In Tippecanoe County, Indiana a local professor documented that there were 250,000 more parking spaces than registered vehicles. When the community of 155,000 people were confronted with this news their collective reaction was "Are you crazy? I can never find parking where I'm going!" Thus begins an excellent in-depth article by Katherine Miezkowski on Salon.com (We Paved Paradise, October 1, 2007) about the evils of parking. The paradox according to Miezkowski? No matter how much land we pave for our idle cars, it always seems as if there isn't enough.
She goes on to provide a fascinating history of how we got here. Starting with the story of parking minimums and the hidden costs for providing parking. It isn't a pretty tale. We also learn about the environmental costs and degradation to our quality of urban life in the quest to provide "free" parking everywhere we go.
Before the article ends we find hope in some places like Redwood City, California and Brooklyn, New York where innovative people are fighting back. Enjoy the read and let's hope everyone gets the message.
Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a biking/Metro commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.
"Thus begins an excellent in-depth article by Katherine Miezkowski on Salon.com (We Paved Paradise, October 1, 2007) about the evils of parking".
Parking is not evil, it is a necessity. We don't think it's wrong to pave so many miles of sidewalk everywhere if there are hardly any pedestrians on most of them. Likewise, we should not presume a lot of unused parking spaces is inherently evil.
The reason, as someone was quoted in Miezkowski's article, is "What we had was a management problem, not a supply problem." The existing minimum parking regulations should be drastically altered. They put the onus on businesses & private parties (i.e. apartment buildings) to provide parking, so a lot of duplicate efforts ensues. A typical driver will require one space for going to work, another for shopping, a third for worship services, a fourth for recreational activities, etc.
Hence the paradox of so many empty parking spaces available, but just not where you need them.
Better zoning for mixed use neighborhoods and land use management are the key to solving this problem, though it will not be cheap and could restrict some freedoms and conveniences.
For example, rather than require private parties to provide parking, the local government can designate municipal lots or garages for every x number of city blocks and require the surrounding offices & shops to help pay for that instead of providing their own parking.
If there are parking fees charged, the government and all of the local businesses that helped pay for the parking will receive a cut, though ideally, parking charges should be as low as possible.
By zoning offices and retail closer together, they can use the many of the same spaces at different times of the day or week. Likewise, by zoning schools and places of worship closer together in more residential neighborhoods, they too can share the same spaces, as the article mentioned. The downside is that people will actually have to walk, as much as a few blocks, to get to and from their cars. But people often already do that anyway when there are no spaces close by. For convenience sake, there still be small parking lots for handicapped spaces or storefront loading and unloading zones.
Another simple fix for those cruising alongside streets looking for free parking is better signage to lead them away quicker. Have signs pointing to the available spaces away from the congested areas and emphasize "Free Parking ->" (evenings & weekends) for that extra psychological edge.
This is an easier problem to solve than road traffic congestion if people are willing to spend the planning effort and money on it.
But all of the above does not work in the end, what's the big deal about having to walk across a vast Walmart parking lot if one supposedly enjoys walking?
Posted by: Commuter182 | October 03, 2007 at 03:37 PM