
Cincinnati Joins the List of Cities Saying ‘No’ to Parking Minimums - jseliger
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/cincinnati-joins-the-list-of-cities-saying-no-to-parking-minimums
======
finaliteration
I feel really mixed about things like this. I absolutely appreciate the need
for additional housing in urban centers, especially if it makes housing more
affordable. However, I’m also someone who lives relatively far from an urban
center with no reliable public transportation for the sake of having housing
that isn’t ridiculously expensive. This means I’m required to drive into the
urban center for work where parking is already expensive and difficult to
find. The lot where I usually park has months long waiting lists to get a
monthly pass.

Again, I totally understand the rationale behind it. It’s just frustrating for
those of us who have no better options in the near future.

~~~
chrisseaton
> This means I’m required to drive into the urban center for work where
> parking is already expensive and difficult to find.

Do you mean you literally drive into a city centre at rush hour, park there,
and go into an office?

It blows my mind that people are even able to do that. It actually says
something perversely positive about US roads and cities that it's possible!

I would not attempt to drive into the centre of a city in the UK for any
reason at any time of day ever. You would not make it to your office before
the day ended and when you got there you'd simply find there was no parking
anyway and you'd have to go home again!

~~~
rashkov
US doesn't have nearly the public transport infrastructure that the UK does,
unfortunately. I think the issue here may be that cities aren't necessarily
building infrastructure to compensate for their reductions of car access.

~~~
soperj
It's the richest country on earth. What's the excuse?

~~~
prolikewh0a
Our country is a lot bigger with barely anything in the middle. Cities without
adequate public transit can be blamed directly on the voters.

~~~
strictnein
> "barely anything in the middle"

It's amazing how many people think this. There are metro areas in "the middle"
with populations greater than European countries. And Texas, right in the
middle, has a population that would put it at #10 in Europe.

    
    
       #3 Chicago 9.5 million
       #4 Dallas 7.4 million
       #5 Houston 6.9 million
       #14 Detroit 4.3 million
       #16 Minneapolis 3.6 million
       #19 Denver 2.9 million
       #21 St Louis 2.8 million
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas#United_States)

The Chicago metro would be the 20th largest country in Europe.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_population)

~~~
yazr
Let be kind to the GP and assume he meant "space between metro areas" rather
than the simplistic "coastal and flyover" meme.

Look at Texas. 200 miles of between Houston and Dallas and Austin. This
largely empty triangle itself is half the Texas population. But its barely 10%
of the Texas area.

So yes. The US metros are isolated compared to Europe.

~~~
isostatic
That isolation means that people travel to airports to go to other metro
areas, rather than train stations like in Europe.

It doesn't explain the lack of transit inside the metros.

Metro population density is far more important.

~~~
pixl97
US metro population density is low in most places that are not constrained by
oceans or mountains.

~~~
soperj
Same with Canada, and yet Metro is better in most big Canadian cities than any
I've been to in the U.S.

~~~
pixl97
Aren't Canada's biggest cities along borders with rivers?

------
twblalock
If there hadn’t been minimum parking requirements in the past, cities would
have been forced to develop better transit. These requirements were a direct
subsidy to car owners, which most people were not conscious of.

This will be a painful transition for people who depend on the status quo. But
you have to pull the band-aid off sometime, and waiting longer won’t make it
any better.

~~~
GW150914
Considering that “cars owners” in America represent 88%, maybe it’s just an
alignment of interests. Maybe alternatives are rejected not because of these
subtle systemic issues, but rather because a supermajority of Americans own
cars and don’t want the alternatives? Talking about “car owners” like that
isn’t synonymous with “most Americans” is a very particular way to frame the
issue that makes it seem like a top-down structure when it isn’t.

~~~
twblalock
The problem is, everyone driving and parking a car in dense urban areas is not
sustainable past a certain level of density. This results in heavy traffic and
a large amount of land dedicated to parking which could be better used as
anything else.

This _is_ a top-down structure that was intentionally designed by urban
planners after WWII and it is reaching its scalability limit.

~~~
closeparen
Limitations on density are put there by popular demand. Most American's don't
want that level of density either. I think they're _wrong_ , but they're the
majority.

~~~
twblalock
By their actions, Americans show they want density. Otherwise, why are more
Americans moving into big cities than moving out of them? Why do they clog up
the freeways by driving to work in the same cities at the same time?

People might say they don't want density, but every current trend is toward
more density, because of the actions people are taking.

~~~
closeparen
Someone migrating to a big city generally wants to the last one in the door.
People are much more interested in consuming density personally than in in
allowing developers to produce more of it.

------
luma
In private conversations with the local city mobility department (which covers
public transport and parking), there is a lot of tension building up due to
the expectation of autonomous vehicles coming online within a decade. Floating
a 20 year bond to build new parking structures used to be a safe investment
but there is now a widespread expectation that personal vehicles will not
require parking facilities well before that bond could be paid off. It is
forcing a re-evaluation of the traditional regulatory, zoning, and financial
instruments historically employed by cities to address these problems, and
nobody is certain of the answer.

~~~
ghaff
Those cars still need to go somewhere. Maybe there's more sharing from the
outskirts? But if you assume that cars will just drop off and then drive out
to some vaguely defined area outside of the city where parking is plentiful,
you're going to massively increase congestion.

~~~
slavik81
I've heard that a surprising percentage of trip time in the downtown core is
spent looking for nearby parking. Having the car drop people off and drive
away to park somewhere where parking is less scarce might not actually
increase time on road.

You could also greatly increase parking density in parkcades if all vehicles
had autonomous parking. For example, it would be no problem to box cars in if
vehicles could move on their own to let them out. I bet you could easily
double parking density.

~~~
MBCook
Plus some sort of vertical parking elevator starts to become much more
reasonable. They already exist but when the whole thing is 100% automated
including the car you could get more parking out of the vertical space then
you do with a current garage.

~~~
mikepurvis
It'll be possible to pack them way, way more tightly if a) the structure
itself is able to move the cars around at will, and b) you can give it an
estimate of what time you'll be back (or 30 mins notice for the "standby"
option).

~~~
derefr
At that point, it's less of a parking structure and more of an automated valet
service. You get out of your car and only your car enters.

Taken to the limit of the idea, the whole parking structure could be entirely
sealed to the outside, and maybe even evacuated or filled with a non-
oxygenated medium (e.g. nitrogen) to prevent car fires and reduce rusting from
long-term storage. Sort of like a modern grain silo.

~~~
slavik81
My line of thought started from, "what would the world be like if every
vehicle had a built-in valet?" I think the design of commercial areas would
change dramatically within a couple decades, even just from the effect on
parking.

------
sandworm101
>>> "The Seattle bill required commercial and residential buildings to charge
residents for parking only if they actually had a car."

They did this in my old hometown. (North Shore, Vancouver.) They allowed all
sorts of condos to be built on the assumption that they would be rented by
retired/rich people. Retired people don't drive. Rich people don't have jobs.
So the buildings went ahead without associated infrastructure/transport
improvements. Now the nurses coming to take care of the elderly residents have
to part at the local mall (Park Royal) which is now debating payed parking.
Visiting grandchildren (minivans) fight for street space. And the city is
becoming grayer and grayer.

I've since moved out of vancouver, to a much younger and more vibrant city. I
cannot remember the last time I paid for parking.

~~~
Zelphyr
I saw this exact situation happen at a previous employer. Three large high-end
apartment buildings were built in an area where a large percentage of the
residential population are older wealthy people. The three buildings have
minimal parking and are located right across the street from a mall. Within
two years of the first building being completed, the mall implemented paid
parking.

~~~
Fomite
In the town I grew up in, this happened as well - and is now killing said
mall.

------
smackfu
I’ve noticed sometimes the parking minimum is essentially just used as a
source of power for the zoning board. They don’t actually want places to build
the required large amounts of parking, but they don’t want to have to rubber
stamp developments that they don’t like. So they waive the parking
requirements of people that make the changes that they want.

------
crwalker
I am optimistic that we are relearning how to build great cities in the US.

~~~
stevenwoo
Where? Great by what measure?

~~~
crwalker
Apparently Cincinnati. Great by the measure of livability as demonstrated by
many European cities (high density core and mixed land use make cities better
suited to walking, biking, community).

------
village-idiot
Good. Let the price of parking float rather than artificially depressing the
price via zoning.

------
ChuckMcM
And the strongtowns take:
[https://www.strongtowns.org/parking/](https://www.strongtowns.org/parking/)

It seems to me it would put pressure on other issues (investing in public
transit) which may not followed up on, thus leaving you with a dysfunctional
urban infrastructure.

------
jstanley80
This makes sense for Cincinnati's urban core, since it once had a population
density similar to New York. The neighborhoods referenced in the article are
incredibly walkable and the city has already invested in a streetcar system to
move between neighborhoods. Overall, Cincinnati's neighborhoods within 10
miles of downtown are filled with dense, pre-war construction centered around
public squares connected by public transit. The city is already laid out to
function without cars (streetcars were abundant here in the 1800s).

------
qwerty456127
That seems a really weird move for a place where almost everybody has a car.
It would be reasonable if the public transport system was well-developed,
growing rapidly and meant to be the main means for the people to travel the
city but isn't the USA (with exception of a small number of places) primarily
a car country?

------
lewis500
Parking minimums are based on a handbook full of pseudoscience. When city
engineers crack open the ITE handbook, it’s the equivalent of a doctor
cracking open some old medieval text about humours.

------
vermooten
What are 'parking minimums'?

~~~
MBCook
Requiring at least X parking spaces for every Y hundred square feet of floor
space in a building. Or based on maximum occupancy or some other metric.

It’s why you see small niche businesses in strip malls with large and always
empty parking lots. They’re REQUIRED to have lots that big if they don’t/can’t
get a variance.

And it can be a lot of wasted space, and a deterrent to using public transit.
After all, there is always easy parking.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> And it can be a lot of wasted space, and a deterrent to using public
> transit. After all, there is always easy parking.

It's not just that it makes driving better. It makes everything else worse,
too. Ever tried walking from a house to a strip mall to run errands? Now
compare that to walking for errands in a European or Japanese city.

The difference is enormous; I've lived in several parts of the US, currently
live in Germany and have traveled around a decent amount, most US cities are
just terrible for anything other than driving.

~~~
closeparen
>Ever tried walking from a house to a strip mall to run errands?

Absolutely. Mostly the problem is the absurd amount of space between houses,
because "not everyone wants to live packed in like sardines on top of each
other" (quote from a zoning meeting where the outlawed ADUs).

~~~
TulliusCicero
Parking/car space is also part of why houses are so spread out, too.

~~~
closeparen
I don’t think that’s true. Most houses in San Francisco have their parking in
the required setback, basement, or 1st floor. That’s extrmely dense compared
to standard suburbia, where space between houses is drastically in excess of
car storage needs. America would be ~10x as dense (still suburban, but a very
different character) if car storage were the limiting factor.

------
thomastjeffery
> “Unbundling makes parking more transparent,” a researcher from Sightline
> told Next City at the time. “When people realize they’re paying $200 a month
> for parking they might opt out or get by with one car instead of two, then
> the market builds less of it which is what we want.”

What is "it" in this sentence? Parking? Why do you want less parking?

~~~
ImaCake
Maybe it's more a general complaint about cars. If the city has been requiring
free parking spaces then it has been effectively paying for people to own
cars.

In general I can see why certain leaderships would wish for less cars for
broader reasons. Cars are wasteful and consume precious resources. They kill
people, both directly, and indirectly. They discourage people from walking and
cycling - both are good ways to increase livability and safety of a community.
Finally, cars contribute to the damage we are doing to the planet. Some
leaders care about the environment, or at least pretend to for votes.

------
tomohawk
So glad I live in the burbs where artificial scarcity induced by petty local
politics isn't a thing.

There's petty politics everywhere, of course, but worrying about where to park
my car? No really something I have time for.

~~~
0xB31B1B
Which burbs, the burbs are usually the definition of artificial scarcity.
Setbacks, minimum lot sizes, FAR restrictions are all a suburban concept for
the most part.

~~~
opportune
Yes, in parts of Seattle and SF for example, the "suburbs" would really be at
least 4 floor multifamily residences (some a lot taller) if not for
"artificial scarcity induced by petty local politics"

