[sustran] Re: "on-street parking is the most efficient type of "

[Zvi Leve]

Eric and others,

Unfortunately I am too busy at work to put much time into this or any of 
the other interesting threads which have been posted recently. I think 
that both on-street parking, and limited well integrated (with the 
emphasis on well-integrated) off-street parking have their uses. In my 
opinion, there certainly are cases where removing on-street parking 
would be beneficial - just look at all of the pedestrianized areas in 
Europe and elsewhere.

As for transportation and citizen participation, Montreal has a new 
local political party, Projet Montreal <http://projetmontreal.org/>, 
whose entire platform revolves around sustainable transportation issues. 
They did reasonably well for a first time party in the last municipal 
elections, but I think that a municipal platform based solely on on 
transportation will only get them so far - the same themes and ideas 
could be 'spun' to put more emphasis on 'quality of life' instead of 
just transportation issues (which quite frankly does not interest your 
"average" voter very much - but then again, what does :-\ ).... A city's 
transportation policy is not a goal unto itself, but rather a means to 
an end....

On the subject of parking, here is an amusing anecdote about one 
resident's opinion of on-street parking: I live on a residential street 
of row-houses which is parallel to a major commercial artery. Some of 
our cross streets also have significant commercial and institutional 
uses (cafes and restaurants in particular, with some up-scale retail 
plus a few schools). My block has a particularly low rate of 
motorization, so we only "need" parking on one-side of the street (and 
even this is limited to residents). On the other hand, there are 
certainly people who do drive to our neighbourhood for various reasons 
(both for work and for pleasure) and have nowhere to park! I happened to 
suggest to one of my neighbours that having parking on both sides would 
be a double benefit: narrowing the lane-surface would encourage drivers 
to slow down (a problem on our "wide" block), plus having additional 
parking for the clients of all of our local cafes (which we also 
patronize) couldn't be a bad thing either! To make a long story short, a 
completely reasonable man literally became violent at the suggestion 
that we should allow more on-street parking! He started ranting about 
our street becoming a parking lot, with people coming from all over just 
to park in front of /his/ house and then take the bus down-town. I won't 
repeat here the names that he called me. I suppose that my comment "if 
he is so attached to /his/ parking space, maybe /he/ should move to the 
suburbs" did not help....

Anyway, that is just to point out that parking is a rather visceral 
issue with certain people, both residents and commerce owners who are 
convinced that all of their clients come by car.

Cheers,

Zvi

Eric Britton wrote:

> I would like to weigh in on this one, with what may to some of you 
> look like nothing more than a “personal religious prejudice” about 
> matters of transport policy and practice that I have consistently 
> courted for my entire career. Which has consistently biased me against 
> not only off-street parking but also putting money into underground rail.
>
> The nice thing about on street parking and all that visible traffic, 
> congestion, etc. is that you cannot avoid seeing it. It is the nature 
> of man that if we can avoid coming to grips with a problem, no matter 
> how grave, because it is hidden, we will. So let’s keep our problems 
> right in front of our noses – as a constant reminder that we better do 
> something about them.
>
> BTW, I am a bit surprised that my proposal for annual open citizen 
> mini-surveys of transport priorities in their cities has occasioned 
> such a deafening silence. Hmm. And I thought it was/is a real great 
> and useful idea. Hmm.
>
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>SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). Because of the history of the list, the main focus is on urban transport policy in Asia.
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