I’d never heard of mandatory minimum parking until now. That sounds horrendous.
It’s a thing virtually everywhere in NA, and usually is set to the maximum expected demand for parking. Which means malls and big stores need enough parking spaces to accomodate Black Friday levels of traffic.
Land area wise most malls/shopping centers in the USA are about 50% parking lot. It’s absurd. I regularly hear people mention a store/location and then the praise/complaints about the parking there.
Hey, that’s my favorite System of a Down lyric!
All research and successful health policies show
That walking should be increased
And law enforcement decreased while abolishing
Mandatory minimum parking spots
I buy my crack, I smack my bitch
Right here in Hollywood
I just love that the “law enforcement decreased” line didn’t change.
It’s just always applicable.
Several new major developments in my area have done this. They have underground parking for residents and businesses only and for everyone else you get 5 slots of street parking and nothing else.
The problem is that public transit in my city is horrible. It is expensive, unreliable, slow, and has poor service coverage. These developments are 100% completely inaccessible to me both by car and by transit unless I’m willing to blow away the next 4 hours busing there and back for what would be a 10 minute car ride.
Cars are a cancer on the world and I hate them as much as anyone else here, but cities must give proper alternatives if plans like this are to work properly. Slow, stinky buses that only come every 50 minutes and spend 80% of their time stuck in traffic help nobody and yet they are all our politicians are willing to provide.
Taking away the parking is how you get alternatives. They won’t ever happen until the public is properly motivated to support them.
I’d much rather they do away with votes for transit. There are never votes on road widening, new bridges, new interchanges, etc. But it always seems that transit must be put to a vote.
Just build the damn thing and stop asking.
They put it to a vote because they don’t want to build it and are looking for an excuse not to.
Oh I’m well aware. It’s just very frustrating is all.
Yup. Perfect is the enemy of good. If you wait for everything to be just right, nothing ever happens.
Taking away parking must be done while also providing alternatives, or you just have a bunch of homes and businesses that are inaccessible. This is especially the case if you want to integrate something like rail/tram access which has to have infrastructure considerations before construction even begins.
“Build now, “fix” later” is exactly how we ended up in the situation we’re in now where they just keep throwing more and more buses at the problem.
“We can’t reduce parking until alternative transportation infrastructure is perfect” is inevitably paired with “we can’t build alternative infrastructure because there’s no demand for it [because of too much free parking].” It’s a dishonest tactic by concern-trolling reactionaries and “moderates” (in the “great stumbling block” to progress MLK sense) to manufacture an excuse to do nothing, every single time.
I’ve been doing bike/ped/transit activist stuff for over a decade, and that’s the bullshit I’ve heard over and over and over and over. Y’all gotta stop falling for it!
“Can’t do a congestion charge until…” Is another I’ve heard lately
You can’t though. People won’t let you raise taxes to pay for it unless it makes them absolutely miserable. Even with this move I’ll give it a 70/30 chance the municipal gov gets booted and minimums are reinstated.
we’re in now where they just keep throwing more and more buses at the problem.
Sounds fine. Buses aren’t perfect but they are flexible and don’t require much infrastructure (ideally, they have a dedicated bus lane).
There’s parking In Montreal?
I suppose that’s what potholes are for…
It’s the entrances to the new montreal wide underground parking to be started between now and years 2100 but the orange cone will be there from now till it’s finish in 2573
The potholes are our patented traffic calming technology.
Lol, nice
All this will lead to is more privately owned parking areas opening up
It means a lot more small scale housing and businesses will be allowed to operate. Most parking minimums specify your parking lot can accommodate something like “maximum capacity +20%” which is just absurd. I’ve never seen a full Walmart parking lot in my life, let alone the 30 spaces at most banks and 50 spaces at most pharmacies. Land is valuable, and this removes a big roadblock for reasonable construction.
If that drives up demand for more mass transit infrastructure, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
You’ve clearly never lived in Montréal. We have had a massive decrease in private lots over the years, massive expansion of bike lanes, expansion of car share programs, and newly built train lines. Every year we are less and less dependent on cars and the city has only gotten better from things like this.
😂😂😂
Good, hopefully with a significant cost so it encourages people to use public and active transport. Free parking isn’t free since society bears a significant cost to provide it.
yeah im not sure how I feel on this. I have known folks who will drive their ice car around and around a block to access free parking. I want more cars parked and not running than running. Especially if self driving cars become a true thing. If its cheaper folks will totally have their cars drive back home and then a few hours later drive to pick them up and double their energy usage and exhaust.
The problem is tons of free parking everywhere needlessly sprawls out our cities, makes people drive further, and makes actual green methods of transit (like walking, cycling, and electrified public transit) less viable.
In the long term, maintaining car dependency is fundamentally incompatible with addressing the climate crisis. Removing mandatory parking minimums is a necessary step towards ending car dependency.
I mean the common podium design with a garage at the bottom works well and the space is not desirable in condo design. Larger high rises are the same as higher is more sought. Your not really losing housing as the parking is cheaper than fully done residentail for the square feet and taking much less square feet overall. I know a 3 over one that gives two spaces so a 6 over one should be able to do one easy enough and since lower sizes should be able to get the same out of even four flats as it just needs one additional story.
There’s nothing stopping people from building them.
There’s just no longer something forcing people to build them.
thats a good point but again to go back to my original point people will do stupid things to deal with a no parking situation.
For no parking? Short term they do stupid shit (like a large event). Long term they just get rid of cars.
Ground and semi-recessed also makes a fantastic space for retail, which makes more money than parking. Digging subterranean JUST to add parking only adds costs, you don’t have to keep digging (or if you do, you can solid fill instead of putting in parking garages).
Again, nothing stopping people from putting them in, but don’t think it’s free space or inexpensive to do.
I mean I highly disagree because I have seen some stupid and I don’t know anyone who wanted to have a car who has not found a way to have one. Short term they might do without but I found folks who give up cars were willing to do it regardless of circumstances.
Why do you hate affordable housing? I mean, you do realize how incredibly expensive those parking podiums are, right? Forcing developers to build them basically guarantees the development will have to be “luxury” in order to make the economics work.
I don’t and the parking again is cheap relative to the finished area per square foot. Granted part of it is the way the 5 over ones and such are done with the one is part of the foundation and so can handle the higher weight.
parking again is cheap relative to the finished area per square foot
Rough estimates are $90 / sq foot for parking, $160 / sq foot for finished construction.
But guess which one sells and rents for more?
In my area the parking sells and rents for more per square feet but I don’t think they should allow that. It should have to stay with the unit. Honestly another thing is condos should have to allow the parking to be used for general storage only being allowed to require it stays within the area and maybe that it has to be in a cabinet or such to keep it neat and such.
