
An End to Parking? - prostoalex
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/01/future-parking-self-driving-cars
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cballard
> WHAT WOULD A CITY look like if it suddenly needed 90 percent less parking?

...Amsterdam?

> Take New York City, where there are roughly 102,000 public parking spaces
> below 60th Street—taking up roughly 18.4 million square feet, a space equal
> to about half of Central Park.

> "San Francisco is going bananas for new housing, and Manhattan is always
> looking for space, and here we have this sitting in front of us," Samaras
> says. "That's what autonomous vehicles can do."

You don't actually ned autonomous cars to do this. Just _get rid of the
parking_ (or, start charging market rate for it, and use the money to fund
transit).

There is an MTA trunk line on almost every avenue, and I'd argue that the ones
without subway lines, as well as the major crosstown streets, should be turned
into Portland Transit Malls. Enough with being nice to people that drive
personal cars into Manhattan.

~~~
zifnab06
I'll pick on Seattle, as that's where I'm currently living.

To bus to my office, I have a 30 minute bus ride on one of the rapidride
busses, then transfer to a king county metro bus. The second bus takes between
0 and 30 minutes to arrive, normally gets stuck in traffic on the route it
takes, and arrives near my office in 10 to 30 minutes. This is assuming
neither bus is full and picks people up at either stop.

On the best day, I'm on a bus for 40 minutes. On the worst, 90. That's 1.5-3
hours a day dealing with a commute.

Alternatively, if I drive, I leave when I want to and normally arrive in 15-20
minutes. On a good day I save an hour a day driving, and on a bad one almost 2
hours.

I'm all for public transit, when it works efficiently. We currently do not
have a rail system that reaches the majority of our population (its being
planned though). I can't justify the additional time for my commute, because
I'd always have to plan for the worst.

The bright side is sound transit is working on a proposal to expand their
existing light rail. I'm all for efficient, timely, and reliable public
transportation. I live 4 miles from work. It shouldn't take up to 90 minutes
for me to get there.

~~~
yodsanklai
> I live 4 miles from work. It shouldn't take up to 90 minutes for me to get
> there.

That should be 20-30 min by bicycle :) is that an option?

~~~
tempestn
In Seattle you're going to get pretty wet biking to work a significant
percentage of the time. Depending on your job that might be an issue. (Or it
might not at all. Before I worked from home I used to bike to work and shower
there; it was great.)

Also though, not everyone is able or wants to power their own transportation,
and although I think biking is great, I this choosing not to is also perfectly
reasonable and should also be respected.

~~~
Symbiote
The weather isn't that much different to Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

But in both cities, buses have the exclusive use of some road space. This
ensures a reliable journey time.

~~~
tempestn
They (or Amsterdam at least) also have amazing bike lanes everywhere. I
actually lived and commuted by bike in Ghent, Belgium for a few months, which
is very similar. I did indeed get soaked on the way to work fairly frequently,
but was able to shower there. I also felt very safe doing so, as bike lanes
are _everywhere_.

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mc32
I never liked vast seas of parking or sprawl. It's not my thing; I like
compactness. I prefer safe, crime free, walkable mass transit centered
communities. I think it's more aesthetic, is better use of land, it's a
healthier way to live, to experience the place you grow and die in.

But, I loathe people telling people how things should be and what should
better. Things will change organically, just as they organically changed from
sodden cow and horse manure filled roads to paved, car filled roads. So too
will cars acquiesce to something else. But stop, stop the condescension and
promulgation that all that is car is bad. When something better comes along,
people will choose the better thing.

For good or bad, in the US, China, Japan, Europe and Africa, people choose
cars when they're useful. Cars aren't foisted onto them. Yes, choices in
development matter, but that's an altogether different topic.

Back to aesthetics, while I would enjoy fewer cars and parking spaces, I do
not look forward to buildings built closer together like in the middle ages.
They're nice when you're taking a stroll, but they are impractical for
emergencies, when people need to evacuate, when emergency vehicles need
access. I prefer wide streets even in the absence of cars [ever experience mid
rises banging against each other in an earthquake?]

~~~
eloisant
Maybe you don't know it but cities are designed. There are urban planners who
decide who to organise an area, public governements decide what land is open
to what kind of buildings, etc.

So decisions are taken about how to organise cities, and it's been this way
for centuries.

See how Haussmann transformed Paris in the 19th century for example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Paris)

~~~
WildUtah
More topically, parking is built because city planners and local and state
laws require it. It isn't optional, developers can't choose to organically
build less over time, it isn't a matter of choice, and it won't acquiesce into
anything else.

And the predominance of parking everywhere in America didn't just happen. It
was mandated by law.

First world cities with low parking requirements have much less than 5% as
much parking as American cities do. Because that is what people will build
voluntarily and pay for.

~~~
mc32
By organically I meant people petition, change laws pass ordinances etc at
their pace.

Speaking of low parking slot cities, ever enjoy having sidewalks and pavement
taken up by parked cars. Slots or not, people park their cars.

~~~
WildUtah
Tokyo requires that car owners prove they have a reserved parking stall before
allowing them to register a vehicle. That takes care of sidewalk parking.

But the easiest way to eliminate sidewalk parking is to install meters on the
street spaces. Then the local authorities will promptly tow sidewalk parkers
for meter evasion. The problem only crops up where parking is mandated and
free.

~~~
mc32
Leys see how that works out on counties with corruption endemic at low levels
of enforcement.

~~~
WildUtah
Mexico City had no parking meters six years ago and a serious sidewalk parking
problem. As the new meters go into neighborhoods, the local parking cops (on
bicycles with a trailer full of Denver boots) detain illegal parkers.

It works absolutely great. The neighborhood has new cash to spend on
improvements and there's legal space to park in for a price.

------
mschuster91
The problem I see with shared cars is that people like to forget stuff in
their cars. Cellphones, ID bages, food, wallets, bags...

When I park my car at my workplace and I notice my badge fell out of my pants
(or I forgot it), no problem, I can head back to the car and get my badge. If
I take a cab I can always phone the cab central and have them ask the driver
to look for the item (of course, this requires honest cab drivers and it will
cost me a huge amount of money if the cab driver is already on the other end
of the city by the time I notice). No way at all to do so with an autonomous
car.

Also, a shift to autonomous cars would prevent another very common use case:
after work I might want to do something else before driving home, like going
to sports training. So now I'd have to carry my gun and ammo (or my sport
gear, or ...) all the time around with me instead of leaving the stuff in my
car.

Also, my own car still is freedom: public transport, even in Germany, shuts
down after 2200 and restarts only at 0500, and if you're outside the city you
rarely have time intervals for buses and trains lower than 20min - often it's
more like 40min, 60min or even 120min. With a shared car system, I'd have to
wait totally unpredictable amounts of time until a shared car is free, and
there's nothing I hate more than waiting.

Getting people off individual cars would require absolutely massive investment
in public transport. Might work out in cities, but in rural areas there's no
way you can get people to abandon their cars.

~~~
shawn-furyan
> So now I'd have to carry my gun and ammo (or my sport gear, or ...)

Of course there are all kinds of little assumptions in our daily lives that
would suddenly change and have to be addressed. In this case though, do you
really need 170 sq. feet to store whatever you are carrying with you? Opening
parking lots to development will generate enough value to provide a couple
12x18x72 inch lockers for each space removed. That still clears up over 98% of
the square footage currently being taken up by parking spaces, and it would
obviate the need to use cars for personal storage.

It might even lower theft since a big component of theft from automobiles is
that a thief can look into a bunch of cars and only break in when something
valuable enough is identified. And since lockers could be located inside where
the people are, it would probably opportunities for would be thieves to have
alone time with valuables.

> people like to forget stuff in their cars

If cars begin to be produced primarily for the purpose of transporting a
single different person over and over again all day (with a smaller number of
multi-passenger vehicles being produced for the relatively rare case of multi-
passenger rides), then I imagine that eventually they would evolve a design
that makes it more obvious when you drop things you are carrying. Currently
cars[1] have all kinds of nooks and crannies for your wallet to fall into,
because it's not that big a problem in most cases when you do that. But it
would be fairly trivial to add a little fiber glass hip that sits flush with
the seat. You would have to relocate the seat adjustment controls, but a lot
of vehicles have already centralized those controls on the main console, and
ridesharing vehicles would actually see enough benefit to consider such a
change.

[1] this includes taxis because taxis fleets are made up of essentially
consumer vehicles. This makes sense, because you always have at least 2 people
in a taxi, so you can't really comfortably make it that much smaller. But if
there were fleets of rideshared self-driving cars everywhere, most cars would
only need to carry a single person, and you can drastically reduce the size of
a one-person car without sacrificing comfort.

Edit: added third paragraph and the accompanying footnote

~~~
ars
> with a smaller number of multi-passenger vehicles being produced for the
> relatively rare case of multi-passenger rides

You clearly have no children. Most people do though. Multi-passenger rides are
hardly rare. Going to work is not the only thing people use a car for.

~~~
MagnumOpus
Any child old enough for a school bus is also old enough for a self-driving
taxi (age 8 or less). So that's most school/sports/activity runs out of the
picture. And if you live in a city, your kindergarten and primary schools is
generally 10 minutes' walk away or less.

But yes, there will be self-driving taxis of all sizes, just like there are
ubers and rental cars of all sizes now.

~~~
mschuster91
> Any child old enough for a school bus is also old enough for a self-driving
> taxi (age 8 or less). So that's most school/sports/activity runs out of the
> picture. And if you live in a city, your kindergarten and primary schools is
> generally 10 minutes' walk away or less.

Thank God I won't ever become a teacher. I can already imagine kids saying "I
forgot my homework in my taxi and couldn't call it back in time"...

~~~
learc83
How is that any different from "I forgot my homework on the bus, and it left
immediately after it dropped me off."

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lucaspiller
What about car sharing schemes such as Car2Go, Zipcar, etc, where you pay just
for the amount of time you use the car? Unlike autonomous cars, these are
available now and proven to be successful.

Here in Rome Car2Go have over 600 cars, so you are usually no more than 5
minutes walk from one. You can also leave it anywhere in the 'home zone',
rather than having to find a specific car sharing parking space. There is also
another service run by the city that has a similar number of cars. The prices
are quite high, but if you just need it for odd trips (i.e. not commuting
every day) it's still going to be cheaper than owning a car, and a lot easier
than having to deal with public transport.

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ars
These autonomous cars are hardly a full solution.

Or do you expect parents to attach car seats each time they call one up? And
where do you put the car seats the rest of the time? Cary them along with you?

It would be nice if the cars came with them built in, but I don't think it's
possible to make a seat that can accommodate every size child.

~~~
rglullis
Why would it be so hard to drop the car seat requirement? Taxis are exempt
from them, the security benefits are questionable already (more so once you
factor that an autonomous car would probably have a different cabin and safety
features), buses and trains don't need them...

Not to mention that a society that gets away from being car centric would also
grant more independency to children from their parents. In Japan, kids are
used to go to school by themselves at age 5. In Berlin I see kids seemlingly
from elementary school going around alone in the U-Bahn. Looks like parents
not having to be kids' chauffeurs would be a net gain.

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la6470
Yeah? Go to a place like China or India where there is no place to park your
car. Nowadays almost everyone in the world have a car so we need place to
park. If you don't want to own a car it is your problem. The new generation is
losing independence FAST....

~~~
jurip
> Nowadays almost everyone in the world have a car

In Helsinki, less than half of households have cars. In many areas of central
Helsinki, more than 60% are carless. I'd be surprised if car ownership was
significantly more popular in other European cities. If there's good public
transit and the city is walkable, a car is a waste of money for most people.

~~~
lis
Random data point: There were 342 cars registered per 1000 citizens in Berlin
in 2014 [0]. Same in other (large) cities I have lived in in Europe.

Typically, using the public transport in Berlin will be much quicker than
taking the car.

[0] Sorry, article in German (and BZ..): [http://www.bz-
berlin.de/berlin/immer-mehr-autobesitzer-aber-...](http://www.bz-
berlin.de/berlin/immer-mehr-autobesitzer-aber-weniger-fahrer)

