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Oh no, I see the connection that you think you are making, it's just that your argument makes no sense and it's hilarious that you still can't recognize it. As I already said, just because people pay for schools that they don't use doesn't mean that people should pay for parking they don't use. You could the "but you already pay for schools you don't use!" argument to justify anything.
Person A: The widget industry is dying because not enough people are buying widgets. Therefore the government should require more people to buy widgets.
Except subsidizing an item (say, parking) isn't the same as requiring to buy a product. This is an even worse analogy. The government providing a public good (in the sense of amnetity open for public use) and using money for it isn't the same as propping a failing business.
^^The point is, we all pay for some government services we don't receive. And Ohiogirl81 is right! Perceived lack of parking can hurt a business. Despite what a lot of people on this forum think, convenient parking is important to many people.
Did people actually read the links? Two of three are about residential parking. One (Newsday) focuses on commercial parking, but mainly on low parking fees (below-market) that result in few available spaces left, mainly focusing on NYC, but also a few other unnamed cities.
Except subsidizing an item (say, parking) isn't the same as requiring to buy a product. This is an even worse analogy. The government providing a public good (in the sense of amnetity open for public use) and using money for it isn't the same as propping a failing business.
The government in many places forces business owners to provide parking. All three articles talk about these mandates as a factor in all three places. There is more government-mandated free parking provided by private entities than there is parking directly provided by the government. How is that not analogous to forcing someone to buy a product? Of course it's not LITERALLY THE SAME THING, but if "you already pay for schools you don't use" is a good rejoinder to "I don't want to pay for government-mandated parking I don't use" then why wouldn't it also be a good rejoinder to "I don't want to pay for government-mandated widgets I don't use?" One would have to provide reasons why parking is more important and more worthy of government mandates than widgets.... in other words reasons that have nothing to do with schools, which was the whole point of the analogy.
Last edited by stateofnature; 06-15-2016 at 03:54 PM..
Articles claims parking and cars are subsidized by the poor and non car owners for parking lots and parking garages even when they do not have a car and it claims increases the cost of goods and housing.
And car owners subsidize non-car users transit. If they have an issue with business providing parking, they're free to shop somewhere that doesn't provide much, if any, parking. There's convenience-type grocery stores in Midtown with no parking and high prices where they can not subsidize the parking at cheaper supermarkets by paying more. Or they could do what I do and shop mostly at Winco which a cheaper supermarket store with a giant parking lot and just accept that a half cent or whatever goes to overhead to provide the ocean of parking at somewhere like Winco. A more legitimate complaint would be driver's (and non-driver's) subsidizing the cost of all the people who steal shopping carts. That costs a lot more and, unlike patrons using the parking lot, isn't something businesses want you doing.
It's completely ridiculous anyway. While some cities do require parking none of them require it to be free. That's a business decision. It's not even required in a lot of places. For example, it's citing the cost of underground parking garages which typically one only sees in downtown areas. EG, Whole Paychecks at the Westlake Center in downtown Seattle does not have any parking. As a business decision, they'll validate the not free parking for up to 2-hours. There are no mandates they do that. Nor are there any mandates requiring any parking, let alone free parking, as are provided by Target or QFC or Metropolitan. Likewise with most urban apartments I've seen, it doesn't cost anything for non-drivers as the apartments aren't linked to the parking. If you want parking, you'll pay an extra $200-400/month per space for it. Once again, in many cities like Seattle there are no parking requirements in the more urban areas. Most new construction is built with parking as it's an amenity that people care about, much like they often have pools and fitness rooms. Unlike pools and fitness rooms, however, you can't opt out of those like you can with parking. Those come bundled in most urban apartments. Something like Velo in Seattle got brought up by another poster for choosing to build too much parking. Okay. And what's the point? They weren't required to build any. They overestimated the demand for parking and were left with 20-30% of the spaces, at the time the article was written, vacancy in parking places. So they took a few of those spaces away and expanded the free bicycle parking. Of course, the article didn't complain about free bicycle parking versus not free car parking because his issue isn't free parking. The author's issue he was just anti-car. No requirements for any parking and it wasn't free and he still had an issue with a private property owner being permitted to even build car parking period. Purely anti-car. He liked free parking as long as it was for bicycles. Even Stroupe isn't that ridiculous. His issue is more with things like when most of the USC football team had handicapped placards so they could park for free on LA street meters all day long. I get that.
Somewhat similarly, my last apartment in a more suburban part of Sacramento did require parking. The majority of the parking was not free. There were maybe 20-30 unreserved first come, first served parking places and everything else you paid for. We paid for one parking space and usually I parked on the street. Even though parking minimums were mandated there, there wasn't enough parking. Whenever a parking space opened up it went first to the apartments that had no parking and then anything left over after that, which there never was much of, would trickle down to the people that wanted to pay for a second parking spot.
I know that our formerly dead downtown started to flourish after the city built parking garages that are free on the evenings and weekends.
You would think that an "urbanist" would celebrate a vibrant downtown where people from the entire metro gather to shop and dine... attend festivals and farmers markets, etc.
But no... apparently not. Not if they arrived by car.
BTW, my city also subsidizes a bus system that mostly benefits people without cars. So maybe it balances out.
Look, we all pay for things we don't use -- highways, parking lots, public transportation, basketball courts, playgrounds, dog parks, health care ... the list is endless.
I will agree that many municipalities mandate more parking spaces for residential and commercial developments than probably are necessary. That does not mean parking is not necessary, nor does it equate parking with the end of the world as we know it.
Whether you like it or not, people drive cars, and those cars need slots in which to park when their owners are at work, at home, out shopping, or elsewhere. Planning, for better or worse, must allow for the maximum number of parking spots based on use. Commercial developments generally have parking requirements based on square footage. Residential developments must plan as though each dwelling will have at least one car, perhaps two, plus spaces for visitors.
Again, it's not rocket science. It's not even brain surgery. I'm not seeing the outrage here.
At first, I didn't read the links, because I thought "same old, same old". When challenged to do so, I went back.
#1: Wanted my email address. No thanks.
#2: NYC centric opinion piece. Oh, it did mention other cities very briefly.
#3: Actually part of that rag, The Atlantic. Frankly, I find The Atlantic very lame. The author of the article lives in DC, yet she rampages on about Seattle. A poster came on and corrected some of what she said.
We've discussed this before. It's always the same. People who disagree with the "urbanist" position get their intelligence insulted. Nothing gets resolved.
Incidentally, that $24,000 for "aboveground" parking means a structure, not a surface lot; a surface space is about an order of magnitude cheaper.
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