Parking requirements and shared parking

[Red Arrow]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

I don't think any of those shadows are long enough to represent early morning or late evening.  But I challenge you to drive around town at any time of the day or night, and find a suburban parking lot that is full.  For every one you find (if you can find one), I can find 20 that are half occupied.

I'm not talking about the little parking lots on Brookside and Cherry Street.  I mean the modern, full-sized parking lots that our current zoning code requires.  (Car dealerships don't count.)  

I am not a morning person. For me, 8AM is early. (It's tough getting to work by 7:30.)

Many parking lots are larger than they need to be. I will give you that.  On the flip side, I don't like door dings so I park away from the crowd. If there is no place away from the crowd, I go away.

[MDepr2007]

It's the build and they will come disease

[PonderInc]

Personally, I think that a smaller parking lot that's full makes an establishment look more successful than a wide open expanse of empty asphalt.  But if it were up to me, all parking would be limited and located behind the buildings.

An environment that encourages walking/window shopping would attract more patrons than "single use" drive-to destinations.  (Drive there, shop, drive away.)  Places that emphasize the pedestrian create synergies among various establishments (shop, walk around, shop somewhere else, eat, walk around, have an adult beverage...).  And reducing space wasted on parking would allow us to generate more tax dollars per acre of real estate.

Certainly, if buildings were built up to the sidewalk where they belong, we would place more emphasis on architecture and design.  Commercial owners/tenents would want to create a welcoming environment.  Giant corporate logos and excessive signage would be replaced by attractive storefronts that invite window shopping.  And it would make transit more effective and easy to use.

[MDepr2007]

I think everyone who wants to change things, should just change their address....

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by MDepr2007

I think everyone who wants to change things, should just change their address....

McCain would win by a landslide...

[PonderInc]

quote:Originally posted by MDepr2007

I think everyone who wants to change things, should just change their address....

Well, that's certainly a philosophy shared by generations of Tulsa's best and brightest, who flee the city immediately upon graduation...for cities where it's often difficult to park...

[Red Arrow]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

quote:Originally posted by MDepr2007

I think everyone who wants to change things, should just change their address....

Well, that's certainly a philosophy shared by generations of Tulsa's best and brightest, who flee the city immediately upon graduation...for cities where it's often difficult to park...

I expect that for many it's a matter of where the jobs are.

[PonderInc]

quote:Originally posted by MDepr2007


Before the run to the subs, this parking lot saw more cars when the Fox movie theatre was going , people eating lunch and a decent grocery store. Crawpappys can help fill it pretty good at times too. Be fair and use a newly built parking lot , not one from the 50's or before that did fill back in the day.

It's kind of sad that the only historic photo of the Fox Theater in the Beryl Ford Collection is just a picture of a sign in a parking lot.

Sort of revealing, actually...

[OurTulsa]

Here is the link to the article posted below.  Comments and discussion follow the article but are too numerous to post here.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2008/10/dont_build_parking_and_theyll.html

Don't Build Parking, And They'll Come--Without Cars
For decades, the District and residents wary of overdevelopment have used the city's parking regulations as one of their main weapons in the war against congestion. Complex formulas require a certain number of parking spots for each chunk of new residential or office space.

But now D.C. planners and a growing number of urbanists are proposing to scrap those minimum parking requirements on the theory that big urban parking garages are a destructive and unnecessary public subsidy for car owners. The argument is that building garages in densely populated urban neighborhoods undermines public transit, wastes space that could be used for affordable housing and more attractive retail, and pushes up the cost of housing, guaranteeing lower-quality development.

The city's proposal notes "a growing shift across the nation away from parking minimums as cities realize the hidden costs of over-parking."

The District's planning commission will meet Oct. 16 to consider reducing or eliminating minimum parking requirements, and generally making the city's parking rules more flexible--letting developers use nearby parking spaces rather than building their own, and encouraging builders to provide space instead for car-sharing services and bicycles.

David Alpert, the Greater Greater Washington blogger and urban advocate, has been pushing hard for this relaxation of parking rules, and planning director Harriet Tregoning says she will hold hearings all around the city before any changes are made.

Tregoning argues that the city has diminished its own ability to foster a car-free environment by forcing developers to build enormous numbers of parking spaces that then sit unused. Cases in point: The new DC USA shopping mall in Columbia Heights (Target, Marshalls, etc.) has a huge indoor lot that remains mainly empty, as most customers arrive by Metro or on foot. In Adams Morgan, the new Harris Teeter supermarket similarly has far more parking than it needs.

"I use a granny cart and we walk to the store," says Tregoning, who lives not far from the new market. The new Giant in Columbia Heights has also found itself with more parking spaces than it knows what to do with; I've repeatedly been startled to find that I can park within three or four spaces of the store's doorway, even when the shop is teeming with customers.

"People come from all over the city to Target," the planning director says, "but the parking is hardly used." Similarly, at many new apartment buildings in close-in neighborhoods, the parking spaces required by the city are going unsold--some buildings report selling garage space to only one of every 10 apartment buyers.

Free or nearly free parking induces car usage, the planners say. And in a city with 140,000 parking spaces in garages or other off-street parking, there's a strong case to be made that in some places, there is plenty of parking already. Indeed, if you think about it, the city's most walkable and pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods tend to be those with the least parking--Georgetown, Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill. That doesn't mean there aren't tremendously frustrating experiences searching for parking in those neighborhoods, but it does mean that people find ways around that problem.

"Since alternatives to driving are abundant on transit-available streets in the District," the city's proposal says, "dedicated off-street parking for housing should not be required but can be permitted as an option for developers."

Don't build the parking, and residents will be more likely to buy into a transit- and walking-based urban life. That pretty well sums up my experience living in neighborhoods that had very difficult parking vs. those where parking is plentiful. If you know you're going to have to spend an hour roaming around searching for a space, you are dramatically less likely to take the car out on the next shopping or leisure venture.

Do you buy the theory? And do you think the city can get this idea past the neighborhood activists who have long clung to parking minimums as a tool to wield against developers?

[carltonplace]

It makes sense that abundant free parking puts drivers in the mind set that they should bring their car and then drive rather than walk from store to store even though those stores are in proximity. I regularly see people get in their car after leaving Target at 21st and Yale and then drive next door to the Reasors.

Let's say you need a haircut, a DVD, groceries, some new towels a few plants and a sandwich for lunch. You can get all of these things at 21st and Yale but odds are that you would drive to Supercuts, Hollywood Video, Lowes, Target, Reasors and the restaurant.

[pfox]

http://feeds.newsok.tv/services/link/bcpid1766638491/bctid1697162938

[OurTulsa]

quote:Originally posted by carltonplace

It makes sense that abundant free parking puts drivers in the mind set that they should bring their car and then drive rather than walk from store to store even though those stores are in proximity. I regularly see people get in their car after leaving Target at 21st and Yale and then drive next door to the Reasors.

Let's say you need a haircut, a DVD, groceries, some new towels a few plants and a sandwich for lunch. You can get all of these things at 21st and Yale but odds are that you would drive to Supercuts, Hollywood Video, Lowes, Target, Reasors and the restaurant.

This is where psychology and design come in to play.  The distance between Target and SuperCuts at 21st St. is very small, easily walkable for most.  However, as there is a significant parking lot that is very disorienting to the pedestrian in between those destinations that distance is perceptually greater.  Further, the paved environment in between is perceptively harmful and abrasive to the would-be pedestrian therefore people don't even think twice about not walking between the two.  

That center could be fundamentally redesigned and filled in such that walking between Target and Supercuts would not only be the most convenient choice but the most desirable choice.

All this to say, IMO, large or even moderately sized parking lots placed in front of and in between uses can negatively impact a pedestrian environment.

[PonderInc]

It's funny how walking along an interesting street is relaxing and enjoyable, and walking the same distance from one pad to another in a large commercial development is like working out on a treadmill: boring and tedious!  If the weather's hot, the black asphalt creates another dis-incentive to pedestrians by adding 10 degrees to the outside temp!

[TUalum0982]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

You want examples of excessive parking and underutilized land?  The newer the development, the bigger the parking lots.  For instance...

96th and Riverside


81st and Yale


71st and 169 area

The pic from the kohls at 71st and 169....on any given, fri, sat, sun and mon nights, that parking lot is full.  Primarily due to the restaurants in the area.

[PonderInc]

I would be willing to bet that "full" is an exageration, since any restaurant would also have it's own dedicated spaces.  

I was surprised to see people parking in the "back 40" at the Lowes at 15th and Yale the other day.  Then I realized the spaces were being used by fair-goers.  Even with the extra influx of cars, the lot wasn't "full."  There was a wide gap between the cars parked in front of Lowe's and those parked near Yale.

Sad!