Infographic: Living Space v. Parking Space
Your bedroom is smaller than your car’s---that and other surprising facts stand out in a new infographic we’ve assembled with architect and designer Seth Goodman of Graphing Parking. Mandatory off-street parking quotas written into local land-use laws have pernicious effects. At multifamily buildings, localities require developers to construct off-street parking spaces for each apartment or condominium. Many cities also require a side order of visitor parking. The requirements vary with unit size and sometimes with city zone, and they are rife with exemptions, exceptions and complexities. (I’ll discuss some of them in a future article.) Still, the underlying parking minimums are typically one to two slots per dwelling. To build a two-bedroom apartment in Portland, Seattle, or Vancouver, BC, you must install one parking stall (unless various conditions apply).
Author: SwatchJunkies
Photo Request: When Parking Gets Ugly
We're putting together a new series about the many ways that parking regulations and mandates can affect the way that cities look, work, and feel. But first we need your help! All too often, zoning codes force developers to cram a site with extra parking, leading to urban and suburban spaces that work for cars but not for human beings. Some of the results are downright eyesores---and we want to compile a photo essay with the most outrageous examples! So please send us your photos of buildings---single-family houses, apartments, and commercial construction—where cars seem more important than the people inside.
Author: SwatchJunkies
Are Parking Meters Boosting Business?
Over the weekend, Seattle’s restaurant association took to the op-ed pages to complain about the City’s parking policies downtown. As they tell it, changes in parking policy “hits them where ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Is Metered Parking Killing Chinatown? No.
*** Ack! Please see the coda at the bottom of this post. *** If I were a sociologist I would examine the deeply irrational beliefs people having about parking. I’m ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
It's Parking Day 2011!
Parking spaces aren’t much to look at. But one day a year they get a makeover worldwide as groups and individuals use them to take the “ing” out of “parking.” ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Law and Order and Parking Lots
There's no better measure of our perverse relationship with cars than the fact that nearly every city and town in North America has laws requiring drinking establishments to provide parking, and yet roadside memorials to victims of drunk driving are mostly illegal. A single year of alcohol-impaired driving kills more Americans than the last decade of war has, but our land use codes practically encourage driving home from taverns. Bar owners can be held legally liable for their patrons who imbibe too much, but our laws force owners to offer parking for their customers. Can we stop the madness?
Author: SwatchJunkies
Why Do We Force Bars To Provide Parking?
The front page of the Seattle Times has a story about a driver convicted of drunk driving 12 times, now going on 13. It’s a tragic and horrifying story. It should ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
More Parks, Less Parking
The gist: Easing requirements for parking—as some Northwest cities are doing—would make the price of parking reflect its true costs, make housing more affordable, and reward northwesterners for driving less. ...
Author: Sightline Editor
Three policies to help Anchorage’s housing shortageÂ
CONTACT: Martina Pansze, Sightline Institute, martina@sightline.org ARTICLE: Three Ways Anchorage Leaders Could Unlock More Homes ANCHORAGE, AK – Anchorage is in the midst of an acute housing shortage that has ...
