Tag Archives: parking

Curbside parking in the suburbs was seen as déclassé

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Benjamin Ross in Dead End includes this interesting tidbit about restricting street parking in suburbs:

As is common in zoning matters, status motivations lie hidden behind the stated rationales for parking minimums. Large-lot subdivisions where curb space is plentiful are rarely exempted. Indeed, early off-street parking rules, which mandated one space per house, could shrink the supply of parking. A one-car garage furnishes one space, but that space goes to waste when the owner is away from home. Its driveway eliminates a curb space that was usable twenty-four hours a day.

Curbside parking was disfavored because it was déclassé, suggestive of old neighborhoods with no garages and cars lining the roads. A 1969 planning text says that homeowners often object to on-street parking “from the purely aesthetic standpoint.” Aesthetics, here, is best understood as a euphemism. Parking is still allowed on driveways, and any given car is no better-looking there than on the street. But one’s own BMW in the driveway is entirely different from someone else’s Toyota at the curb. (p. 51)

Three quick thoughts:

1. Social class and status underlies a lot of activity in the American suburbs (as well as in other settings). Few people would admit such a thing but there is little reason to move cars to driveways outside of status.

2. Many communities, including my own, have restrictions on parking overnight on the street. What good reason is there for this?

3. Parking on the street actually could make streets safer. New Urbanists argue that having cars parked on both sides of the road makes drivers more cautious and attentive, leading to fewer accidents. Take parked cars away and throw in extra-wide streets like there are in many suburban neighborhoods and drivers will go a lot faster.

Experimental no parking signs in LA replace text with graphics

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Instead of relying on text to delineate times of no parking, a new design has emerged in Los Angeles:

LA's new proposed parking sign design, inspired by the work of Nikki

Nearly two years later, LA is rolling out a pilot program of signs that may do exactly that. Over the next six months, the city will install 100 new signs around downtown to test a design that condenses a hodgepodge of regulations into one easy-to-read grid.

You might recognize the design. The original concept is the work of Nikki Sylianteng, a Brooklyn designer whose day planner layout blew up on the Internet last year. Her design made the rounds on blogs, garnering attention from commiserating drivers and, evidently, city officials. She’s now working with transportation officials in Vancouver to create new parking signs. She’s also heard from officials in Columbus, Ohio, and some cities overseas. And she heard from Los Angeles councilman Paul Krekorian…

Husting thought Sylianteng’s design was a good concept to run with (Sylianteng wasn’t paid for the project). It smartly transformed a handful of text-heavy restrictions into a color-coded blocks of time that tell you exactly what you need to know: Can I park here? Green means yes, red means no. Subtle diagonal striping helps those who are color blind differentiate between the colors. It was strikingly simple. “I didn’t even consider it would get to this level of the city,” Sylianteng says. “I figured if it ever did someone would say, ‘This is such a naive idea and these are all the reasons why this can’t happen.’”…

As a technological backstop of sorts, the city has been attaching Bluetooth beacons to every new sign erected with the hope developers eventually create an app that makes parking signs irrelevant. Husting calls this “phase two” of LA’s parking overhaul. Imagine pulling up to a parking spot and having your phone simply say “yes” or “no.” Or better yet, having your car tell you. “What we ultimately hope to do—and I know this is still far out in the future—is we want to be able to go ahead and connect with your vehicle,”Husting says. Until then, signs based on Sylianteng’s design would be a big improvement.

It is interesting to think about why certain kinds of road signs do or don’t change much over time. Some become so recognizable that to change them might create all sorts of difficulty. (Imagine redoing the basic stop sign or traffic light.) But, many others could be up for reinterpretation. Here, the shift is away from text to visuals – does this only work now because the visual reigns supreme in American society?

As the final paragraph above suggests, perhaps this is just the last gasp of the parking sign until autonomous vehicles simply communicate with the parking indicators and refuse to let you park in certain places.

Converting street parking in neighborhoods into social spaces

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As a resident of a neighborhood with frequent street parking, I was intrigued to see ideas about transforming the parking spots in front of their house into social spaces:

Given that people do have this relationship with the parking spot in front of their house, what if we enabled them to do something other than park there? Some compact neighborhoods have taken to putting bike corrals or patios in parking spots, provided a reasonable percentage of the neighbors agree…

The transformation of street parking in single family neighborhoods could make even more sense since there is more often room to spare in those parking lanes. Not to mention that if you have zero, or even one car per household, you’re not really allowed to do anything else with that space, so you’re losing out relative to your multi-car neighbors, which isn’t really fair.

What if cities allowed residential blocks to apply to convert those parking lanes to whatever they wanted to, including cottages, bike lanes, extra garden space, public p-patches or dedicated car-share parking? Even better, what if our cash-strapped cities started monetizing the value in those two lanes and allowing neighborhoods to do whatever they wanted (including parking there) as long as they rented out the space, and generally agreed on a plan? The drive lanes in the middle of the street would be conserved, we might find ourselves with more neighborhood parks, or perhaps more little cottages permeating the urban fabric. We might even find new neighborhood amenities in these spaces that we hadn’t even thought of.

Some interesting ideas for spaces that may have value elsewhere. Americans tend to lack public spaces but we do tend to provide lots of space to driving.

Two other quick thoughts:

1. Another added bonus might be that taking away free or cheap parking (though street parking is taxpayer funded) can lead to fewer cars when potential owners have to consider the added price of parking their vehicles.

2. Might this simply be done at the block or neighborhood level by applying some sort of ratio based on nearby housing units? If this were done on the broader level, it gets away from needing to individually monetize spaces and this may discourage driving for a larger number of people.

New York parking spots going for $1 million each

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A new development project in New York City includes the option to buy a parking spot priced at $1 million:

A new development, 42 Crosby Street, is pushing the limits of New York City real estate to new heights with 10 underground parking spots that will cost more per square foot than the apartments being sold upstairs.

The million-dollar parking spots will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis to buyers at the 10-unit luxury apartment building being developed by Atlas Capital Group at Broome and Crosby Streets, itself the former site of a parking lot. At $250,000 a tire, the parking spaces in the underground garage cost more than four times the national median sales price for a home, which is $217,800, according to Zillow…

The number of off-street parking spaces in the city was 102,000 in 2010, or about 20 percent less than in 1978, when there were 127,000 spots, according to the Department of City Planning. While scarcity is a factor in the price of parking, $1 million for a parking spot may still be a reach.

Last year, a private garage with space for two cars at 66 East 11th Street was listed for $1 million by the Manhattan real estate firm Delos. It is still available in conjunction with the sale of the building’s $50 million dollar penthouse. In April 2012, a parking space at 60 Collister Street, a loft condominium building in TriBeCa, sold for $345,459.

Over the past year, residential parking spots in Manhattan have been selling for an average of $136,052, according to Jonathan J. Miller, the president of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

Actually, that $1 million gets you a 99-year lease contingent on living in the building.

I understand some of the shock registered in the New York Times or at Slate, but at the same time, this is high-end real estate with the precious commodity of a parking spot. There are plenty of people who make the general argument that parking rates should rise in places like New York City to encourage more residents and visitors to use public transportation instead. Can one be in support of higher parking prices and then not like limited parking in this facility going for really high rates? Granted, there are lots of good things that could be done with $1 million – and even the Times article notes that this parking spot costs more than four times more than a median home in the US – but that could be said of a lot of consumer goods.

Chicago rated worst city for parking – but this could have some benefits

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Nerdwallet named Chicago the worst city for parking based on the factors of price and number of car thefts:

Takeaways:

  • Chicago is the worst city for parking — and also the most controversial. Parking prices skyrocketed in 2009 after the city made a deal for a group of investors, organized by Morgan Stanley, to operate its meters for 75 years.
  • Though you’ll probably enjoy Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu is an extremely expensive city to park in; it’ll run you $42 a day.
  • There are a lot of car thefts in Oakland — 124.59% more per capita than the national average.

1. Chicago, Ill.

This city is known for its parking woes—especially the controversial privatization of the parking meters, which led to a dramatic increase in parking fees in 2009. A consortium called Chicago Parking Meters LLC operates the meters. You’ll drop $35 a day to park in the city and $289 per month. The city lists the fines you’ll receive for various parking violations on their website.

This spring, Chicago will test its new ParkChicago app, which allows drivers to pay for parking via an app rather than a meter. There are various websites that help you find the cheapest parking in the city. Chicago is one of the cities supported by SpotHero.com, which helps you find parking and prepay. However, if you want to ditch driving altogether, the city has multiple public transportation options. Bus and “L” riders will soon be able to use their phones to pay for rides.

Unfortunately, Chicago also has 33.4% more motor vehicle thefts per capita than the national average. And if you get a citation, you must contest it within seven days of receiving it or pay the fine online.

Parking is heavily dependent on the number of people and amount of space available. In other words, urban density. If you look at the bottom of the list, or “the best cities for parking your car,” they are all sprawling Sunbelt cities. Presumably, they have much more space and are less dense, driving down parking prices.

Of course, there are positives to having bad parking. Such urban densities that make parking more expensive can lead to:

1. Vibrant mixed-use neighborhoods with plenty of housing as well as businesses, stores, public spaces, and culture. Lots of people in a small amount of space can lead to some exciting urban scenes.

2. Plentiful and efficient mass transit. This is difficult to provide when there are a limited number of riders and the transit has to cover a lot of ground.

3. A lot more people walking and riding bikes. This is good for health, limiting pollution, and livelier streets.

4. The space that might be devoted to cars (wider streets, on-street parking, parking lots and garages) can be devoted to other things. For example, see this analysis of snow plowing on Philadelphia city streets that reveals the potential space.

Snow reveals why we clearly need parking stripes

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I pulled into the parking lot this morning at my normal time and I saw a common winter situation: packed down snow (we got 5 or so inches overnight) covering the parking stripes meant drivers were at all sorts of angles and depths. It is a bit of a different lot – angled parking, sloped – but this is common across parking lots, including big box lots with straight parking, when snow obscures the pavement.

The biggest issue? Spacing goes out the window. Without lines to guide them, parkers are either too close or too far. Looking at the same lot later in the morning, it ended up where people are much too close together. In other lots I’ve seen this winter, people are further apart than necessary, pushing new parkers further out than necessary.

What might be solutions?

1. Some kind of glowing parking lines. This would have to be a strong glow to make it through snow. How about bioluminescent paint?

2. Heated parking lines. The cost might be prohibitive but it works for heated floors.

3. Pop-up parking lines. I’m not sure exactly how this would work with snow on top of them but perhaps they would be activated before the snow falls.

4. Parking lines that are more like rumble strips so people know when they are going over them. Again, having snow on top poses a problem.

There has to be someone working on this, right?

Convincing suburban drivers that downtown parking is available

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The Chicago suburbs of Wheaton and Glen Ellyn are looking for ways to convince residents that there are plenty of parking spots in their downtowns:

For years, officials in Glen Ellyn have been hearing from residents about a lack of parking in the downtown, despite studies showing plenty of spaces available for customers…

“It dawned upon us that it isn’t a lack of parking, but addressing the perception of the lack of parking,” Glen Ellyn Police Chief Phil Norton said at a recent village meeting. “We’re going to shift our focus and start working on addressing the perception. You can go anywhere and be within a block or a block and a half of convenient parking.”…

The changes include creating 12 “Customer Only” parking spots where parking meters were removed in the Main Street and Pennsylvania lot. It also includes making the Union Pacific lot at Crescent and Main customer parking only, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and making Schock Square customer parking only, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays…

In Wheaton, parking was one of the issues addressed in the final draft of a downtown strategic plan and streetscape plan recently released by the city’s consultants. A parking analysis shows there is enough parking in the city’s downtown, despite a perceived parking issue reported by residents who participated in the survey, officials said.

In the plan, consultants recommended the city consider adding differentiated time limits on certain spaces such as 15 minutes, 1 hour and two hours. That will encourage employees to park in other areas and free up spaces for customers, consultants said.

It would helpful to know why exactly residents think there isn’t much parking. Is it because the parking isn’t right in front of the store? Is it because the parking is more difficult to get into, say angled or parallel parking, than a large parking lot? Is it because the streets or narrower or they can’t perceive they can walk to multiple stores? Some of these issues might seem plausible yet people are willing to endure walks in large, crowded parking lots for big box stores or malls.

The interesting thing to me is that this is a decades-long problem for these downtowns. It dates back at least to the 1950s when downtowns had to start competing with new strip malls and shopping malls which offered multiple stores as well as free parking (as opposed to having parking meters). Even though downtowns might offer plenty of stores within a short distance, I suspect suburbanites perceive that it is more congested and more difficult to get to, even before they know whether parking is available.

Another creative solution: apps or websites that display available parking spaces downtown which gives people real-time information as well as combats percetions that parking isn’t available.

A downtown law firm no more

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A law firm in Austin, TX is leaving its downtown location for the suburbs:

Law firm Bowman and Brooke LLP [website] is vacating its current location at 600 Congress Ave. and heading to more suburban digs southwest of downtown [about 6 miles away, map here]….“Yes, price was a consideration but we’re not getting a tremendous difference in rent costs. There are other things that entered in like tenant improvement costs, and parking had a significant impact,” [Michelle Bailey, chief of operations] said.

The company had no parking allocation downtown and at its new location it will have 96 complimentary spaces for 44 employees — more than enough.

The article notes that “finding large blocks of office space [in downtown Austin] is somewhat akin to going on a treasure hunt” and suggests that lawyers “are now being challenged for territorial rights by emerging technology and energy firms.” In other words, plenty of businesses still want a downtown presence, and rents are being bid up by new entrants. This sounds more like a story of urban revival than suburban sprawl to me, though the two are clearly linked here.

Perhaps a more fascinating revelation, however, is Bowman and Brooke determination that it “wasn’t necessary for its attorneys to be downtown, close to other law firms and courthouses” because “[w]e tend to be a national firm with our attorneys flying all over the country” and “we don’t have a lot of local interaction.” What does it mean to practice law without significant local interaction, especially when one is “a nationally recognized trial firm that defends corporate clients in widely publicized catastrophic injury and wrongful death claims“? While simply having a downtown (rather than a suburban) office location may do little to humanize a corporate law firm, it seems telling that Bowman and Brooke seems to place such a low priority on engaging its local community.

Encouraging sprawl or downtown growth

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A recent Canadian conference brought together scholars and practitioners interested in strengthening downtowns. Several of the participants made comments regarding the relationship between a city downtown and the suburbs:

By themselves, speakers warned, studios, galleries and quaint little bistros won’t solve the problems of troubled downtowns. Real solutions will have to overcome public policies that favour urban sprawl and punish core businesses with excessive parking requirements.

Consultant Pamela Blais pointed an accusing finger at municipal development charges that she argues favour suburban “McMansions” over turning downtown buildings into condos.

As one example, she pointed to one Ontario municipality that collects lot levies of $31,000 per parcel regardless of size — that means a house with a 30-foot frontage actually pays more toward the cost of water and sewer mains and parks than a bigger property.

Michael Manville, of Cornell University’s city and regional planning department, argued minimum parking requirements in city centres actually harm development by driving buildings farther apart.

“Most parking policies turn downtown into a sorry imitation of a mall,” he said. “We have to stop this quiet process of turning downtowns into suburbs one parking lot at a time.”

He argued for maximum parking requirements, rather than minimums, a policy he said will make downtown living attractive to people whose lives aren’t centred on their cars.

There are a lot of moving pieces here including big cultural forces favoring suburbs over denser environments (though perhaps not with younger generations). For planners in individual communities, it can be difficult to counter all of this at once.

At the same time, this is not a new issue. Urban (and suburban) downtowns really started to face these issues in the 1950s with the advent of the strip mall and shopping mall. Some of these same issues are reflected in the comments above: what to do about parking? How can a downtown compete against a mall where there are a number of interesting stores within a climate-controlled space? Other communities may not be completely on-board with promoting condos over single-family homes, particularly when condos can be tied to higher densities and bigger buildings which might clash with a community’s character.

One thing I have wondered before: is it always worthwhile for a community to try to revive a downtown? On one hand, a core is a valuable asset as it represents an opportunity to bring people together and to share a common history. Some newer communities have no real core or public space. On the other hand, downtowns can require a lot of revitalization and it can require fighting an uphill battle in some communities to put the kind of money and attention needed to get a downtown up and running again. It is one thing to present people with a thriving downtown that is attractive and exciting (see: downtown Naperville, which can lead to its own issues) but another to ask a lot of people to undergo a 5 to 20 year project to really transform a downtown. Frankly, some people don’t care about having a downtown and see it as a relic of the past – why not just build the newer versions of downtowns: lifestyle centers?

Here seems to be the primary strategies for downtown revitalization these days:

1. Promote mixed-use development, preferably buildings with retail on the first floor and then condos or offices above. This ensures social spaces and residents to use them.

2. Take advantage of transportation advantages such as mass transit. If you can increase density around important rail or subway lines, you can attract more people.

3. Generally aim to attract two sets of residents: younger professionals and creative types (a la the creative class). These groups like the idea of denser, exciting areas and are more willing to try things out. If you need a third group, aim for downshifters and young retirees who are also looking for a new scene.

Working on parking issues in Naperville’s downtown: shuttles? Parking garages? Perceptions about available spots?

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This is an ongoing issue in Naperville: is there enough parking at peak times and, perhaps more importantly, do people think that there is enough parking? Here is part of the background to a discussion the city recently had about having shuttles to the downtown:

The topic came up again last year during the city’s strategic planning discussions, leading to planners’ latest look at the feasibility. Robles said they found the city’s cost per ride would be about $58, up from $45 in 2006 and the city hasn’t been hearing a demand from residents.

The issue, she said, seems to pop up every few years in part because some people have a perception there isn’t enough downtown parking. Including both public and private spots, there currently are about 3,300 downtown parking spaces.

A 2010 study showed on Friday nights – peak parking time – 77 percent of those spots tended to be full on average. The city will be doing a follow-up study this summer and Robles said she anticipates that occupancy percentage increasing into the lower 80s.

Reaching occupancy rates in the 80s tends to make people feel there isn’t enough parking, she said. But she hopes the city’s parking guidance systems that tell drivers how many spaces are really available in some facilities will help ease that perception.

Several thoughts about this:

1. I don’t think the “parking guidance systems” cited above are accurate all the time. For example, we drove into the Van Buren garage a few Fridays go because the sign said there was 45 spots available. We drove slowly, in a long line of cars, all the way to the top and all the back down again, finally finding a spot near the exit where someone was pulling out.

2. There is always street parking in the residential neighborhoods just north and west of the downtown. However, that would require a 5-10 minute walk for people. Is this the real issue: visitors (resident and non-residents) demand to park within a minute or two of their destination?

3. People perceive there is not enough parking when it occupancy is in the eighties percent range. This is fascinating: this still means that at least 1 of 10 parking spots are available and possibly as high as 1 out of 5. The issue of parking seems to be more about perceptions than actual availability.

4. Is this only an issue on Friday and Saturday nights between roughly early May and early September? In other words, how much parking does one build for 40 nights out of the year when those spaces will go unfilled at other times?

5. Has anyone ever tried to quantify for Naperville (or other places) how much business they might be losing by not having the sort of big box store/shopping mall parking lots?

6. Of course, this is not a new issue in Naperville. A few years ago, the city was considering building a three-level garage that would have replaced the Nichols Library lot but there was some opposition from residents (this parcel borders a residential neighborhood) and the city shelved the plans. Is building more garages really the answer in the long run?