[HN Gopher] Parking lots as economic drains
___________________________________________________________________
Parking lots as economic drains
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 103 points
Date : 2026-02-02 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (progressandpoverty.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (progressandpoverty.substack.com)
| rimbo789 wrote:
| Cars, and in particular, parking, kills cities. Parking is sponge
| that sucks all the life out of places.
|
| The High Cost of Free Parking is an incredible book that shows
| exactly how awful parking has been for society.
| okr wrote:
| Not in my city. Business is all dying, everyone avoids to go to
| the centre, everywhere the city fights cars, handy man charge
| extra just for comings, nah, it's basically gated communities
| now, well, they can have it, but life happens somewhere else
| then, where it can expand freely.
| starsep wrote:
| What is your city? What anti-car policies were implemented?
| Did city offer viable altenatives to driving?
| rimbo789 wrote:
| Cars do not allow life to happen or expand freely. Cars are
| prison, trapping people and communities in congestion.
|
| Cars are very very very dangerous devices.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > Cars, and in particular, parking, kills cities. Parking is
| sponge that sucks all the life out of places.
|
| What's your solution to it then?
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Mixed-use developments, walkable neighborhoods. When you make
| it easy to walk or bike to any place people need to go,
| parking is not necessary. Plenty of cities do it just fine,
| just not in the US.
|
| Then invest in public transit (trains, mainly) for whatever
| _isn 't_ within walking distance.
| rimbo789 wrote:
| If you built for cars you get traffic and congestion: if you
| built for people (transit, bike lanes, pedestrianization) you
| will get community
|
| Also ban free parking
| fwip wrote:
| Related: there's currently a bill in the NYS legislature which
| would allow cities to switch partly to a land-value tax. This is
| a pretty good local article about it:
| https://centralcurrent.org/how-a-state-bill-with-support-fro...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Parking minimums prevent developers from free-loading on a
| commons, that commons being street parking.
|
| So eliminating parking minimums by themselves will create nasty
| side effects.
|
| But of course the correct answer to tragedy of the commons is
| pricing -- price the street parking appropriately and it won't be
| abused so you won't need worse solutions like parking minimums.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| Or just do what the Japanese do - remove unlimited (and
| overnight) on-street parking in urban areas and require anyone
| owning a car to prove they have a private parking spot to house
| it
| stronglikedan wrote:
| That's pretty drastic, and would probably only be the best
| alternative on a densely packed island. Seems like overkill
| for any other situation.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Price parking appropriately and make people pay for it. If
| land is cheap, parking is cheap, so not a big deal. If land
| is expensive, then no freeloading on the streets, which can
| be put to better use anyways (sidewalks, bike lanes,
| outdoor cafes etc...)
| blell wrote:
| What do you mean freeloading? Do you know how many taxes
| do you pay to have a vehicle, gas, etc?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You perhaps pay tens of dollars per month. Is that enough
| to fully cover all externalized costs of owning that
| vehicle? No.
| blell wrote:
| The government says yes. In fact, knowing the government,
| they probably get a huge surplus from my taxes. What
| makes you say no?
| hamdingers wrote:
| You should look up how your local government pays for the
| kinds of local roads you can park on.
|
| If you live in the US, there's a very good chance that's
| coming from property and sales tax, not any tax on your
| vehicle.
| triceratops wrote:
| You're leaving your property on public land. How much
| would that land rent for?
| hamdingers wrote:
| > probably only be the best alternative on a densely packed
| island
|
| So Manhattan or the San Francisco Peninsula?
|
| I suspect the refusal to kowtow to car owners and the
| density are interrelated. Tokyo is more dense, in (small?)
| part, because there is far less space consumed by inanimate
| appliances.
| newsclues wrote:
| But I have a bike and use public transit and don't want parking
| driving up my cost of housing.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You also don't want the streets you bike on to be clogged up
| with cars parking legally, parking illegally and circling the
| block continuously looking for parking.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Right, which is why the _actual_ solution is mixed use
| development and a robust public transit system.
|
| Ultimately this is a geometry problem. Cars are by _far_
| the least space-efficient method of transporting people;
| eventually your roads just can 't accommodate any more
| traffic. If there's enough demand to visit a given area
| then anything that doesn't minimize cars will just make
| things worse.
| mustyoshi wrote:
| Cars are the most time efficient though, assuming you can
| find parking relatively quick.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Not the case as density increases: once roads reach their
| capacity, space inefficiency quickly becomes time
| inefficiency. That's why some cities have started
| introducing congestion pricing.
| scottious wrote:
| Depends on the trip. I've timed many trips bike vs. car
| in my city. Bike is usually faster (or very similar time)
| because the average speed through a city is actually
| pretty slow. There's a lot of "hurry up and wait" with
| cars (rush to get to the next red light) and on my bike
| I'm frequently passing long lines of cars stopped at
| lights.
|
| And parking is a time sink. There's a place in my city
| that has huge parking garages with lots of parking but
| you still have to drive through a few levels of the
| garage, park, and then walk back down a few flights of
| stairs, then walk to your destination. I just park my
| bike right outside of my destination with the wheel lock.
| Street parking is always awful in populated cities, and I
| never have to worry about it. I always park right at my
| destination, where ever it is.
|
| In suburbia, cars are faster because the average distance
| per trip is a lot longer. But it's ironic that the reason
| why the average distance is longer is BECAUSE it was
| built for cars so everything gets spread out! Cars are a
| solution to a problem that they created.
| bombcar wrote:
| > Cars are by far the least space-efficient method of
| transporting people
|
| Not true in practice even if true in theory; in many
| places the average full-size bus contains fewer people
| than would fit in a minivan.
|
| The problem is you need 5-10 years of reliable public
| transit in an area before non-transit users begin to
| convert (or transit users begin to move in).
| hamdingers wrote:
| If you myopically look at the instantaneous usage of
| infrastructure then you could argue that most roads are
| pointless because they are, on average, empty.
|
| The bus might have less than 5 people on it at any given
| moment you observe, but over its >2 hour route it
| transports dozens or hundreds of people between stops.
| wpm wrote:
| They already are, and the more clogged the streets are the
| slower the cars are moving, so the safer it is for me. So
| actually, I don't mind.
| benced wrote:
| If a developer builds in a way such that the demand for street
| parking outstrips supply, the street parking still has a cost,
| that cost is just expressed in _time_ to find a spot, not
| dollars like you 're suggesting. People unwilling to pay that
| time cost will find paid lots or not have a car (which is
| basically the dynamic in my building: people either pay $450 a
| month for a spot or they spend 10-15 minutes looking for a free
| street spot).
|
| In practice, of course, existing residents feel entitled to
| "their" street parking and get mad when a new building with new
| people contending for those spots is built but there's no
| logical reason to preference residents who have previously
| lived there. This is where politics rears its head though.
| nickff wrote:
| I completely agree with your comment, but would also like to
| add that many cities have restricted or stopped permitting
| the construction of above-surface parkades, further
| distorting the market.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _People unwilling to pay that time cost will find paid lots
| or not have a car_
|
| If we're talking about commercial properties and zones,
| people unwilling to pay that time cost just won't come to the
| area.
| benced wrote:
| This is correct which will incentivize the constructions of
| private lots etc (assuming the people you mentioned value
| their time more than the $ those lots cost). I don't see
| any reason you can't trust markets to address the supply of
| a commodity product.
| wpm wrote:
| Exactly, it's not like a Target going up in an area with
| no parking minimums is going to be like "great our
| massive big box store won't need any parking!" They're
| just going to be incentivized to build _enough_ parking
| to fill their store to levels they expect based on the
| massive amount of data they have, and not just some gut-
| feeling BS from the 60s in the parking minimums
| regulations "department store - 20 spots per 100sqft" or
| some bullshit.
| kec wrote:
| Even if on street parking were metered consistently and priced
| appropriately that's too divorced from the developer & their
| incentives to solve this. Parking after the building is sold is
| the definition of not the developer's problem, which is part of
| the reason we have parking regulations to begin with.
|
| A better solution might be to mandate parking minimums (to
| ensure the property is actually useful / not encroaching on the
| street) but not allowing "open air" spots to count to the
| minimum, meaning an open lot gets you nothing, a 2 level garage
| counts for half the spots, etc. Maybe tack on some credits for
| proximity to public transit while we're at it.
| bluGill wrote:
| It is very much important to the developer - whoever buys the
| land wants to know that their employees and customers can get
| there. That means there needs to be enough parking, transit,
| or pedestrians. If it is in a car centrist area that won't
| buy if there isn't enough parking. Downtowns can get by with
| less parking only if there is great transit to bring people
| in. Developers are not stupid, they know that if there isn't
| enough parking property values go down.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is the root of the issue, which people often want to
| ignore - it's a class chicken'd egg problem.
|
| The "there is no parking at all" wonderlands can exist
| (even NOT counting artificial ones like Disneyland) - and
| the "everything is acres of parking and there's no street
| parking at all" also.
|
| The question is how you get from one extreme to another -
| in a way that does NOT require you to redevelop the entire
| city Simcity style, nor puts onerous costs such that all
| development is stifled.
|
| Part of it might be that if the parking lots/garages are
| _not_ heavily used, or not used much, they 'll "redevelop
| themselves" - but that likely requires making transit and
| other options _better_ which is difficult, expensive, and
| often politically unsound.
| ericmay wrote:
| Just a note - the parking minimums that are set themselves
| don't necessarily correspond to the number of units built in
| the best way. So by artificially setting them you can windup
| with, as often seems the case, an oversupply of parking or in
| more rare cases an undersupply.
|
| But in addition to pricing street parking more appropriately,
| and some cities are doing so, shifting the load on to the
| common spaces is kind of what you want to see as a transit user
| because if it continues to be set at a minimum you just wind up
| building more parking lots, highways, and cars. But if "the
| market" decides the market can actually signal to government
| entities that we do indeed need and want more options.
|
| Like you actually want to see new apartments in urban cores
| built without parking garages. Theoretically (and perhaps in
| practice) these new developments should also be cheaper and
| less theoretically they give sidewalks and bus routes and tram
| routes more users and thus more funding and support. That then
| alleviates pressure on existing highways and _everybody wins_
| except the obnoxious highway lobby and the revolving door that
| it operates with existing state departments of highways.
| spankalee wrote:
| Changing street parking prices is a lot easier than changing
| buildings built with previous parking requirements.
|
| I'd say change the requirements first, then if there's a surge
| in street parking demand there will be natural pressure to
| raise prices.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| _> Parking minimums prevent developers from free-loading on a
| commons, that commons being street parking._
|
| Another way of looking at it: parking minimums _require_
| developers to encroach upon a commons, that commons being land
| that could otherwise be used for more productive things than
| free parking.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It's not a commons if they buy the land.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Of course it is -- unproductive land use creates negative
| externalities that affect the entire surrounding community.
| It's like saying "a factory dumping waste into a river
| doesn't pollute the commons if the river runs through their
| property".
|
| The article explains this well:
|
| _> The office, filled with workers and transactions,
| generates far more in economic activity and value creation
| than its land value and, therefore, rises the highest. The
| apartment, where dozens of residents live, stands nearly as
| high. The rowhomes add steady, smaller value. But the
| parking lot does something different. It dips below the
| surface, shown as a red bar sinking into the ground._
|
| _> Why below ground? Because in economic terms, a parking
| lot doesn't simply fail to add value; it actively subtracts
| value. Every year it sits idle, it consumes some of the
| most valuable land in the city._
|
| _> When valuable downtown land lies idle, it blocks the
| housing, jobs, and amenities that could exist there. The
| costs ripple outward: higher rents, longer commutes, fewer
| opportunities nearby. What could have been a productive
| part of the community instead becomes a hole in its
| fabric._
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The river dumping analogy is so bad it's laughable.
| Obviously you don't own the entire river when the river
| merely runs through your property nor do you own the
| ocean or the watershed, and property values surrounding
| yours go down by a measurable amount when you dump things
| in the river. What negative externalities does a parking
| lot create that an empty lot does not? Minimal noise from
| people pulling in and out? Extra walking time between
| lots that are built up? Some pollution from the cars?
| These are normal externalities from literally any
| building that might be there as well. You can see how
| this is a different class than a polluted river, and is
| literally immeasurable.
|
| With regards to the argument presented in the article,
| it's arguable that parking lots create value by making
| places accessible to more people. As such, a parking lot
| raises the property values and economic output of
| neighboring properties. I didn't see anything about that
| covered in the article, nor did I see any actual data.
| This is why chambers of commerce and the like support
| parking mandates, because they actually have _positive_
| externalities, not negative ones.
| ericmay wrote:
| > With regards to the argument presented in the article,
| it's arguable that parking lots create value by making
| places accessible to more people.
|
| I think it's arguable, but I think it's not the full
| picture. Let's look at downtown Columbus, Ohio where I
| live. With the parking lots that exist, there's less
| housing, which means that people move further away from
| where they work, creating traffic, creating highway
| construction costs, insurance, &c. I'm quite sure that
| creating a parking lot makes the location of my employer
| (well not mine literally) more valuable, but it does seem
| like it creates more costs. If those lots were, say,
| because it's a downtown location a 10-story building with
| 300 residents those people would be shopping downtown,
| going to restaurants and bars downtown, spending more
| time there, &c.
|
| There are cases where a parking lot does create economic
| value, though I think those are more nuanced and limited.
| I'm not sure your point nor the one you were responding
| to, nor mine for that matter, are able to really
| calculate the economic costs of surface parking lots
| without taking into account factors like, well where the
| hell is the thing?
|
| > As such, a parking lot raises the property values and
| economic output of neighboring properties.
|
| Cherry-picking this comment. I'd add to what I wrote
| above, but I'd also add that I'm not sure that there is
| evidence to support this statement and if you take this
| to its quasi-logical extreme you wind up with your entire
| neighborhood just being one gigantic skyscraper with a
| Costco and doctors office inside surrounded by parking
| lots or something. And then the increased profit flows to
| Costco's shareholders which is fine, but for your local
| economy that's kind of bad versus having a variety of
| stores that can open and close. It's putting your eggs in
| one basket, so to speak.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Everything about city planning should generally be done
| in moderation. Including enough parking and enough
| residential space, but not too much or too little. A city
| consisting only of residential apartment blocks but no
| parking, transit, or stores will be a pretty terrible
| city as well.
|
| I assume that Syracuse or other similar tier-2-to-3
| cities would be far worse off if you replaced all the
| parking with apartment buildings.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yea I think that's fair. I personally advocate for mixed-
| use medium level density over skyscrapers or the suburbs
| which are both not ideal either. Something more like
| European towns and villages but since it's America we can
| have a little bit larger homes. I live in that style of
| neighborhood today, and have a 2.5 story house and
| detached garage and back yard. Though it's not quite as
| dense as it should be, but zoning rules have recently
| changed to allow the main streets on the east and west
| side to build better density which will be great for
| everyone here. We can't have a grocery store really
| because the density isn't there. Tons of good restaurants
| and coffee shops and such.
|
| I've never been to Syracuse but with the university there
| and number of employees you may be right, but it really
| depends I think on the layout. In the US once you get
| away from college towns or smaller towns like you're
| describing and get into medium-sized American cities we
| really lack density and transportation and we pay out the
| ass for the poor planning and past destruction that took
| place. It's changing though.
| jjav wrote:
| > generates far more in economic activity
|
| The LVT focus on profit above all else is why it is an
| unsatisfactory solution.
|
| If the most important goal for every plot of land is to
| maximize its economic activity & tax revenue, that's
| going to be a miserable place to live.
|
| All of the space uses that make a town _nice to live in_
| , are also underutilizing the land if the sole goal is to
| maximize economic activity.
|
| Open space with native vegetation, parks, playgrounds,
| sports fields of all kinds like soccer fields, community
| pools, hiking trails.. all of that is wasted land if
| viewed through the lens of LVT maximization. All that
| space should be crammed full of high rise offices and
| apartments.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Open space with native vegetation, parks, playgrounds,
| sports fields of all kinds like soccer fields, community
| pools, hiking trails.. all of that is wasted land if
| viewed through the lens of LVT maximization.
|
| No, because all of that would be open to the community.
| The waste is only if it was locked up for use by certain
| people.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Underutilized surface area of the Earth contributes to more
| resource, energy, and time consumption for everyone else in
| society to move around it.
|
| When ranking consumption such as large cars, flights,
| plastic toys, etc, space on the surface of the Earth,
| within an urban/suburban metro, is at the very top in terms
| of impact on others.
|
| And it's taxed the least.
| grokgrok wrote:
| Distribute the currency appropriately so that pricing won't be
| abused.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Get rid of street parking so drivers can't free load on the
| commons either, make parking something that you have to buy
| (with your rent or on your own) because it actually costs
| something.
|
| Also, you no longer have to worry about kids appearing into the
| street between parked cars that obscure their presence even
| near crosswalks (that cars park way too close to because they
| can't find parking elsewhere). Win-win.
| advisedwang wrote:
| I enjoy the image [1] circling parking lots to show the land
| wasted right next to maybe 2x as much land consumed by a highway.
|
| [1] https://substack-post-
| media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Solar panels is the answer. It keeps the people dry in the rain
| and the power can go right back to the city. Yes, it's not
| possible for all lots. For a vast majority of them, it's a net
| win.
| spankalee wrote:
| Solar panels do not solve the problem of parking lots being
| community dead zones. You can put solar panels on anything -
| it'd be better if it were housing, a store, a pub, etc. than a
| parking lot.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Walmart allows overnight campers on their lots. Add free
| power and you get a pop-up community.
| spankalee wrote:
| There are almost no Walmarts in urban centers.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Is that a joke? There's literally thousands of Walmarts
| in cities. https://mapstack.io/map/VkEPZb/map-of-walmart-
| supercenter-lo...
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MY89q9pnrS-
| rB8t6Df4T...
| davidrhunt wrote:
| This is called out in the article as well but you're always
| welcome to join the party at https://parkingreform.org
|
| It's a great group of advocates that are making impactful changes
| across the US and internationally.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| This article goes too far and yet not far enough. By trying to
| build more buildings that increase parking in yet smaller
| footprints and then charge for the added expense of all of that,
| why not just eliminate cars in these districts altogether. Park
| outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit within the
| city. Now you aren't trying to extract value from the simple act
| of wanting to exist in a space leaving more value to core
| economic goods and services.
|
| We need to attack The Modern Moloch (99pi).
| okr wrote:
| It is not convenient. It's freezing cold and icy, no walk, no
| bike, no scooter. Use mass-transit, sure, when you don't care
| about your life, when it's working, when it's coming regularly,
| when i don't have to exchange stations, but still, walking from
| home to a station and back, nah, it all sucks.
|
| Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel
| autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote.
| antisthenes wrote:
| That giant 5-level parking lot monstrocity could be a
| transport hub instead that has a warm metro stop, much better
| lighting and safety and perhaps even some light convenience
| retail.
|
| > Imagining sitting in a cosy, warm pod, driving in a tunnel
| autonomously, point to point, and you have my vote.
|
| They already have this. It's called a metro.
| rimbo789 wrote:
| Cars aren't remotely cozy. They are incredibly stressful to
| drive, are a huge cost, and are dangerous to those inside and
| out.
|
| Every complain about public transit being unsafe is twice as
| true about cars
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the
| problem is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it. All the
| downsides of a car with all the downsides of a bus.
|
| The solution, which has done in my city to genuinely smashing
| success is to nationalize the parking garages meaning
| government builds them, maintains them, and they're free
| forever. Dot them around a dense mixed use area and quite
| literally watch the money pour in. Everything is within grandpa
| walking distance of at least one garage, they're specced to
| over capacity so each one is never full, and it provides
| parking to the workers and apartments.
| ipdashc wrote:
| > that's "Park and Ride" which already exists but the problem
| is that people, kinda rightfully, hate it
|
| ... do people hate park and rides? Where I'm from (suburbs
| outside a US city) it's completely standard to park outside
| the city (in a garage or big lot at a train station) and take
| the train in. I find it quite comfortable personally.
|
| It sounds like yours is specifically for buses, but I think
| it's that people generally don't like buses, they're slow and
| uncomfortable. The park and ride is fine when you can walk
| from it to a subway/train.
| Spivak wrote:
| Parking at a train station or even a subway entrance sounds
| like heaven compared to ours which is a surface lot with a
| bus stop. But I'm not sure if "just have a subway or train
| network" is going to work for cities like Syracuse that
| don't already have them.
| ipdashc wrote:
| That's fair, yeah.
|
| I do think parking garages are a pretty good solution,
| though obviously expensive (but cheaper than building out
| trains, like you said)
| scottious wrote:
| That sounds like a recipe for getting a ton of cars into your
| city. Think of parking garages as "traffic generators". If
| you cater to cars you shouldn't be surprised if what you get
| is more cars. It's literally sending the signal to people
| that it's fine (and encouraged) to drive cars everywhere.
| After all, your tax dollars are paying for all that
| infrastructure
|
| Maybe some people are fully car-pilled, but many people want
| to live in an area that isn't so car-dependent, it tends to
| make everything more spread out, noisy, polluted, and
| congested. It also imposes very large personal costs.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean yeah... getting cars into your city is like the
| whole point. Cars are filled with people and people work
| and spend money. Specifically outside money. This is a city
| that has no subway or rail, vehicles are the only means of
| moving people. If you rip out the parking you won't get a
| vibrant walkable downtown, people won't start taking the
| bus, demand rail or move downtown because "the downtown
| area" just isn't that valuable of a destination. You will
| get a dead downtown. In a sad twist of fate when your
| "business district" doesn't have the capacity to absorb
| workers commuting or people going out on nights and
| weekends you'll see commercial buildings spread out even
| more to areas that can. Little pockets of nightlife and
| office space crop up next to newly built 5 over 1
| apartments with plenty of parking built adjacent to major
| suburbs.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Park outside of the city, walk/bike/scooter/mass-transit
| within
|
| Very telling how these arguments are always the most ableist
| shit you've ever heard and yet people seem to think they're
| Very Progressive for making them.
| doubletwoyou wrote:
| Cars suck for anybody who doesn't have all of their faculties
| in order. Broke a leg, trains were my saviour.
| Lammy wrote:
| Cars are great for people who do have all their limbs but
| lack the stamina to walk long distances, stand for long
| periods of time, carry large weights, etc.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Dense cities mean you only need to walk short distances,
| and doing that often enough builds the stamina for long
| distances.
| Lammy wrote:
| I see you've never had chronic respiratory issues or you
| would know that's not true.
| wpm wrote:
| Sorry the poster didn't put a specific, individualized
| carve out for all of the disabled groups of people who
| would obviously be allowed to use whatever method in
| whatever imagined, hypothetical future, and not kicked to
| the curb like trash.
|
| It is generally more productive to assume charity in the
| people you are talking to, that of course no one is going
| to ignore that some people need cars to get around.
| Lammy wrote:
| If they don't want to be replied to like they believe in
| absolutes then they should not speak in absolutes. I'm so
| tired of having to """assume""" that people would be
| inclusive of me and my needs when they outright say the
| opposite. Do better.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| ... and yet, a place that is built for humans first
| instead of cars first would likely do just that.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Enabling and incentivizing able-bodied people to do
| things other than drive reduces traffic and parking
| pressure, expanding access for the people who are unable
| to function without cars (and long-term will, contrary to
| your concerns, reduce the portion of people whose
| physical condition prevents them from functioning without
| a car).
| the_snooze wrote:
| It's not a bad thing to make places more accessible to
| children and senior citizens who can't (or shouldn't) be
| driving.
| drewg123 wrote:
| In a large metro with an extant, functional, mass transit
| system, sure. But do this in a cold place with no existing mass
| transit, and all you'll do is kill off downtown businesses and
| reduce property values to 0.
|
| This experiment was kind of done in Buffalo in the 70s. They
| blocked off large swathes of downtown to build the above ground
| section of metro rail. This encouraged business to close
| downtown locations and move to suburban malls. That kind of
| retail never came back to downtown in the roughly 1 decade
| after completion of the metro. So you had a mass transit system
| that went effectively from nowhere to nowhere, and managed to
| kill the downtown retail corridor.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I think someone should try banning absolutely everything but
| emergency vehicles. No cars, no taxis, no vans, no trucks. Only
| cargo bikes, hand carts and maybe palanquins. Add some sort of
| uber type platform where you can hire someone to push
| wheelchair around. Limit speeds of mopeds and bicycles to say
| 10 or 15 km/h for pedestrian safety. This should make extremely
| liveable city if those promoting these things are right.
| CalRobert wrote:
| There's this - bloommerwede.nl - it looks awesome.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Look like there is still at least two bridges to block
| entirely. I think you could maybe build some sort of
| permanent market place on them.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| There'd be a revolt. You might be able to get away with doing
| this in some _small_ area, maybe a city block or two. But
| anything more than that is just begging for a backlash from
| the local population.
| spankalee wrote:
| Large swaths of many European cities are like this.
| Copenhagen has a huge pedestrianized shopping area and it's
| amazing.
| bgnn wrote:
| My city, Utrecht, in the Netherlands is quite close this. No
| cars in the city center, no diesel vans for delivery, only
| busses and taxis can drive in certain roads in the center,
| bikes have priority on most roads cars can drive outside the
| center, mow they are reducing the speed limit to 30km/h
| everywhere in the city (following Amsterdam on this), and
| they are building a new car-free neighborhood for 40k people
| with no parking spaces and car roads.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Good first steps. Next is to get rid of those busses and
| taxis too. And truly open all roads to be freely used by
| pedestrians. Or even densification. You could fit buildings
| there for more people to live in. Then gradually expand
| this area so you have some reasonable like 40 km super
| block with no vehicles.
| qq66 wrote:
| Maybe surface parking lots aren't the answer, but I do know that
| if there are places that I can't easily park at, I just don't go
| there unless absolutely necessary.
|
| Nice to think, "the people will take trains!" but sometimes it
| doesn't work that way.
| CalRobert wrote:
| You might not go there, but the people who live in the homes
| you build where the parking garage used to be will go there.
| qq66 wrote:
| Sure, removing parking essentially requires the neighborhood
| to become more self-sustaining. This works in really dense
| cities like New York and San Francisco but it requires enough
| desirability to fill the housing with people who have enough
| disposable income to replace the far bigger "catchment area"
| that the parking used to serve.
|
| Which in turn affects the kind of economies that the new
| development can support. A car dealership? Needs parking and
| a large catchment area. Burrito shop? Probably not getting
| much destination traffic and can support itself on locals.
| bluGill wrote:
| Those people may not be enough to support them. Cars take up
| space, but houses take up even more space. It is really easy
| for a Downtown to go into a downward spiral if you take away
| the ability of people to get there.
|
| It need not happen, but all too often simple answers are
| wrong.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Sure, but this is why it makes sense to do it gradually.
| Things get built slowly and if the new buildings are taller
| they may actually take up less space (per person) than a
| car does, when considering ingress, egress, the road
| itself, etc.
| silisili wrote:
| Good point. And 'yard', if any. You can even see this at
| large events that are in urban centers.
|
| Churchill Downs for example is surrounded by residential
| properties. At Derby time a lot of those enterprising
| people would let you park in their yard for $5 or $10
| (maybe more now, it's been many years). These are not large
| properties - typical older shotgun houses. I seem to
| remember them getting 10 or more cars and that's not even
| counting the space the house itself is taking up.
| mlsu wrote:
| Has there ever been a situation where taking away parking
| has lead to traffic dropping?
|
| I've heard this, but I've never seen an example in
| practice. It seems like making things more walkable and
| bikeable, at the expense of cars, always increases foot-
| traffic, with no exception.
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes, though I can't recall enough details that I could
| help you search.
|
| Basically anytime it is tried in the suburbs where nobody
| is walking now nothing changes. When a lot of people are
| already walking you can increase traffic by getting rid
| of cars.
|
| Details matter, most of the places people take aware cars
| are already dense areas and they tell you about it.
| However in a few cases someone who hasn't understood the
| context tried to apply a lesson it doesn't apply and it
| fails.
| jjav wrote:
| > It is really easy for a Downtown to go into a downward
| spiral if you take away the ability of people to get there.
|
| I've seen this sad downward spiral multiple times, it is
| not a good outcome.
|
| I used to live not too far from a town with a mellow but
| nice downtown center. Not a huge draw but many small nice
| restaurants and shops and there was steady business.
| Sensing a profit machine, the city filled all streets with
| parking meters. Turns out that while it was a nice area, it
| wasn't so irreplaceable, so nobody goes anymore. Business
| collapsed. I drove by last summer and everything is closed,
| the parking meters sit empty.
|
| Same is happening now to the downtown one town over. It
| used to very vibrant awesome downtown, although small.
| Bars, restaurants, music venues, fun shops. I was there
| every night for something or other. Loved it. Easy free
| parking around. Some of the parking lots have office
| buildings now and the city lots have become very expensive.
| Much less activity there now, about a third of the venues
| are closed and the remaining ones are saying they can't
| last very long with fewer people going. While in its heyday
| this downtown was far more active than my first example,
| turns out it wasn't irreplaceable either. People just don't
| go anymore.
|
| Point is that this tactic works only when the downtown is
| so established and so dense that people are going to go
| anyway even if parking is hard, like Manhattan.
| bluGill wrote:
| > ome of the parking lots have office buildings now and
| the city lots have become very expensive. Much less
| activity there now, about a third of the venues are
| closed and the remaining ones are saying they can't last
| very long with fewer people going.
|
| Sounds to me like that found a valueable use for their
| land and got rid of the low value things you really
| enjoyed...
|
| Of course to you this is bad, and the city lost the night
| life, but that might or might not be worse overall. They
| seem to be a denser area despite it, for whatever that
| means.
| tizzy wrote:
| > Point is that this tactic works only when the downtown
| is so established and so dense that people are going to
| go anyway even if parking is hard, like Manhattan.
|
| Or the facilitating of cars has now made it more
| unattractive for people to go and hangout there even if
| it is easier to drive to.
| aqme28 wrote:
| You're right in the short term, but over time it does work that
| way. Look at Amsterdam.
| jessecurry wrote:
| This is such a terrifying vision of the proper scope of
| government. We shouldn't use government to hurt people, and
| making someone's property too expensive to continue owning is
| definitely hurting them.
|
| If you're really concerned with surface parking push the
| government to stop making it so expensive for companies to
| develop self-driving technology or to offer transportation
| services. If it's easier and less expensive for individuals to
| use transportation that they don't need to park anywhere the need
| for surface lots vanishes and those owning the property will look
| for something else to do with it.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > those owning the property will look for something else to do
| with it
|
| Not if there's a law mandating they maintain a certain amount
| of parking. Eliminating such laws is part of what the article
| is advocating for.
|
| Other than that I agree.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| _> We shouldn 't use government to hurt people, and making
| someone's property too expensive to continue owning is
| definitely hurting them._
|
| But we _are_ using government to hurt people -- we are
| incentivizing (or worse, requiring) land owners to harm the
| surrounding community by not developing their property. A land
| value tax would simply shift some of the cost that is _already_
| burdening the rest of the community onto the unproductive
| property owners.
| fwip wrote:
| So, the thing here, is that the property you're worried about
| is the guy who owns a parking lot, and not the people who are
| being overcharged on their personal homes to subsidize mister-
| surface-parking.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Parking maximums would be just as stupid as parking minimums.
| Instead of oversupply with inefficient use of space you'll get
| under supply with businesses starved of customers who can't find
| a convenient parking space.
|
| Let the market decide how much parking is needed. It'll do a much
| better job than you ever could.
| ramblurr wrote:
| Nary a mention of parking garages / underground parking?
|
| Austrian cities have way more parking than one would expect, but
| it's nearly all underground and costs EUR
|
| The benefits are huge, you have have dense commerical areas where
| you drive in, park underground, pay for some hours, then walk
| between the shops to do all your business.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you don't like parking you need to start with cars: give
| people a reasonable alternative. Too many are looking at this
| from a standpoint of "lets just get rid of parking" - without
| asking what people will do instead. All too often the answer is
| they will drive someplace in the suburbs instead where they get
| free parking.
|
| If you want your downtowns to not have parking you need an
| alternative. In most cases that means you need to improve your
| transit in the entire city so people can get there.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Many cities that have a dense core will have big municipal lots
| and garages to enable people to park somewhere they can walk
| from. Of course, the first thing urbanists go after is the
| presence of these lots in "high-value" real estate.
| clickety_clack wrote:
| I lived in Vancouver for years, near the downtown, near the
| SkyTrain and it was amazing. Back then I thought I would never
| live anywhere but the downtown of a city.
|
| But, you know what, life changes. I know there's hardcore folks
| out there who will cycle miles with their kids, or take them on
| transit, or even live with them in a 2 bedroom downtown
| apartment, but it is just too hard to live that way for many
| people. With a family, most people need more space, and they need
| to be able to get from their suburban home to some kind of
| shopping or work, in minimum time so that they can both take care
| of kids, maintain a career, and have a glimpse of a life for
| themselves.
|
| We don't need to have surface lots right in the middle of every
| downtown, but there needs to be somewhere for people to park.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Heck, I'm happy just parking _close enough to walk_ to a
| downtown area, so parking doesn 't necessarily have to be in
| the middle for me to use it, but there's no way I'm taking
| public transport to get close enough.
| webdood90 wrote:
| Just sounds absolutely miserable to prioritize that way of
| living that is so car dependent. So many negatives come from
| it:
|
| - pollution
|
| - traffic deaths
|
| - heat generation from all the infra
|
| - inefficient use of space
|
| - ugly aesthetic of strip malls and parking lots
|
| It doesn't have to be this way. We can do better to build
| diverse housing in our cities, leverage space at the ground
| level for businesses, invest in our transit to make it safer
| and more convenient.
|
| Instead we just go with what's easy and continue to build roads
| and sprawl.
| bgnn wrote:
| Some European cities have car-free city centers. I live in one,
| which serves as the shopping center of roughly 1 million people
| living in the suburbs. If you want to shop in the city you need
| to park in one of the big underground parking lots and pay sth
| like more than 10 Euros/hour. Alternatively you can park just
| outside the city at a park & ride spot for 10 Euros/day and
| take the public transport included in the parking price.
|
| It's inconvenient for people, yes. It was inconvenient to drive
| and park in the narrow streets of a medieval city too. This is
| unfortunately not easy to implement in North America, as the
| cities are relatively new. What we have feels very privileged.
| spankalee wrote:
| Good thing that this article is not arguing for the elimination
| of parking!
| scottious wrote:
| I don't really buy this argument. I live a happily (nearly)
| car-free life with 3 kids. It's not hard, it really isn't. I
| bike them everywhere, we take transit. I even do our weekly
| grocery shopping by bike. I bike them to school year round
| (yes, even today when it was 10F this morning). I wouldn't
| consider myself "hardcore" at all. I'm just your average
| middle-aged dad.
|
| I use our car approximately once per week. In 2024 I used my
| car a total of 32 times (I actually tallied it out for the
| whole year)
|
| It's really just a matter of city design. Do you think there
| aren't families in Copenhagen who need to get to their job and
| shops? They manage with much lower car mileage than the average
| American. American suburbs are car-centric and those cars end
| up clogging up urban cores where people are trying to live
| their lives.
|
| Many Americans/Canadians probably cannot even imagine what my
| life is like. They can't even picture what it means to pick up
| a week's worth of groceries for a family of 5 on a bike (with a
| kid!). It just doesn't even register that this is a
| possibility.
| dbvn wrote:
| "That is, how much value a parcel creates for the community
| compared to how much value it consumes simply by existing as
| land. Think of it like this:
|
| Net Contribution=(Economic Output in $)-(Land Value in $)"
|
| This calculation is shady. Land value fluctuates and already
| "bakes in" the predicted economic output... but multiplied across
| decades. Not to mention, land doesn't consume value by existing.
| the value never goes anywhere. Its opportunity cost, not a
| decrease in actual value.
|
| Yes, there is value "missed out on", but it hasn't been
| destroyed. Because it never existed. And that value wouldn't have
| appeared out of nowhere. it would've required using up other
| resources that the parking lot wasn't.
| jrowen wrote:
| I was also unconvinced by that hand-wavy analysis. Basically,
| "parking is negative value because I don't like it, look at
| this graph I made up."
|
| In the US most places that aren't already highly urbanized are
| based on car culture. The culture isn't going to magically
| shift to transit if you take away parking, people will just
| complain and go elsewhere.
|
| The article also completely abandons this angle later when it
| acknowledges that parking can be financially acceptable for the
| land owners. It also acknowledges that municipally mandated
| parking isn't the issue either.
|
| How many parcels in e.g. downtown Syracuse are just vacant?
| That represents a much lower value than surface parking.
|
| I definitely agree that parking in garages and integrated into
| buildings is much better but if you're unsatisfied with your
| downtown area I don't think targeting parking lots is the place
| to start. The real question is why don't people believe they
| can get more value out of it with further development? It's a
| little chicken-and-egg but you have to make the downtown a
| desirable place for those investments.
| legitster wrote:
| I cannot recommend this Road Guy Rob video enough:
| https://youtu.be/K1TFOK4_07s?si=IwCK4sxVgw5Konu4
|
| TL;DW: The difference in tax revenue between a surface parking
| lot and a business with subterranean parking is so vast, that
| cities can justify using value to underwrite the loans necessary
| for developers to do the work. (Called "Tax Increment Financing")
| This model is proving extremely successful with cities that try
| taking it on.
| trgn wrote:
| i live in one of these cities and it's impossible to explain.
| bryan_w wrote:
| I currently live in a downtown area, and "walkable city" policies
| like this is why I'm going to move to a big open suburb when my
| lease is up. It makes life much more of a hassle, especially in
| cold weather.
| xvokcarts wrote:
| Build it underground if feasible, or build a parking garage with
| high-economic-contribution units in upper floors.
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