It's those cities right in the middle that have all the problems.
Leave the density alone and let people move to whichever they like better.
Just be extra cautious about the medium density cities.
Suburbs are built on externalities.
Cars are not that expensive.
> A kid trying to get to a friend's house?
Hardly a problem - just bike there. Just how far apart do you think the houses are?
> Anyone trying to walk or bike anywhere?
It's wonderful!! Have you ever actually been in one? There's basically no traffic, you have lovely quiet streets.
> Traffic jams?
Non-existent.
> Car deaths and accidents?
Very very few, it's just not that dense, so the accident rates are dramatically lower.
> Architecture centered around parking lots?
That's cities, not suburbs.
> Runoff filled with tire and brake runoff?
Again, that's cities, not suburbs. Suburbs don't have much car traffic.
> Wildlife deaths and habitat destruction?
Almost none - the houses are embedded in nature.
> Climate change?
Cities cause much more of that.
> A massive military budget to ensure cheap oil prices?
Yah, that's not what it's for. And cheap energy is used for a lot more than transportation.
> Suburbs are built on externalities.
You talk like someone who's never actually lived in one.
That seems like a miss by the city planners, not the builder.
So parking mandates are also a form of (hidden) economic apartheid. If my city mandates say 2 spaces per apartment, it's intrinsically reducing housing stock for "poor people" - hence "more exclusive neighborhoods."
Which sounds good, except that the services needed (often done by the poor) get hard to supply.
Cynical me suggests that selective zoning creates 'pockets of poor' - but pragmatically me points out this is good for clustering car-alternatives making them more effective.
On balance I think it's a win - and frankly is good for everyone.
This book has a concise and very readable history of zoning in the US:
https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801479878/zone... has a deeper dive into the history of zoning here compared with other countries.
Quite a lot of lower income workers can't afford to commute by car. Breaking that "need" relation is the #1 priority for people trying to design lower-car cities.
In my country we have maximum parking requirement, not minimum.
They simply found that you have have a bit less parking than what the code required if you implement it in a way where you need an exception - presumably to show that in this case you don't need it.
The code is a bit of a blunt instrument and giving some flexibility to it seems logical. Getting rid entirely of parking minimums does not.
Also nowhere in this do I see a survey of residents to see how they like living in these lower-parking homes. People might be very very annoyed, but just deal with it because they have no other good option.
(Or whatever scenario--don't get hung up on the details of that specific one. The general concern is that new construction may lean on a shared resource to keep its own costs down.)
Then someone says "Why should I pay for a parking spot or a garage? I'll just park on-street by my neighbor!"
That only works if a couple people do it. Once too many do it you have unhappy residents - they paid for their off-street spot but the other guy didn't!
[yes I realize that’s a change to 70+ years of urban design and can’t happen ovrrnight]
When a lot of people talk about “free” parking I think they’re mostly lumping those in. Resident parking spots are certainly an oversubscribed common resource in many areas.
What usually happens is that parking will be cheap enough to make dedicated parking structures commercially unviable. But even that cheap enough price will be too expensive for some people that they decide to get rid of their cars instead.
The market can't solve this because the housing developer wants to maximize profit. Building less parking allows them to squeeze in more units, thus more profit. So that's what they will do.
In an idealized world people would be entirely rational and not go live there if they need a car and can't park. But us people tend to push off problems, so it is common to think we'll move in and just park on the street somewhere, we'll figure it out. Except everyone in that development was thinking the same thing and when everyone moves in after the units get built, there's a big problem.
Having lived in such an area, it is obvious how unpleasant it becomes for everyone. Fistfights over parking, keyed cars, etc. But the builder took their profit so it was a win for them.
Parking minimums are a reaction to this problem.
It's a tragedy of the commons issue, which is something the free market is known not to be able to handle.
Paying for parking only works in places where you park temporarily and then move elsewhere, you can't exactly add meters in front of people's homes, unless, I suppose every house had off street parking?
I guess that's one way to have a city. Something similar is done by making overnight street parking illegal - I've seen that a lot, and then yes, the free market will make sure every house has its own parking area.
It's hard on visitors though.
Parking minimums are actually the least bad option from all of those.
Regardless, the consideration needs to take into account that requiring parking minimums increases cost to develop and decreases density, making it harder to live without a car. If it were a given that everyone has a car and drives it everywhere, I think indeed it probably does make sense to have (reasonable) parking minimums and I think it's clear that parking minimums do certainly make for ample parking. But in today's world where we are trying to shift away from car primacy in cities because they are dangerous and polluting and scale poorly, the goal shifts from "make there be enough parking" to "make it easy to get around the city" and for that goal, parking minimums have proven to be ineffective.
Serious question: why not?
I loathe the idea, personally, of yet more rent, but I'm having a tough time refuting the parent comment myself.
You're trying to avoid people using on-street because they didn't build off-street. But even if a minimum build is required, it seems to me that people would still prefer utilizing the on-street parking? As it is free, assuming the landlord charges for off-street, and why wouldn't the landlord charge? (Mine does; that's a $70/mo incentive to park on-street. Our garage is, unsurprisingly, mostly empty.)
(The whole thing seems horridly regressive, given the requirement for transportation; even though I'm technically in a major megalopolis, I cannot cut a car from my life for a variety of reasons which amount to "sufficient services are not accessible by public transit". I prefer public transit, when I can, but I cannot 100% of the time.
Also, sometimes travel, and renting is absurdly expensive.)
(Like, ultimately, the landlord is never going to utilize the build spaces fully if he believes that an increased price will fetch more $ overall, even if some spaces are then unused. Or worse, we get price discrimination, possibly due to information asymmetry in the pricing. Those forced out are probably then using on-street.)
I anticipated your question and answered it in my next paragraph. You can do it if you want, but you have to start the city that way. Instead of money you do it with overnight parking restrictions, it ends up the same.
Personally I find it to be a worse solution. And the rest of your message talks about some of the reasons why.
Parking minimums are just better.
Then again, why should there be sidewalks. Lot of money to be saved if those were up to free market as well...