Getting rid of parking spaces just creates frustration among commuters unless you provide real practical alternatives to driving — dedicated bike lanes; proper public transport that has enough seats, runs frequently and on time, and arrives close to where people are going; and/or formal car pooling.
Bicycles aren’t practical for everyone. Public transport that requires passengers to stand for 20 minutes or more while crammed in like sardines; or public transport that runs every half-hour or more, isn’t useful — it actually discourages use of public transport. The only car pooling that I’ve seen work is when it’s organised within large companies so that people are going to the same destination and have something in common to talk about on the ride.
Waving a magic wand and canceling car parks is most definitely not useful unless proper alternatives are available.
I despise car-reliant infrastructure as much as anyone but yeah, this has to be approached from all sides you can’t just punish people who use cars due to there being no alternative, and then STILL give them no alternative.
That said, the article implies that this is in fact part of a larger plan and just removes one blocker, so I guess we’ll see if that ends up being true or not.
Depends quite a lot o the climate and time. If your in a place where ice and heat stroke aren’t common, and have a shower at work, and don’t have to travel at night, and don’t have to deal with sharing the road with fifty mile an hour traffic, and can afford to spend the extra hour or so a day, and can find a place to stash your bike where it won’t be stolen immediately, etc…
Bicycles require a lot of infrastructure and time, as well as an amenable climate. As much as i would like for the vast majority of humanity to be able commute every day by bike, the infrastructure simply isn’t there even in the places where you don’t have harsh winters. The goal of all transit, be it bike metro bus or car, is to get people from point A to B in the most effective way practical.
Build the infrastructure, and they will come. If they don’t, then figure out what you did wrong with the infrastructure.
Not when the weather is shit. You’re not gonna get humanity to get up for a bike ride and have to take a shower on arrival just to go get groceries, for example.
There are a lot of different things that impact this, not just weather. The point isn’t about not picking one thing but to recognize it’s not feasible for everyone, full stop.
If there was really solid bike infrastructure, I think covered electric tricycles capable of towing small capsule trailers could fill that gap fairly well. Something like this or this.
I work 20+ miles from where I live due to what I can afford. I’m not biking that lol I’d consider taking a train if I could take the bike to the train and from the train station to work. But I’d still be biking on busy roads not safe for bikers
Adjusting parking minimums and reducing parking over time is absolutely the way to promote alternatives. It promotes higher better access to services (as land can be used for alternatives) and cheaper housing (meaning you can live closer to where you work).
The reality is we are vastly overparked. Depending on where you live, there can be 8 TIMES the number of parking spaces than cars. You can pretty easily reduce parking by 1/3 and have near zero impact for drivers 99% of the time (maybe on black Friday you may need to take a ride).
Also, just want to point out to the conservatives and libertarians in the crowd: Parking Minimums are a TAX. Worse, they are a tax that overly affects small business that is less likely to be able to get the support they need endure the taxes effect on their finances.
nothing can be done, so let’s just stick our heads in the sand and wail.
oh wait, no, human behavior and values change over time. so we can use that to our advantage by not enabling selfish fucks who refuse to change with the times. No one’s expecting metro service to rural households, but also, it’s insane to expect your right to your own single person transport while the world is on freaking fire.
so you do you bud, but understand the rest of society is going to change and you can fight it, but it won’t make you right.
Because there’s already so much parking available, right?
When I’m driving my mobility impaired grandma to her eye surgery, I want a parking space. Driving in major cities is already enough frustration, no need to add more.
Also the cities that have the most investment in things like multimodal public transit are also the best cities to drive in. If you just genuinely want or need the car those cities are better then the cities designed for the car. Designing for the car creates the worst outcomes for the car.
Parking requirements were established in an entirely unscientific way. And they've never really been updated.
A city with a lot less parking would be one that was easier for Grandma to get around in even if she was getting around in it in a car. People with significant disabilities are pretty much the only ones who should expect parking when they go to places.
The best cities to drive in have populations of around 5000 people. Just enough population that there are things to drive to (very limited things, but still things), but not enough that there is congestion even during what passes for rush hour.
Or places like Amsterdam that regularly rank top cities for drivers because they can afford good planning and maintenance on their svelt network. Because people who don't want to drive just don't.
It's easy for a small town like you described to have just brutal congestion. And they routinely do, in the US, when the whole town is a highway offramp wart off an artillery feeder road made up of commercial parks and box stores. They end up with chains of back to back streetlights and tons of left turns across traffic and are always a headache to get through - not to mention dangerous. And they're the most universal sight in North America.
Not in a town of 5000. That sounds more like 50,000 people. At 5000 even a highway offramp cannot support many big box stores. Either that or a.suburb, which might have only 5000, but the drivers from the rest of the MSA visit and add up.
Fewer parking spots is not a solution on its own… It’s a natural consequence of good public transportation network. No one really enjoys to spend hours on traffic to go anywhere.
It is a solution on its own. Many cities have far more parking than they need - even on "black friday" there are empty parking spaces. Those parking spaces could be redeveloped to something else (not all of them as that something else will also need parking)
Of course the more you redevelop those empty parking spaces, the denser you get and the better chance is that public transit will work. The more people who arrive via transit the less parking spaces you need as well, which means more empty parking can de redeveloped.
He’s saying she should have a tag that hangs on the rear view mirror that can be put on your car when you drive her around (as opposed to a handicap license plate that can only be used with her car).
May I ask what country? Yes, the person who needs the placard applies for it, but in most places that can go on whatever car they ride in, so long as they’re actually in the car.
In my country a disabled person can get a tag that they hang in whatever car they are in to mark that car as able to use a handicapped space - they are expected to switch that tag between cars when they get a ride with someone else.
If the handicapped person owns a car they can also get a special license plate on their car thus ensuring they don't have to keep track of that tag.
Not sure how it works in your country, maybe it’s different. Here you car needs to have a visible disability permit or you’ll get fined. Only the car owner can apply for the permit. I’m the car owner.
My country allows for a placard that can move between cars as long as the handicapped person is there to provide identification if asked by the police.
It’s definitely true of the US and Canada, and very likely Australia and New Zealand too. Maybe it’s not so excessive in the UK or Ireland, but still, most of the English-speaking countries have been infected by 1950s USA’s misguided influence.
What if health insurance paid for necessary taxi rides? Not every mobility impaired grandma is lucky enough to have family members to be their personal chauffeurs.
@pathief@ProdigalFrog it's just physically not possible to build enough parking for everyone to always have a park. You have trouble finding a park because that's just the physical reality. Adding more parking (like adding more lanes) doesn't increase availability because of induced demand and the inherent inefficiency of cars.
Reducing parking won't reduce the parking available to you. Just as reducing the number of car lanes won't reduce your ability to drive places.
Sadly, many places (not all, but many) do have a systemic hostility to non-automotive transit. It’s not that bad everywhere, but where it is bad it really is that bad.
correct me if i’m wrong but i heard that the most effective thing you can donate to a pantry is actually just straight up money, like, they can do so much more with every dollar than you ever could if you attempted to just buy food to give them.
I live in one of the most light-polluted areas in the world. Even Orion is hard to pick out, and even lunar eclipses visibly more muted than elsewhere.
The main source of the worst pollution is not street lights. Instead, it’s industrial pollution coming from one of the largest collections of greenhouses worldwide a couple km. Many of them have growlights on all night long. On an overcast night, the sky is orange and purple - orange is the older technology with modern leds being purple.
That said, i am hopeful for the future here. Between 2012 and 2018 the brightest areas have already become a little less bright. Let’s hope that trend continues.
Oh shit, it’s that ‘eco-friendly’ agriculture of the future, is it? I guess you are from NL? I remember, from when I was little, my dad cursing about ‘holländische Gewächshaustomaten’ just to buy equally horrible tomatoes from Spain …
I’ve noticed the same trend in PT. From 2001 to 2012, lights being added to the surrounding hills. Then they started switching off every second lamp, during Covid possibly more. Let’s hope for some dark, quiet times.
Indeed, I live in The Hague, just a short hop from the Westland (where all the tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers are from). At least I can say I can get very local produce if I go the supermarket 😅.
Even the “water bombs” (as we call them here) situation is improving. There are some really interesting new producers that actually focus on flavor instead of yield. The price naturally is high, but I’m enjoying Dutch tomatoes for the first time ever.
Wasted light in this context is light that is not serving a purpose. For instance in my neighborhood there is a house that has security lights that shine well beyond their property lines and are triggered on sensor from across the street movement. These lights also illuminate upwards which provides no benefit. Simply controlling where light shines if you must have it is a good step to being a good neighbor and is better for nature as well.
But it IS a finite resource. To produce light, you need energy. Even if you use renewables, you can only cover so much area of the planet with solar panels and wind generators. In a world run on electricity that is produced by limited means, we should consider where we want to use each kWh (‘bag of electricity’). Do you really want to render that image? Have that status light on all day? It’s small things, but they do add up.
Youre underestimating either how much electricity we can generate, or how efficient lights are nowadays. Way more energy is going into heating applications.
So just because more harm is done with heating we shouldn’t care about this waste? Small differences also make a difference, especially if the wasted light does more harm than good. If your roof leaks in two places you don’t just go a fix the bigger leak.
Haven't watched the video yet but I'm guessing the reasons are:
Zoning - mixed use zoning and medium density housing are notoriously missing in the US.
Setbacks/Clear zones - Time and time again, US city planners have widened roads, straightened roads, and removed trees and such, catering towns and cities for driving, rather than building them for humans.
Because dark streets mean more muggings, more burglaries, and more car accidents.
Cities are slowly adding “blinders” to streetlights, and homes are switching to motion activated lights — but this will take time because most of it is only replaced when the previous fixture fails.
the connection between bright light and lack of crime has been pretty thoroughly debunked, criminals like to see what they’re doing just as much as anyone else – Paul Bogard, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Night_(book) (2013)
I live in one of the safest part of the planet and people lost their shit when my town turned off every other street light. Not even on the main street, just the side street. They always talk about how unsafe it is and their children will die on the streets with no light. I walk my dog a lot at night and i have yet to see someone out on the streets, especially children who apparently roam around in the middle of the night.
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