[sustran] More about on-street parking

[Eric Britton]

As Todd and Todd and Walter and Anzir and others of you make very
clearly (and with a tip of the hat of course to Donald Shoup), we, that
is the world sustainable transportation policy mafia, have our arms
pretty thoroughly around the parking - or at least the paid vs. free -
conundrum.  And if we are not able to get that message across in every
city with at least a modicum of good sense somewhere in its gut, this
has to be because we are not yet perhaps quite good enough as
communicators and/or leaders. (But the wide-shared knowledge is that
important first step in the right direction.)

 

As a generalist on the topic, I tend to maintain a rather primitive
model or mindset when it comes to WHERE you park, which I have by all
appearances thus far not been able to make my point clear enough for
getting at least a modicum of buy-in from some of you.  So, and since I
really do believe that this is an important point from the policy and
practice perspective, let me see if I can give this one last whack.  

 

1.	A car, a biggish vehicle that is normally used by people to make
their trips that is just standing there on the street doing nothing is
an expensive and in fact pretty anti-social proposition (bearing in mind
that in most of our cities (where we have egregiously overbuilt our
car-caring infrastructures) we need that space for other more important
parts of our active everyday lives. . . call it better public spaces.)


2.	That said, there will until such time that a totally transformed
transportation paradigm comes on line, there will still be a legitimate
call for a certain amount of "dead vehicle storage" in our cities.


3.	It will be useful and appropriate that some of this be handily
located where people can see them and pick them up.  The example of
"use-efficient" and "space-efficient" city transport comes to mind, for
example shared cars, quick-turn-around shared transit vehicles, and
bikes. 


4.	Now as we are seeing, parking is not only, potentially, a superb
tool for transport policy and system (and space) rationalization, but it
is also an absolutely vital transition tool. The trick here is not to
try to "solve" the global problem with an optimal long term parking
policy (attractive as that might be in theory) , but rather in this
imperfect and resistant world to see how we can use it to edge bit by
painful bit toward a more rational set of transportation arrangements in
our cities. We thus need to think of it not as a hammer., but more like
an escalator. 


5.	Bringing us to WHERE we put all those cars. 

a.	Well in the near term, we probably have to start on the street
where the bulk of them are in most cases. 
b.	For example, is our goal to get the acceptable a maximum of cars
out of the targeted parts of the city - for all the many reasons that we
will have in each case? Which argues for overall reduction in all types
of parking.
c.	Or is it just to get them off the street, which may be kind of
nice in a number of respects as several or you have pointed out -- but
which at the end of the day still leaves us with the fundamental
strategic problems pretty much intact. 
d.	Let's imagine that the technology is there and that the price is
right so that we can all get around  in clean cars.  That's just great,
but it still leaves at least 90% of our fundamental sustainability
problems untouched. 



6.	If you have looked into it at all you have seen that the whole
process of underground parking is petty weird, with in many places a
hard edge of if not outright criminality and anti-social deal-doing, at
the very least a certain amount of under the table political and
financial maneuvering which, like the successfully buried cars, prefers
to stay out of the harsh light of day. 


7.	Not only that, what I observe is that once a given city or place
has put their problem neatly underground, this serves to legitimize the
presence of extensive parking in central areas, which has to be the
wrong way to go. 


8.	All of this leaves us still facing the challenge that Eric Brun
has put before us: "getting rid of all on-street parking would mean . .
. flight of businesses to the suburbs"  Hmm. Yes, no doubt if it were to
be done brutally. But the issue is after all one of activity and access,
is it not? And there is more to activity and access than parking.

 

Which I guess is why we are all here.

 

Eric Britton

 

PS. By the way, I for one - and of course I am not alone in this - want
all that shamefully wasteful parking space both for public spaces but
also for reserved street space for "space efficient transportation" (and
here the long list follows.)  That indeed is the core of the proposed
Kyoto 20/20 approach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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