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"It's not like the government is forcing you to buy a car!"
If you live in a city with parking minimums, yes they fucking are.
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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I work in planning. We removed parking requirements in our downtown districts and a bunch of companies came in to buy the old abandoned buildings and expanded them into the old parking areas.
Every single retail business that moved in over the following 3 years failed because there wasn't anywhere for the customers to park. They just went to businesses that had parking avaialbe.
Probably would be better off with relatively minor adjustments to overarching standards over time, much akin to parking requirements, but probably that would look more like parking-protected bike lanes downtown, mixed-use zoning, making missing middle housing more available by getting rid of lots of zoning requirements on housing, or, like japan, making them much more comprehensive. None of that costs you anything economically. Parking protected bike lanes just require paint, and you can do that when you need to repave and repaint the main high traffic roads downtown. Eventually you may be able to justify an upgrade to a totally separated bike lane, or you might be able to justify shutting down main street to through traffic and routing things around.
Then you don't really have to shell out for anything in terms of city transit, you're just changing some regulations around, and people can walk or bike 2 to 3 minutes to the grocery store on their street corner, from their apartment, which is above a pizza place or whatever the fuck. Bike 3 minutes from the edge of downtown in their rowhome into main downtown where they can pick up groceries. Those people can also have jobs and be economically productive with the higher job density that such a development provides, and this all provides a much healthier and more stable tax base for the city since the utilities cost per person and per business is going to be much less. Course, you're not gonna get heavy industry like that, but I haven't really cooked up a solid approach to that sort of commute to a factory or industrial district that doesn't involve a bus or passenger rail line that just heads straight there, like the USSR did.
The more significant problem with this isn't so much that it's some sort of like, totally impossible thing, it's that any city doing that shit will probably be overrun by a shit ton of annoying gentrifiers, which is a harder problem to solve.
I feel like it's pretty obvious that the main problem here is with the local NIMBY voters which might not like such a thing, and a significant lack of federal funding. There isn't really a solid argument against any of the fundamental and somewhat universal planning principles which increase density, walkability, public accessibility, economic efficiency and productivity.
Dude, that's not gonna happen. As you said, it's the voters who are the "problem." Our City Council straight-up banned rezoning any districts to multifamily or 2-family. We have a mixed-use district in the code because we're required to, but it must be on a plot of land of at least 50 acres along a state highway. The largest single tract of land in the city is 15 acres, and it's not on a state highway.
We also have a minimum lot size of 1 acre and minimum street frontage for a single-family lot of 150 feet for all newly-platted lots. The citizens super duper don't want the poor moving in.
But you also have to look at it from a different perspective. Many of these suburban towns are made up of people who actively chose to live a less-urban lifestyle, and as the sprawl approaches them they get very, very hostile. They don't want new people or more affordable housing. They bought their houses 15 years ago when they cost 80 grand. Now people are buying those same houses for a million dollars and tearing them down to build a 7-million dollar house.
@chiliedogg @daltotron Yes, they have swallowed a lot of lies. A lot needs to change.
Seriously, its like you've never played Sim City or Cities Skylines. If you are going to rezone or redesign districts and remove parking then you need to, like everyone else is saying, maximize public transit and walkability. Without doing that you are just creating an urban desert.
The actual day to day job of a planner is closer to Papers Please. 80% of my time is spent reviewing meeting with, reviewing plans of, or writing stag reports about private developments.
In fact, we're so busy dealing with fights over fence height, pool lighting, and screening of HVAC equipment that most cities outsource their Comp Plan development to third party companies that specialize in it.
You gonna pay for it? Our city's entire annual budget wouldn't even begin to pay for that.
That's where parking requirements come from.
If you already have existing transit it likely wouldn't cost an exreme amount to add a couple stops. If your city doesn't have any transit then someone should plan some.
Once again, who is gonna pay?
The city can't afford it without a bond, and voters will never approve an increase in taxes to remove parking and install transit that will increase local (e.g. Voter) commute times and invite the "undesirable elements" from the city they fled to the suburbs to avoid.
We can't legally force developers to build public infrastructure that isn't directly required due to their individual business (e.g. traffic signal or wastewater line extension).
Know what we can do? Force developers to build parking for their business through zoning ordinances with minimum parking requirements based on use. So a restaurant needs more parking spaces per square foot than an office building, which needs more than a warehouse.
Most cities cannot afford their extisting road infrastructure maintaince. Once built transit systems and walkability are far cheaper to maintain.
Great.
Your still haven't offered a solution for how to pay for it.
Our roads are 30 years behind on maintenance, but we can patch them here and there and do one out two major projects a year. And when a street collapses it's relatively easy to get a bond to fix it because the citizens want their roads back.
We can't patchwork a public transit system, and the citizens are overwhelmingly against it anyway. We tried buying a single bus to shuttle people around and we had a new city manager following that backlash.
Planners aren't kings. We're public servants subject to the will of Council, which is made up of people who represent voters, who overwhelmingly don't want more density, new people, etc. We have pretty much zero input on the direction of the city.
Shit... we spend way more time reviewing swimming pools for code compliance than actually developing plans. When it does come time to do a new comp plan or transportation study, almost every city outsources that to a third party company.
We pay for it by redeveloping massive multi lane roads into multi transit corridors when their major repair/resurfacing work is due. A few places have used this strategy to redevelop car centric areas into areas with better transit and pedestrian accesses.
That requires a public process.
And guess what voters and politicians want? More roads and more barriers to the "unwashed poor" who use transit.
You are really just making excuses to maintain the same short-sighted status quo that has you so frustrated. The solution is offering education to those voters you are so vehemently concerned about. The money comes from managing existing budgets better and making cuts to public programs that are wasteful. You raise funds by implementing bonds and taxes. Voters will get the fuck over taxes being raised if they actually see some benefit from it. Bullshitting your way with the same tired-ass excuses just shows you should quit your job and let someone, who actually cares, do it.
Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about.
A few years ago, the planning director made a presentation at council about putting in sidewalks and bike lanes. The citizens freaked out and all complained to Council that the city would be invaded by the homeless if it were made more pedestrian and bicycle friendly or had bus stops.
2 weeks later, that planning director was fired.
Planners don't actually get to plan cities. We implement comprehensive plans set by council, write code amendments when instructed to by council, review development plans for compliance with code, and enforce code.
My small department also handles building permits and inspections, oversees civil engineering (our actual engineers are third-party), and manages public works projects.
Pretty much no city planners actually make policy. The "planning" we do is pretty much scheduling the work that's already been approved.
What about the comprehensive plan updates? We don't really get involved with that because we're too busy with everything else. When comp plan season comes around, cities hire outside firms to help them develop the plan.
Oh shut up. You asked for an answer to how it would be paid for and how to implement. You keep moving the goalposts. Shut the fuck up.
No. I explained why politics prevents planners from implementing these ideas.When did you get your planning degree, and how many years of experience do you have in municipal planning?
Or did you watch a few YouTube videos and read some blogs and decide you know more than those of us in the field?
Do you also "do your own research" about vaccines and second-guess your doctor?
No, I just can tell when someone has given up on their field of work. You sound like you've given up. Quit your job.
No. You just literally don't know what the job of a city planner is.
A planner doesn't design a city any more than a police officer writes laws. We implement policies written by others.
Quit acting so high and mighty. You aren't special.
Exactly! Planners don't get to circumvent the process and enact legislation because we aren't special.
Well you failed your job then, after removing minimum parking requirements you need to add in public transport, make streets walkable and cyclable, you need to induce the kind of traffic that helps build foot traffic, that way the businesses grow naturally around foot traffic.
You got a spare billion dollars for a city with an annual budget of 50 million?
If your city is only designed for drivers, it's no surprise that people will want to drive places. When you remove parking minimums, you also need to prioritize transit and micromobility accessibility, so people are actually incentivized to switch modes. Cities can and are making this shift successfully: here's one example.
Yes. Let's spend multiple times our annual city budget to force people to walk in 100-degree heat 4 months out of the year to visit a local restaurant or wait 20 minutes for a shuttle.
They definitely won't choose to go to the next town over where they can park 50 feet from the door of their destination, and our entire staff definitely won't be let go in the blowback.
Depending less on car infrastructure will save more tax money long term. Eliminating parking minimums and building denser developments often increases city tax revenue, turns out parking lots don't generate a lot of taxable revenue, meanwhile more business space does.
Not empty businesses.
And local governments can only develop with the money they have on hand without a bond, and good luck passing a bond that removes parking, increases taxes, and, in the eye of the voters, invites "undesirables."
Turns out our money is currently being used for things like keeping water flowing, toilets flushing, libraries open, and other civil projects.
We can make a developer build parking through Zoning codes. We can't make them build public infrastructure that isn't directly required for their project.
If we can make a devloper build parking, we can make them build transit stops. The car is not the only thing we can force developers to accomadate.
You can't just decide what's legal and what isn't.
A public transit stop serves more than just the property in question, making it a public project and not a private development. We can't make private developers pay for public projects. It's illegal.
Whereas a private parking lot is specifically for that exact development, so it can be mandated.
Planning isn't a videogame where the perfect solution is achievable. We have to work within the confines of the existing legislative and legal environment.
The city could at least communicate with the development plans and purchase the required land for public stops. The city could mandate certain developments require this kind of transit inclusion to the planning process. The city can also mandate for denser zoning around major transit corridors.
The college I went to maintained a roundabout for buses. The college had to fully cover the costs of pavement maintaince and snow removal. It seemed worth it since tons of their students were arriving by bus, because it delivered them to the center of campus.
That's why they could require it. The TIA showed that the university would have an impact on the public system and the city could require them to mitigate that impact, and the university chose to build a parking circle and dedicate out as city ROW as its mitigation measure.
A local restaurant generating maybe 200 trips a day isn't going to have the necessary traffic impact for the city to demand infrastructure upgrades.
Now, a mega-development generating thousands of daily trips is a different story. They have to mitigate.
But they can still choose how to mitigate, and it's usually a dedicated turn lane and a traffic signal. Because if a developer has the choice between saving 1 penny and building a development that truly serves the interests of the city and the future tenants, they'll take the penny every single time.
@chiliedogg @PhoenixAlpha did a car write this?