Parking Laws Are Strangling America | Climate Town
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- čas přidán 16. 07. 2023
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EPISODE SOURCES & CITATIONS: www.climatetownproductions.co...
Special thanks to Donald Shoup (www.shoupdogg.com/) for his decades of work on exposing parking issues in the US, and for his willingness to help us with this episode.
The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup (Dropbox link for the free 2004 manuscript PDF from his website): www.dropbox.com/s/npqk6adti2e...
Paved Paradise by Harry Grabar: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
Strong Towns has done a ton of great work pushing back against parking minimums, and our car-centric North American city design in general. Check them out here: www.strongtowns.org/
Strong Towns also made this great video called: Are Parking Lots Ruining Your City? • Are Parking Lots Ruini...
The Parking Reform Network is another excellent resource, and they made this killer map tracking the progress of parking minimum rollbacks across the US: parkingreform.org/resources/m...
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Like my Dad used to tell me, “If something is stupid and doesn’t make any sense, somebody is getting rich somewhere.”
Excellently said!
Here’s a hint, your friendly neighborhood realtor runs local government
I hope you’re getting rich from this comment.
Or the goverment decided to flex its power
That's just the thing though, this is like the one dumb thing that's unique to America that is genuinely not making anyone rich. It isn't good for the property owners. It isn't good for the city. It's not good for the general public and I think it's a bit of a wash for the paving companies because they probably don't have very high margins. It's not even making the car owners rich. It's just making them go broke more slowly.
Parking lots have gotten so big that people living in a 15 minute city probably walk less than those walking from their cars to the entrance of Walmart.
Definitely possible. I live closer to 4 grocery stores than the furthest spots from the big box grocery store where I used to live in the American suburbs.
No way. It's the god given right of Americans to park near the entrance even if they have to drive around 10 mins for it, instead of parking a little further and walk 2 mins more.
I live in a 15 minute city [its amazing] I walk 9,500 to 13,000 steps on a normal day
@@apapods In the Baltimore area, they've given up even looking for a close spot and instead just park in the fire lane in front of the store.
@@apapods🇺🇸
One of my biggest car-centric complaints is the town I live in has 4 bridges that go over the main river that bisects the town. Two of them have no shoulder or side walk AT ALL. So depending where you are in town you are either looking at literally 4 mile detour to cross the river safely, or you're walking in traffic on one of the busiest roads in town
You also have the Bridge of the Gods in Oregon which is the only bridge for miles so PCT hikers have to risk getting hit by a car or pay money to kayak across or get a ride. I could have sworn that you couldn't walk it but apparently you can despite zero shoulder. I do know for sure that there was at one point a bridge that you absolutely were not allowed to walk across though.
PoorTax. Don't be poor inCorporated America, thanks Citizens United!
same here in my city. it would take about 15 minutes for me to walk to work, but because of the absence of sidewalks and very narrow bridges with cars going 45-50 mph, it's a death trap. the only other way to walk there would take 40 minutes and is also quite dangerous. i wish we would prioritize pedestrians, as i see many people making these dangerous treks every day.
When they first built these Bridges they often didn't put in a sidewalk. Or they had to expand the roadway and removed the sidewalks.
I am a very aged woman and find your videos easy to watch and informative. I appreciate your research and collaboration with Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns. Your creativity and humor is fun and funny! I will find the podcast. Thank you for all that you do.
@BeachLookingGuy what 💀
@BeachLookingGuy
It’s not 1996, the internet isn’t solely made up of basement dwelling men aged 20-40 anymore.
@@BeachLookingGuy🤡
@@JL3WindYep, it wasn’t even back then.
@@BeachLookingGuywtf is that even supposed to mean
I love that we have paved over every public space with these parking lots, but if you try to hang out in them and have a conversation the police will come and tell you that you can't be there.
That reminds me of the time when I was on a lunch break at my job at a startup in Vegas. I'd driven to a pretty neighborhood park that had a ridiculously large and, on that day, empty parking lot. I sat there for a while enjoying the view when a cop rapped on my window. He informed me that I was parked a foot over the line of the space and told me I had to move! I burst out laughing which pissed him off and he got mean, lol. I said, "really, though? There's no one here!" He wouldn't let it go so I just drove back to work. And people think Vegas is so easy-going!🙄
what kind of person wants to go hangout at parking lot lmaooo. Loser activity
Cops suck
Literally I was hanging out with my girlfriend, IN MY CAR, in a parking lot once and this happened to me. Cop pulled up on us and asked us why we were there. Complete bullshit
I get where you are coming from but they are probably trying to stop drug dealers. We have that issue in our town so the police have to keep an eye on anything suspicious or possibly suspicious.
As a Greek, I think I finally understand why parking lots are mentioned so often in American anecdotes, insults, headlines, Reddit posts, etc.
To be fair, we have the opposite problem (but that's probably because our public transportation isn't very good)
@@shoveIscale means nothing as Russia ,China have good public transport. Also 1900s USA had good public transportation dispite being 1/3 the population. Size has nothing to do with transportation within city limits or out to the satellite cities. Yes a bigger county would need a larger rail network but a bigger country would have more farmland than a smaller country and thus have more people and cities. If anything a big country is bad for car dependency because then you will need to spend trillions excessively paving this country.
@@shoveI that is like saying we need to take a buildings square footage into account for figuring out how many parking spaces they need
@@shoveIno one is going to commute from New York to San Francisco. People travel inside their own city.
@@TheAmericanCatholic Russia and China have good public transport? The average commute time in Moscow is 67 minutes and 48 minutes in Beijing. In Maryland it's 17 minutes. Not saying the US has good transportation. Just saying Russia doesn't and I don't want to waste an average of 100 extra minutes 5 days a week just traveling to and from work.
As a truck driver I want to make you aware that there is a severe shortage of safe truck parking. Every city wants us to deliver their freight but very few want us to be allowed to legally park for our Federally required rest breaks.
If some of the excess parking for regular passenger vehicles were to be re-zoned for semi truck parking it would really help.
Good point!
Unfortunately, I think that people who watch this channel unmotivated want to get rid of all cars and trucks. They want us to live in pods in overcrowded cities and eat bugs, and reduce our consumption by like 98%, so really Mr. Truck driver, they want you not not have a job at all.
Another reason for Park & Rides. They can have flexible spaces designated for different type of vehicles safely out of the way of public transit. Making some Semi-truck accessible would likewise encourage development / use of rail connections for freight.
I feel a greater awareness. Thank you, Irishtown!
I work in hospitality development, basically buying or building hotels. The parking requirements in many areas are absolutely insane, and can go up to 1.5 spaces per guestroom plus employee spaces (aka 150% parking capture, nuts!) We tried to show them data from across every hotel we owned, surveyed, or managed the highest requirement for parking was 62% at most, and they still wouldn't budge. Cancelled the deal, and that lot has sat empty for the last 5 years since and counting...
Odd. Around here, the parking lots of hotels tends to get full before the hotel gets full. If there is a big event and every room is booked, parking is basically impossible unless you get there in the middle of the day while everyone is out.
It is what it is, idiot if you don't like it and don't build there.
@@gscurd75Depends on whether the hotel hosts “events” or not.
favorite part is when the huge megastore is 'right across the street' from the other huge megastore but you HAVE to drive to the other huge megastore because of the massive parking lot separating the two of them
or the massive stroad between them
It wouldn’t be that bad in older parking lots where they have large trees to shade you and a dedicated sidewalk but all the new parking lots have gotten rid of dedicated pedestrian paths and trees for shade. ☠️
Do you not have overpasses in the US? Usually in the UK if there's more than two lanes of traffic between stuff like retail parks, there's a footbridge or pedestrian tunnel interconnecting them.
@@Rr0gu3_5uture I think it's less about the road and more about both megastores having massive packing lots between them, making for a lengthy walk.
@@Rr0gu3_5uturewe do not cater to pedestrian safety here.
Thank you so much for the shoutout! Our mini-doc on Fayetteville is still probably the video I'm most proud of so far.
-Mike
Thank YOU! Link for the curious: czcams.com/video/vUhOFUQDLQk/video.html
That was pretty wild to learn the random city that I did my internship was the first to remove parking mins. The portion of town between the UArk campus, Dickson St, and downtown is definitely walkable and vibrant for a southern city. Definitely still too much parking in downtown though.
If you're a friend of @ClimateTown, then you're a friend of mine!
I love your website on Kansas City parking lots. I used it in a presentation in my Environmental Studies Class
I HATE PARKING LOTS. I HATE PARKING. I HATE CARS AND DRIVING. ALL OF IT. Thank you for making me mad for half an hour. thumbs up.
As Joni Mitchell sang, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" lalala la.
it makes me so sad that america wasnt even always this way. seeing past footage of hundreds of people walking around and taking public transit just for all that to be bulldozed for the car, in modern day. just a complete regression
I was surprised to see that even Fort Worth in Texas had a small team going through its downtown back in the day. I do remember in the 90’s there was a huge parking area on the edge of downtown that would pick you up and rip you off into an underground mall that could take you up to the center of the city. The city blocks are actually walkable but many of them are empty lots for parking. ☠️
Every twitter argument is like "AmErIcA wAs BuiLt fOr ThE cAr"
It's like anything that happened before 1950 doesn't exist
If you go to towns in Rural Midwest, like where I'm from, there's still a lot of historic downtowns still intact. Our South Main St still has wall-to-wall businesses for whole blocks, a lot of small business, family restaurants. There's even brick roads remaining in parts of the town, although back in 2018 another one was paved over, maintaining the brick roads isn't seen as desirable, even though people do love them, and it draws some tourists. We're connected to the interstate on one end of the town, and have 100+yr old buildings on the other side of town, less than 10k pop. I really like the towns like mine in America, and I can't stand the big cities. I'd say possibly 60-75% of the town is walkable, which is nice compared to big cities. Also where you can't walk, you can still bike fairly easily. I biked to work as a teen, I didn't want to spend money on driving when I only went to work after school. I just wanted to say that some smaller towns like mine are much more livable than the most popular places in America. You don't see our towns much cause we're small and quiet, we just keep to ourselves for the most part.
I have a weekly basketball league and know at least 4 people who live less than a mile away yet drive every time. If it saves 15 minutes then I guess it's worth :shrug:
@@tehdusto at this point, it's almost like anything that happened before 2010 doesn't exist...
As a child in the Netherlands I always wondered why they only ever showed the industrial areas of Los Angeles in tv shows and movies, because that is what I associated the low boxy buildings with parking spaces all around with.
solid concrete everywhere, devoid of nature anywhere
nnnope, you fell for the the ol' "america can't seriously be that bad" trick. it's just like that everywhere.
As a grown up from the netherlands I wonder why I'm still wondering this
@@alligatorscrublord That's just true and it's a lie they want you to believe so we don't fight back. There are tons and tons of areas and cities that aren't like that and they are doing great.
@@alligatorscrublord and you fell for the "you just outed yourself as a liar or somebody that has never left the center of the city they were born in" trick. Stop being that guy.
Looking at aerial photos of downtowns from the 40s and then the 70s just makes me want to cry.
15:25 Actually this makes sense. The more employees you have at the store, the less space there is for customers. At some point, there is no space for customers at all anymore, so you won't need any parking space 👍
I think there’s also honestly a point at which effective service in a store reduced the amount of time a customer needs to spend there. If everything is clean, well stocked, organized, with available help for finding what you need and cashiers to keep people from waiting…well yeah I can see why parking wouldn’t really build up. It’s not like people NEED To spend a long time in a retail environment, most of the time.
@@PeachNEPTRthat was my thoughts exactly. more employees reduce the time people will spent in the store, so you would need less parking lots.
Added parking lots increases the space between businesses, making them less walkable, increasing the need for cars,increasing the need for parking; it's a positive feedback loop.
Just what they want
"Sounds perfect to me!" -signed, people who sell cars
Seems like if you analyze almost any bad problem you'll find a feedback loop somewhere causing it. From parking to alcoholism to badly behaved kids and countless other things.
Basically, car dependency is a cancer that is slowly killing America, and by extension the planet through global heating.
Driving is awesome!
I love that stores can have 300 parking spots but people circle the lot for 10 minutes trying to snag the closest spots.
And here I am, parking a little further away where not many people are, only for someone to park right next to me instead of leaving an empty space between us
My dad and I specifically dont do that. We both take the first spot we find, sometimes even if we can see closer spots. Sometimes we joke that we'll wait for the shuttle to the door.
i'll be taking the spot right infront of the door. the one you get a fine for when you park there. but i can park there because i have a special card
@@SquidofBaconator herd mentality I guess. Happens strangely often.
I've always firmly held a belief that the more able bodied you are, the farther back you should park so you can leave the closer spots for people who aren't able to walk as far, but are not able to use disabled parking spaces.
But people brainwashed by car culture are allergic to walking anywhere outdoors for any length of time. If I can bike all the way to a business & still chain up in the back of the lot & walk all the way up just fine, these car drivers should be able to do the same
As someone whom lives in Southern Arizona where the heat island effect can be felt to the extreme, we wonder why we dont get rain anymore and have draughts but continue to expand our concrete jungle and disallow anything that will help retain water in the ground such as grass.
wtf you mean no rain, its been flooding the past month
@@thatslegit It's almost like different parts of the state get different amounts of rain... but having a bit of rain doesn't mean we aren't in a drought.
You really don't want grass in AZ do you? It uses way too much water!
@lorihight9915 It also helps retain water, so yes. Back in the 80s when everyone had grass yards, and the city wasn't as wide spread as it was, there were actually really good monsoons seasons. Grass also helps dissipate heat, and won't absorb and release it keeping hotter for longer like concrete does.
@@thatslegitguess what really exacerbates flooding issues? (Hint: covering 70% of the ground surface in a city with impermeable asphalt and concrete doesn't help)
Yes, late, sorry. But this explains *so much* of why the US looks like it does, especially the very short, but IMO much underestimated point of "parking creates more parking". As a European, I'm used to walk - and happily so! - when I want to get somewhere, but will readily admit that in the US, walking between "points of interest" easily becomes a chore, often necessitating a car. And yes, at many places, the "way" from A to B is mostly parking lots. Funny if it weren't so disastrous on so many levels.
As someone with a bachelors in mathematics and pursuing a masters in urban planning, the methodology of how they came up with how many parking spots to assign to a business absolutely blew my mind. Thanks for the new project idea.
Urban planners are part of the problem. You contribute, rather than alleviate, the chaos.
@@TheZooBrooksABIsn’t the point, then, to have better urban planners (such as OP) to fix the problem?
@@jdsmedley no. Because they won't fix the problem. As I've said, they'll only contribute to the problem. It's demonstrably so, both historically and foundationally.
@@TheZooBrooksABhow do we improve city design without urban planners?
@@querk3810 you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking the right questions.
One of which is.....why do think it's logical to appeal to the entity that caused the entire problem in the first place and then allowed all the chaos afterwards to continue? Another one would be......why would urban planners, in all their infinite wisdom, abide by rules that created the mess we're in now?
As a retired architect and current designer, this points to some of the frustrations we face as people who have to design around all these rules. You don’t get enough of designers playing politics because they don’t think it’s their place and it’s not encouraged by the industry. BUT If you want to design the things you want like much better walkable cities, you def have to participate in changing the rules that are hindering your design. Just look at how the car industry and oil companies played a part in politics and caused the hideous disaster that is most North American cities. ☠️
I agree with you. It shouldn't be on the designers to have to play politics. Unfortunatley, nothing will change if nothing changes 😮💨 and the people who make the rules need to be educated on how they work in the real world 😑. It's up to architects and designers to say something. If you can explain it with dollar signs that's even better 😅
It is mostly the designers who know enough pieces of the problem to see what needs to be fixed.
++++++ this is so true. The big industries spend so much money on the political system because they know it works. We need more regular people -- from designers to concerned citizens -- to speak up as a counterweight to their influence.
Have you had a chance to contact city council using the playbook we developed in partnership with Climate Town for this video? It's linked in the description. I think your perspective as a designer/architect will give extra clout to your outreach.
It's fucking weird that lawyers run politics, instead of engineers or other professionals. And by fucking weird, I mean it's a sociopathic conspiracy.
And you don't fully realize the impact of cars until you are w/o one. Most cities make it impossible to enjoy & navigate regular life without one. Jobs, grocery shopping, access to parks for exercise & enjoyment of nature, access to churches & on & on. Taking public transportation generally takes a huge amount of time out of the day waiting for a bus, planning coordination of bus routes, Lack of access to working areas. Cities are built for cars & lacking ability to properly take care of vehicle hampers life financially, socially. Been w/o a car for 2 years & never felt so isolated.
Thanks for tackling this huge but obscure problem! As someone involved with construction and development in DFW for over 20 years - there are a whole slew of additional problems you didn't even touch on this video. One time a developer was forced to pave then install curb and gutter on the portion of road in front of their business, on their dime - despite it being a rural road with bar ditches with the nearest connecting curb over 1 mile away. To this day there is a random 150' single-sided length of curb all by it's lonesome. :-/
You would be *AMAZED* how much of the development guidelines are simply "that's what someone said it should be" or "because that's what it's always been".
Ha ha! I lived in SF, which has the opposite law - no extra parking anywhere...to encourage use of the overcrowded and poorly managed MUNI. So one has to drive an extra 10 minutes JUST TO FIND A PARKING SPOT!
Sounds like a public transit problem, not a parking problem.
The fact that these miserable parking requirements were invented by an organization that wanted to _mitigate_ damage by cars is honestly frustrating.
Unintended consequences are disheartening.
@@42KrewePhotography Then came the Malls! They are failing miserably to keep them open.
They were most likely funded by motor companies
@@robertadams6606now, yeah. 20 years ago no. Malls were actually really smart before the internet got safe. You wouldn't want to put your personal info on the internet in the 90s and early 2000s so shopping online use up come with so much risk.
The internet was so bad there was a saying "dont trust anything you see on the internet".
would make a good item for reasontv's "great moments in unintended consequences"
I’ve been saying for years that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of our finest documentaries on the destruction of the LA transit system. I can’t believe we picked freeways over toon town. 😢
an oft overlooked masterpiece
RIP Toon Town
IIRC it was roughly based on a sequel to Chinatown. If you haven't seen it, also an American classic.
As a Canadian that occasionally visits the U.S. out of necessity, and maybe this is hard to hear, but I fully believe that Americans would just pave over Toon Town for a few bucks. You guys run a dirty, cruelty-oriented, angry and mean-spirited nation. There is litter everywhere, constant horn honking for no reason and just severe attitude problems all over the place.
Even the most basic appeal for empathy or even just basic professionalism is too often met with, 'PFFT, STOP BEING WOKE. MY GENDER IS A LIFT KIT FOR MY DODGE RAM, LOL!'
Rather embarassing, IMHO, and just zero excuse for it when countries with a fraction of a fraction of the U.S.'s wealth or standard of living index have a more positive culture, more constructive approaches to environmental stewardship, etc.
@@ItWasSaucerShaped I would ask what part of US/Canada are you spending this time in, but that is a bit unfair to ask of random internet person.
For a while I lived in Northern North Dakota and visited Winnipeg on a regular basis. It was the closest major city. Also lived in many other US states and cities, and visited other Canadian cities and don't see what you are largely talking about.
Litter varies wildly in the US. Cities tend to be worse than country. High density subs seem to be the worst. Otherwise, some cities are awful, but many it is a minor issue. I was in Chicago a few weeks ago. I didn't think of it at the time but surprisingly little litter. If you think it is bad you should have seen it 30, 40, 50+ years ago.
Yes, US cities are full of assholes, but Canadian cities aren't absent of them either, it only takes a few. Some US cities (NY, sorry) are worse than Canada, but most seem to be on par. In rural areas, I see little to no difference. People can be standoffish to outsiders, but the disgust and cheapness toward human life that is normal in cities is gone.
The gender lift kit, is a bit; funny, offensive, and a perfectly reasonable response to people that take cake gender seriously.
Also, horn honking is rare in most of the US. I would guess I hear one less than once a month.
As for professionalism, I find Canadian lack of forthcoming bluntness and urgency to be detrimental to business, and I can see the reverse being seen as offensive. Eh, different values/sensitivities.
The only place I’ve ever been that could possibly have benefited from more parking was the local auto shop I worked at.
Luckily, the CVS next-door had enough.
And as always, every Walmart, I go to has at most a half full parking lot, and is usually about 80% empty
You could literally make a 20 hour long video on all the issues we face and corruption and root causes, and all the stupidity we still deal with on a day to day.
I've been reading and researching so much about what you and many other people are saying about how the country is run, how to even fix some of these issues. It's astounding how far down the rabbit hole you end up once you start connecting the dots between everything.
We need people like you in politics, not just making youtube videos. We need people knowledgeable and ready to make changes, not old people set in their ways and unwilling to budge. I'd do the job of a politician for free if given the chance, simply because I want to see people happier and not suffering. I'd prefer not to.. as would most people, but if that's what it took. Sacrifice like that, to do a job like this. I'd do it without hesitation.
I advise anyone reading this comment to start spreading the word about youtube channels, articles that people should read. Strong towns, Not Just Bikes, USA Mom in Germany. (probably some others I can't remember right now) The more people that know this stuff, the sooner and easier change can start happening, because people will ask for it. SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE. This is serious stuff that impacts our day to day, and our countries can all improve for the better.
I'm tired of seeing seas of asphalt that only serve to be an empty eyesore, and the cause of higher local temperatures. The walmart in my small 4000 person town has enough parking spots to probably fit half the vehicles in this place. I'm not even joking either. And at night, there is so much light from the parking lot lights, that we get skyglow from it. A town of 4000 people can't even see the night sky. This shit has got to end.
Just studied abroad in Vienna, Austria coming from growing up in Chicago and I was blown away by how compact and convenient walkable cities could be, a large part of that was because cars were actually more of a hassle than public transportation! Finding a parking spot, buying a license, having the space for a car all disincentivized car ownership and rather than bend to accommodate the car’s needs, the city is too old and unwilling to knock down historic buildings and thus, they have to invest heavily in excellent public transportation, which was mind bogglingly convenient.
Great video as always!
Greetings from Vienna! Glad you liked it here! Dont forget also the role of Public housing and social democracy/ communism in bringing about walkable cities and good public transport in Eastern and Western Europe.
Having been growing up in Ireland, one of the most car-centric countries in Europe, I recently visited Barcelona and was astonished how compact the city is.
But not only that. Public transport also sucks in Ireland, with buses often being 15 minutes late or more and sometimes even bypassing your stop entirely, and completely dysfunctional trains, I was blown away by the regional train service and the metro in the city.
It will never not sound weird to me when I hear (Americans) speak of "walkable cities", as if it's a neat special feature. Some sort of luxury. It's mind blowing to my little European mind that there are cities you literally CAN'T walk around in.
Don't forget that European cities also heavily accommodated cars, especially in the post-war decades. Great walkable European cities aren't like that magically, it took work and policy to get them to turn away from car-centric design (and some aren't quite there yet).
I lived in Japan for 1.5 years.....I wish everyone could experience what it's like to not have to have a car. It's amazing.
This video came out at the perfect time. My local neighborhood civic association just emailed asking me to reach out to my council member and state I'm against changes to parking minimums in fairfax county. Was going to try sabotaging their effort. This gave me some great ammunition.
Godspeed, brother!
But... why ?
What are their arguments ?
@@readyforloleverything stays like it is!
@@readyforlolso the local strip mall has a proposal to be torn down and replaced with a mixed use area. Retail on the main level and apartments above. Instead of a massive parking lot they will have a parking structure for the tenants.
The Civic association is fully against any changes to the strip mall. When I attended the meetings about it the main points of worry amounted to mixed use also bringing lower income people. They feel reductions to parking minimums will increase the likelihood the project moves forward.
They also state in the email that "we need cars because our area isn't well served by public transit and biking is hazardous". Both statements are correct but their opposition to these changes are ultimately the cause of that issue.
All in all it's frustrating.
In Virginia? If so, where/what is the proposed development?
One thing I worry about is the implications of less parking. I know in San Diego they took some parking out and built bike lanes but they are hardly used. The other unintended consequence is that when parking is too expensive. The side effect is that parking fees are going through the roof because they are letting companies like Ace Parking, Central Parking, ParkMobile, and others take over and they jack up the parking prices anytime there is an event to levels that are rediciolous.
As to building housing with less parking, the problem is that there is not enough public transit infastructure. There are many areas of town including those in high income neighborhoods, suburban areas, and rural areas that have no public transit. I think before raising parking prices and tearing up the parking, they need to start by building electric trolley lines with a stop in every neighborhood where no one has to walk more than a mile to gain access to a trolley line. They should also add bus stops to more rural areas.
I think we are putting the parking bulldozers before the trolleys here. In my opinion, I would wait till the trolley lines are built and the bus systems are built up enough that people can get to most areas of a city before bulldozing the parking.
train and trolley stops need to be located:
* At least one trolley stop In each residential neighborhood or within one mile of a residential subdivision.
* In each major shopping district or shopping mall
* In each business park district, tech center, or other high-rise or corporate office-type areas
* Near All Colleges and Universities
* Near Hospitals and Health Care Facilities
* Near Nursing homes and elder care facilities
* Near Stadiums, Concert Halls, Entertainment districts, performing arts venues, dining districts, convention centers, amusement parks, tourist attractions, conference centers, hotels, or other facilities that involve large group crowds.
We need to build in residential neighborhoods shuttle buses that transport people to and from the trolley station to stops in the neighborhood (such as by your nearest park, nearest K-12 school, nearest church, or other community places within walking distance from suburban housing.
* Some people may need free un-metered parking. These should include those with disabilities who are unable to walk long distances, in wheelchairs, those with caregivers, ambulances, police, fire, and others.
* Free or low cost Unlimited time parking may be needed in some areas such as for those commuting from rural areas and those areas with very limited or no public transit infrastructure and that bike, trolley, scooter, and bus are not viable options.
San Diego definitely does not have an underutilized parking problem
Especially in Downtown. In fact there is not enough of it.
As a low income person who cannot afford a car, I look forward to better city transit with buses that accommodate people who cannot easily hop up the bus stairs.
I know you made this comment a while back, its got a lot of good ideas! It hits the chicken and egg problem though. Why build transit if we don't have the density? And, we can't build density if we don't have the transit. So TOD is a big part of correcting that, build them together where you can. But Infill developments can be a win too. A lot of these big struggling Malls are converting to Lifestyle centers. Well those extra parking areas can become low rise apartments.
Building tram lines require land. The more logical approach would be to use some of the parking lot area for that - wherever possible, hence this has to be a planned and coordinated process.
Trams, subways, local trains. Which concept is chosen or whatever it's called is not important, but building public transportation is key to solve a lot of these issues. Many places, using feeder buses that bring you to the main train line is also a feasible solution.
Whether the dwellers will be able to change their mindset from using a car for everything into using public transportation is a different matter.
I’m having a really sad day, and honestly hearing you say “William nilliam” made me smile and laugh when I really do not feel like it
Thanks for being you and bringing your sense of humor into these educational videos
I had a friend at Uni who kept a heartbreakingly long list, with pics, of beautiful old buildings (art deco, classical, Georgian etc) which had been demolished to put in a parking lot. Would make you cry.
That sucks
That’s sad but also misplaced target. Uni have the worst parking. They over charge to discourage parking. Half the time are not readily accessible by good mass transit and they tend to house a ton of residences who will use parking for longer periods of time then someone who arrives there then leaves a couple hours later. Point being it’s a place of business that people come and go, but also residences for students who might need cars for traveling home or working their part time job further away. It’s a recipe for tons of cars to come and they don’t want to put money into underground parking. Simply stupid and wasteful. Most likely they charge 5-15$ and hour at that new parking lot and are making tons of money. Universities aren’t about teaching anymore, it’s about profit, prestige and growth like a business. Even the state sponsored ones. Let me ask you. Why do you think every school offers the same degrees when the school was started on more specialized degrees. If you can see through that you’ll realize what I’m saying. Point being your sympathy for your friend is commendable but your target is a joke. They don’t have enough parking nor will they ever. Go around a university and look for all the additional parking not on school grounds or cars everywhere on roads. It’s ridiculous at many of them.
Edited because my grammar is atrocious and autocorrect likes to do it’s thing.
@@egondro9157 To clarify, my roommate's list was of various lost buildings throughout the country, not buildings on campus.
OK, but you can't keep every old building forever. Cities are not museums. Hell, even museums don't keep all the old stuff forever, because they only have so much storage & display space.
@@jursamaj A city without historic building has no soul imo. We should treasure our old stuff as much as we can.
I wrote my masters thesis on parking policy a few years ago and I’m so glad the issue is gaining prominence ❤
The problem is that we have already done so much damage by parking minimums in the US that it seems unrepairable at this point. You just have to find an existing walkable town that works for you if you want to live without a car. For me, I ended up in a rural college town that has seen little growth over decades and remains cheap for students. So there is not much suburban sprawl and I can bike across town in 30 minutes. Stroads are in a balance with the busy main street here.
@@druxpack8531majority of the usa by area, not amount of people, also these sorts of parking requirements are city based, not rural areas
What degree path leads to writing a thesis on parking policy?
@@flyguy1237civil engineer?
@@flyguy1237 Public affairs or public policy.
Great video. I live in Nuevo León, a big industrial state in Mexico, and being a 3rd world country neighboring a 1st world country, almost everyone thinks copying everything from the US is a good thing.
Everyone complains about car traffic but we just keep building more 6 or 8 lane roads and giant parking lots (even our governor said his goal is making our city look like Texas), but I barely hear anyone talking about how that just makes our problems worse.
Definitively, we need more content like this and educate people about how car dependency is destroying our cities and doesn't improve life quality.
Mexico is not a 3rd world country the usa is a 4th or 5th world country.
@@daedelus6602 I don´t think it works that way, but definitely we´re going backwards in North America when talking about urban engineering.
I'm a retired nature center director. We had a grass-topped overflow parking area. It was the best location for me to install a solar array. So I installed an elevated solar array high enough to accommodate a school bus. The shaded parking became very popular for everyone to park beneath. Yes, it cost more to install an elevated array, but it also eliminated a need for a safety fence to keep people away from the direct current coming off the array. In addition, putting the array over a parking area kept us from shrinking the green footprint of the nature center land. This topic is worth covering in a future video. I've seen people greatly exaggerate the cost of elevated arrays above parking. At least part of the cost can be justified as a visitor amenity.
Every American citizen and policymaker should watch this video 3 times over. Stellar journalism!
still wouldn't change the opinion of most people
We couldn't agree more! Developing the playbook with Rollie was a ton of fun. Have you had a chance to take action yet?
Become a policymaker
I want to show this video to every Australian policymaker and senator until they stop trying to emulate America's mistakes.
Parking spaces are a blessing. skate on them
This is absolutely insane. I love how the more videos I watch of yours and Not Just Bikes I learn that every transportation "law" is built on a pile of shit.
Yea it’s really insane how thoroughly we’ve convinced ourselves that we need to build our whole cities around cars with absolutely zero data.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanetAnd with examples to the contrary.
Right. Who writes laws, and whose pockets are they in when they write those laws? Corruption is a constant enemy
No, the people who wrote these laws are all dead. Former greed motivated them, foolish inertia keeps them. Look for stupidity, then greed both are abundant.
We should use way more 'hollow bricks stuck in dirt with grass/plants growing everywhere' for parking. You can park on that.
I moved to New England and I have to say, there is a complete lack of parking here most the time, and I hate it. I can't stand street side parking, and I don't live in a major city, so when I go to places, I want a bloody parking lot.
I was today years old when I learned that they really DID pave over paradise to put up a parking lot.
I am constantly thinking of the millions of miles of nature that was destroyed in order to make a big flat patch of rock for no one to use more than 10 minutes. It's disgusting and frustrating.
Pinhead Gunpowder?
When I moved to the US from Europe this hellscape of parking lots was one of the first thing that stood out to me
I kind of had the reverse experience. Spent several months in Europe for work and the first couple days I was constantly thinking, “wait where’s all the parking?!?”
Didn’t know it at the time, but a huge part of what I liked about my time there was how large sections of the city weren’t deserts for parking.
Why would you ever move to the US from Europe tho?
@@razorwireclouds5708You realize that Bosnia is in Europe, right?
Same crap in Canada. Carcentric as heck, super complicated and lengthy to go anywhere even within the city (I mostly try to walk, as streetcars often don’t show up) It’s unbelievable that is aspect of their lifestyle is unknown abroad.
Those giant mall parking lots are also really scary to navigate if you have a visual impairment. I spent a while with only useable eye, and trying to keep that one eye on 360 degrees around me from which cars could be coming was both very difficult and super stressful. Worse than any other situation I faced when it came to getting around. Streets, bike lanes, transit? All way easier.
Another thing that would be beneficial is using permeable concrete on parking lots, neighborhood roads and driveways. At least while we're building more automobile storage space the water can seep into the ground.
What makes parking lots even more asinine is the fact that they usually don't connect the parking lot that is adjacent to it!
Wough wough, that would be moving in on the responsibility of the street - couldn't do that
Buy a truck. Curbs are easy to jump
In Canada they do, it's honestly stupid they don't in the US
@@coastaku1954 Lots don't in Canada either - there's some dumbass concrete barrier or a chainlink fence, or a drainage ditch between parking lots, and you have to drive in a big stupid backwards and circuitous way to get from one parking lot to another
@@gorak9000 I just accept it for what it is, try it sometime. Status Quo is the best way to go
I raised the issue of arbitrariness of parking minimums and asked where they got the when our city redid its comp plan and zoning laws a couple years ago. When I asked the consultant where they got the numbers, they essentially conceded the point but said "This is the best we've got." So we've got urban planning professionals (who, by the way, used all the right words about walkable communities) knowingly using unfounded recommendations only because there's nothing else. Depressing.
You don't need a complex formula to work out the right level of parking minimum. The obvious and simple answer is 0. Let businesses decide how many they need. The only reason to require parking is to avoid customers parking in the street. The best way to avoid that is to provide park and ride for out of towners and transit inside. The alternative is to charge high prices for street parking.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191
"Let them self regulate" leads to all manner of exploits. Off the top of my head, I imagine that crafty businesses would build their business near to a completely non-related business, that has lots of parking and rely on this already existing car park to service their customers too, rather than building a car park of their own. That's great from a utilitarian point of view, but it's likely to cause various friction and strife between these two businesses. Likely also, to result in any number of legal challenges and court appearances in relation to the use of that car park. On top of that, other exploits are likely to result in their own unique forms of strife. After a decade of self-regulation, parking is likely to be optimal, from the perspective of the consumer, but is also likely to be the final nail in the coffin of small and medium businesses.
@@Raz.C this is not how that works
@BluePieNinjaTV
Do you have any reason why we should believe that? Do you have any supporting evidence for your assertion? Or are you using the time honoured source of "Trust me, bro!" to legitimise your claim?
@@Raz.C What a self-inflicted problem. It would only cause 'strife and friction' if the business owner had some weird fixation about where the owners of a car go after parking in their carpark. Imagine being that possessive of a piece of tarmac? Of course, it's a failing of most Americans that, whenever they see their property might be shared with others, they rush to a court to file a lawsuit. The inability to share in a commonwealth is a deeper issue influencing nearly all of America's ills. If it bothers someone that much, why not just sell the carpark to the local council, or not build them and allow the council to build public parking - or even better, a functioning bus service, like civilised countries?
In cities in most other places than North America, it's quite usual to be able to walk from your apartment to the next grocery store within 2 minutes.
Just thinking about how long it takes to cross those huge parking spaces in front of a Walmart.
I live in Germany, and the distance from my front door to the entrance of the next store is shorter than the way off your average Wallmart parking lot.
About time! I guess I need to edit my parking video to cut out your excuses.
How is this not higher? You are a central part of the video?
This is another example of how politics pander to rich, who uses public transit? Who owned cars? Who makes up congress? Car owners.
Now even cars are for the poors, I exclusively travel small distances in a helicopter piloted by my butler to avoid the peasantman’s traffic squabbles
@@druxpack8531The reason why it's like that is because of what OP mentioned. Not just owners, I'd like to add, but pro-car and anti-public transit lobbyists as well. What you've mentioned is rolled into the considerations of channels like this one. I urge you to not take what OP said as a knock against you, and more as one against the system.
I love our public transportation system in Chicago. A car is just a money pit for me. Besides, my neighborhood is actually walkable.
Something I noticed about the lines of best fit shown around the 15:00 mark (e.g. the sporting good stores graph), is that they clearly fitted the line to have a y-intercept of 0. Hence why the line they draw is not a line through the two data points shown. This makes logical sense (insofar as any of this makes logical sense) because stores with fewer employees would presumably require fewer parked vehicles.
The problem about doing this (setting the intercept), is that it artificially inflates your r^2 value unless you recalculate it using your adjusted model (y=mx, not y=mx+b) due to a increase in the total sum of squares.
As an European I always wondered why US Americans are getting upset about socialised health care, not noticing that they have socialised parking, socialised refill of beverage, etc.
The “Red Scare” really did a number on us. For a lot of people here the thinking goes:
1. Communism will destroy the world
2. Socialism is just Communism with a modern twist
Therefore socialized anything is viewed as a policy that will topple the economy and bring the united states to it’s knees. Bonus points for crazy religious people who believe that Communism is of Satan and so affordable healthcare for the middle class = satan infiltrating the halls of government.
Socialised defence, socialised bankruptcy protection for billion dollar businesses...
Etc
Paying for healthcare 😡
Paying for public transit 🤬
Paying for roads ❤
@@not-askaven2990ha you think that money goes to roads....
I wish it did.😓
@@not-askaven2990 just one more lane
I took the initiative of emailing every member of my hometown’s city council (a Dallas suburb) about this video, and one of them responded to say he fully agrees and is already looking into the issue. Progress!
as a swiss i think you guys are praised with huge parking lots. in switzerland you pay 12 dollars per hour for parking in the city. and the parking spaces are barely wide enough to squeeze trough the door when getting out of the car. but you need to be early, after 11.00am you are too late and cannot park at all because there are way less parking spots than actually needed. and there are only centralized parking spots. you cannot park in front of the store.
i would love to have actually space for cheap parking.
or you park in the blue parking spots. but this is only allowed for 1 hour. then you must repark the car(police and security patrols trough from time to time and mark the tires with chalk...
and as a construction worker you are able to get a special very expensive parking card that allows you to park in forbidden parking spots(yellow parking space with an x on it) but they are rare and if you are not early in the morning you dont get one. and you need to walk a lot because they are never at the place you actually need to work on.
and you have a lot of parking traffic(people roaming trogh the city searching for a spot)
i will never understand why you want less parking space. having not enough is a million times worst. please dont give up your freedom to be able to park your car.
My understanding is we aren’t aiming to rely on cars anyway. We shouldn’t have to deal with large sprawling parking lots or small hard to get spots. The goal is to have a walkable city that doesn’t rely on personal use transit to get groceries. Eliminating large scale parking is merely a stepping stone in the direction of a less car based society. Alongside the negative effects climate wise. Living in arizona in the us is pretty tough with massive parking lots as these square mile black squares provide an immense amount of excess heat that IS NOT needed when it’s already 120 degrees out.
unfortunately, “i will look into it” is equivalent to “ok cool i dont care”
Well I'll email my members (Dallas suburb) and not recommend this video because there is absolutely no parking. It's to the point that on weekends people are parking on the street to go to the grocery store or they drop someone off and then drive around the block over and over and over and over until they need to pick up the person they dropped off. Goto Walmart on a weekend parking lot is 100% full, go inside and there aren't even leaves lines at the self checkout because the parking lot is too small.
@@mrdonetxthis feels like such a privileged gripe. At least you have the option of driving around until that person is done shopping, whereas some of us walk to and from the grocery store 🤷 and it’s crazy cuz even tho the time spent to get places is cut in half BECAUSE you have a car, you people are STILL always in a rush. What else do you want?
I remember when you could park a car and have enough room on either side to open the door and just get out. Then it occurred to someone if you made the parking space narrower you could park more cars in the same space. Now you have to crack the door and squeeze yourself out. One day at my local shops; which had front to curb parking; when I got back to my car a new car was parked next to mine. With about 3inches between my car and theirs. (Yes, they were over the line).Unfortunately it was the drivers side of the car. So I had to enter via the passenger door, climb over the hand brake and gear level to get into the drivers seat. Not easy with arthritis.
DITCH the HUMONGOUS, GAS GUZZLING SUV. Get a REASONABLE car. PLENTY of room!
@@traybern - I don't have an SUV. Horrible things. I have a small 4 cylinder sedan.
Vehicles are getting larger, not parking getting smaller.
@@JoshuaTootell - I was in a tiny 4 cylinder Sedan parked in the middle of the space. When I got back to my car a new car was parked next to mine. With about 3inches between my car and theirs. they'd parked their car over the line, into my space, so they could get out their driver side door. Had he parked properly there would have been just enough room to open my door and slide in. And I've been to parking stations where you can see they have painted out the old lines, and repainted them closer.
Give your editor a raise, this was spectacularly well done!
I live in Buffalo, and we eliminated the minimum parking requirements for the city in 2017. It has put new energy into the city and attracted developers who otherwise wouldn't have given Buffalo a chance.
Edit: Thanks for the shoutout! Wings are on me if you ever come to town!
Obligatory “Go Bills” 🏈
Can you point to some specific projects? I find that rolling back regulation rarely has immediate impacts. It usually takes a while and multiple other factors come into play.
@@grantcivyt5 years, calls it "immediate impact" 😂
@@VanOriin terms of cities that is very fast, but I also agree it’s hard to say that most policies have that immediate of an impact in that sense.
The more likely scenario is that projects that would otherwise be unviable (small shops, rowhomes, affordable housing developments) start to become more viable and they get implemented. But that takes time
So, Buffalo buffalos buffalo Buffalo's minimum parking requirements?
This has definitely caused a lot of the water runoff problems in many cities and is the reason that bills have doubled in order to correct and direct runoff to so many basins.
Yup. Houston TX used to be wetlands and grass that would soak up rain like a sponge. Pity all the roads and parking lots don't do the same.
There's a development they just built on the outskirts of my city where it used to mountainous terrain with steep and rocky land and a lot of brush and trees, but they completely leveled the entire thing, so every river and stream in the area just doesn't exist anymore and they;ll have to engineer for all that runoff(aka route it all into a ditch where it'll screw up a lot more stuff later) and there isn;t a tree in sight. seeing it makes me feel like i'm in the apocolypse or something
0:34 every depressing American urban planning video needs a random Blue Heeler. Well done 👏
What's so funny is a lot of these places don't allow semi trucks to park there and there's a lack of parking for truck drivers
On a hot day, the difference in air temp between a parking lot surface vs a large patch of grass and woods can be easily demonstrated with a regular thermometer-- the difference can easily be 5 - 8 Fahrenheit degrees.
Only 5-8°F? I challenge that claim! I would imagine it’s around 20°F hotter.
@@nickthompson1812 these temperature readings are always done in the shade. The thing is, there's rarely much shade for anyone in a parking lot so you're just exposed to direct sunlight which will make it feel hotter.
@@jonasnisse4257not asphalt is insanely hot in the summer. Like burn your fucking feet hot.
Grass is evaporating moisture out so it’s like 90F.
5-8? Lol
I listen to this entire episode on a bike ride. You guys are great, Jason is so nice. Thanks for all the great videos.
Heyyy kenji
@@happydogg312 I have always found it pretty easy to find parking, at least a sign or something to attach to. Although if I had a nice bike I would probably be left a little frustrated, that's for sure. Would always want to find a nice secure rack.
I love your food videos! Happy that you like to bike
Kenji Chad
@@happydogg312any pole’s a goal ;)
Minimum parking makes some amount of sense. I live in Eastern Europe and I've been to a neighborhood that's become a nightmare to get through because loads of new apartment buildings were built there, but few of them were built with any parking. So the place is covered with parked cars.
The thing that makes no sense to me is why you'd mandate minimum parking to be the maximum estimated people in a place.
I would think that parking for apartments could always be planned for and built into the ground level/basement.
@@catherinegarmon3027 Yes, some buildings in that neighbourhood do have either ground level or underground parking.
Or do you mean parking being built into already existing buildings?
One counter point I have, for apartment building parking, you have to make the parking spaces for the apartment units you have, not for what the tenants may or may not use. Tenants are temporary and the replacement tenant may drive or not drive. It's like ADA, the apartment on the top floor may not be suitable for a disabled person because it is on the top floor, but it still has to be ADA compliant.
You can still work with a realistic average for the number and type of residences in the building. Also, if you're assuming that a two bedroom apartment has two adults who each have a car so there's one parking space per car, specifically allocating the parking spaces to the apartments will allow a household that has fewer than expected cars to lease out their parking space to a household that has more than the expected number of cars. This gives a direct financial incentive to owning fewer cars!
The one thing about parking & the lack of public transport in the US that's always confused me is stadiums. In Melbourne, Australia you can drive to the stadiums but there's limited parking (costs a fair bit as well) and there's major train stations only a few minute walk from the 2 major stadiums. Getting home can be a bit annoying since you may not get a seat on the train but they run frequent enough to where you can just catch the next one. It's a much better experience than just being stuck in a car
This sort of reminds me of a weird problem there in in Wrocław in Poland. There is a stadium with fairly large parking lot. The problem is that infrastructure is not made for this. You can get there by train and there is train station nearby but barely anything actually gets there and if you'd want to park somewhere further away and get there by train, good luck. There's no special service during events, those trains will not move even a 5% of guests. So most people drive there by car but the traffic is so bad, that it is literally clogging the whole highway going around the city with causes gigantic traffic jam in the whole region. But they are smart! They figured out that they can just close the exit from highway to the stadium so that the traffic is offloaded through two exits and through the city. You can imagine what a mess that is every time there's a big event. I was unlucky enough that I lived fairly close to the stadium. Even though normal commuting was 20 minutes in one direction, when there was an even on the stadium it could easily get to 2 hour commute just to get back home. I often just gave out and went on a beer with someone to wait through the traffic and get back home at night.
Probably the ideal solution to places like that is having park'n'ride hub. Even better if you have multiple facilities like this. Let's say an airport, a few different stadiums and even a direct connection from park'n'ride to the city center. One gigantic, well organized parking lot that connects all most frequently visited places so that people can quickly leave the car there and take a public transportation.
Same in Brisbane: our main two stadiums have almost zero parking but are super close to train and bus stations. Events generally have included public transport and usually extra services. I survived without a car for years, I got one because of the pandemic and it's a pita. It's great to just leave it at home, I'm lucky enough to have a bus stop less than 100m and an express train station less than 3km away.
Better public transport with less population adds to the effect
The population argument makes no sense my man, it's always the same thing 'america is bigger so we need cars'. There are several well made videos online like this one that explain that all americans do is find excuses (98%) and make alot of money. (top 2%)@@wobblysauce
Same here in Sydney. There’s a train station directly across from the stadium, and they come every few minutes. It’s actually a very fun part of the experience being on the train with hundreds of happy fans.
Housing/planning always breaks people's brains. People who are normally against the government interfering in private business become so pro government the second you propose getting rid of parking minimums or single family zoning.
As well as a bunch of other areas. People who are "anti government" are only anti government when it suits them.
that's because conservatives really aren't conservative, just selfish. they want no rules when it's a rule they don't like, but they're always ready to force you to do what they want.
It shouldn't matter if you're anti-government (like me). We should face the repercussions of not being able to control people's lives arbitrarily and actually live freely. Stop putting people in charge of societal wide decisions who don't have any actual financial stake in the result of those decisions. Do you think private businesses would have overbuilt these parking lots on their own? Nope. It comes down to the phrase used in the video: unintended consequences, which is what happens when you let government bureaucrats let private businesses offload business costs onto taxpayers.
How is backing govt removing laws they put in place "pro government" if there was no govt there would be no parking minimums or single family zoning.
Your argument is backwards and makes no sense. How is decentralizing and privatizing going to lead to more central planning and action? It’s nonsense
So that explains why it's gotten to the point that you HAVE to have a car just to get anywhere in America. When I was in the Army and stationed in Korea, you could literally get anywhere in town by walking, or cheap public transportation, and the trains to other towns was dirt cheap.
What gets me about minimum parking requirements in cities with public transit is that even though their is the public transit is that they still assume that every single person is going to be driving their own car to a booked out concert or fully staffed office building and just don’t consider public transit or even just people carpooling.
Even for places that are car dominated they don’t consider carpooling or even just people getting dropped off by a friend or parent or Uber.
We had an issue recently with this where my church was looking at buying some land so we could expand. But the city was going to require and astronomical amount of parking to the point where half the land was going to be parking! We were not going to be able to go forward with the land purchase. Luckily the city has recently indicated they will be doing away with parking minimums!
Love that, Kelsey!! Have you checked out our action playbook in the description yet? I think your elected representatives at the state level should hear your anecdote -- it'd really resonate and help build up the case for doing away with parking minimums state-wide.
@@theclimatevote
No. Minimums are there for a reason.
@@jamesclint2279Yeah a reason that's no longer existent.
@@HTV-2_Hypersonic_Glide_Vehicle
Sure. I’m just going to stores to buy nothing.
@@jamesclint2279 What?
An urban heat island video would be a great topic for another video. The Phoenix area hitting above 110˚F every day for three weeks (so far) this year is insane.
Even if they just covered the damn parking lots... With maybe white tents and agaves?? It might make it less super hot.
@@Iquey cover the lots with solar arrays
How nice it would be if this city was smart enough to try good ideas to lower the heat. Summer is unbearable.
@@kittimcconnell2633 That's a really bad idea. Too many practical issues - low friction, surface wear, shading from parked vehicles. You'd be better off taking those same solar cells and putting them on the roof of a building.
Making the lots white would actually be a good idea though. You'd probably need to get the city or state to change their regulations to allow for non-standard markings, doing black lines on white rather than white lines on black. It'd probably be easiest to do as part of routine resurfacing and in new construction.
@@vylbird8014i think they meant as a replacement or a bigass structure over the lots
:) In my small hometown back around 2000. They forced out 4 blocks of houses with families, two small businesses and a QuikTrip to build One Massive shopping center that took up 1 block of space with building, then 3 with parking lots. Even during the holidays those things were NEVER anywhere near full. And the first week it was open, the newly opened space for cross-breezes helped stir a tornado that mangled the store's entryway. Even nature hates parking lots
Great takedown of yet another facet of the N. American transportation debacle. Not mentioned is the energy cost. When I came to San Fran in 1999, they had a fun time known as the Enron scam brownouts, and local news channels earnestly told homeowners how to save energy (turn up the thermostat, turn off unused lights and appliance, use at off-peak demand times, even windows and doors that seal - obvious to a Midwesterner). They lauded local merchants for turning off half the lights in the mall - still plenty bright. But what struck me as I was BARTing along the East Bay was the number of huge parking lots that were lit up like broad daylight all night. I guess lighting = security? But they could have easily used half as many bulbs each at half the wattage. At least LED lighting is making a difference there, but it's still wasteful. Motion detectors would save even more, since the lights are mostly off, and provide much better security by actively lighting only moving things, drawing attention (and nowadays, video recording).
Co-op between you and NJB is definitely the kind of story we need right now.
NJB even worked in a few stroads.
Its striking how many friends and family from the countryside both simultaneously love and hate urban areas because of parking lots and similar things. Their vision of America is one where they can drive into town on well-maintained roads and then quickly find adequate parking. They love the convenience while also recognizing that it just makes towns so unlovable and ugly. Unfortunately they often just dismiss the issue by saying "I couldn't live in a place like this. How could anyone?"
Yea when we create assumptions about what society needs we often do it in a selfish way by wanting what makes our specific situation the easiest.
But then we suck at realizing that everyone else is doing the same exact thing. So when you stack all those selfish decisions on top of each other you get these horribly car centric cities.
there is still this ridiculous stigma in america that if your using public transport your poor and you've failed, it's extremely prevalent inn the suburbs and it's toxic as all hell.
As someone that grew up in the suburban sprawl of Southern California and now lives in rural ass, middle of nowhere Maine, I 100% do not miss urban areas. Having been lucky enough to travel outside the continent has furthered my urge to leave the US for better shores. (Along with countless other reasons like political divides, occurrence of mass shootings, lobbyists and such)
Thank you for pointing out that replacing trees and plants (which eat CO2 and give us oxygen) with pavement is a major cause of the increase in CO2 numbers (probably more so than carbon fuels).
Climate Town is my new favorite channel . For real. It’s genius the way you use great humor and useful history and facts in your videos. I can’t say enough about how great your channel is and the educational service you give us, so we the people can take action. ¡Respect!
I love that you have to get rid of the customers living next to your business to actually open a business which then people will only be able to come to mostly from afar by car.
It may sound funny but it makes perfect sense. If you have 20 families living next door and each goes to your restaurant once a week, you have 20 customers a week. Let's add bunch of other housing withing walking distance and you will get maybe 100-200 customers a week. That's assuming that they all will be dining out each week and always go to your restaurant which is not the case. Probably less than half will actually be dining out and most of them will not visit you more than once a month. So more realistically you will have 10 customers a month from that apartment building and another 50-100 customers from walking distance. A month. Make a parking spot and now your guests can come even from another state knowing that they can park in front of your restaurant. Although the parking does not necessarily have to be in front of your restaurant and this law is sort of stupid, there should be a way of getting customers to your establishment without clogging the area. This means that any arbitrary type of consumer should be able to get there somehow in reasonable manner. For example park on a public parking lot that has certain amount of spaces assigned to you or maybe to use park'n'ride in the city that will get them to your establishment in 5 minutes from the parking lot. It can be done better, the parking does not have to be next door but it surely has to be somewhere.
From within the city they should be getting there by bus tram or metro. From another city by train to this city then one of the above to the restaurant. Only people from rural areas need to drive and they should be driving to a park and ride on the edge of the city.
The only exception to this should be people who can't walk well enough to use public transport, and even then most of it is wheelchair accessible. Taxis are always an option and they don't need parking.
@ This is conventional wisdom, but I find it to be bs. There are already so many parking spots that I seriously doubt that building additional ones induce any demand. For example many customers, businesses, and cities have loved the switch from street parking to outdoor dining due to coronavirus, and have kept it indefinitely. Under car propaganda logic, those lost parking spots should have cost the businesses customers rather than attract more!
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 This is quite common misconception, I'll probably repeat what I've wrote in a few other places. Public transportation is not really about distance, it's about density. You need certain amount of people in the area to justify the expense. Otherwise it is simply too expensive to run. People from rural villages often have better connection that people on far suburbs. In rural areas you will often find small village where quite a lot of people are within walking distance to the bus stop. In suburbs you have lots of people spread so far apart, each stop would barely serve someone. It's not maintainable. The whole point of having individual car is to be able to drive on rarely used routes. If you can drive your car to some gathering point and then switch to public transport - that's great. But it has to be designed this way.
Taxis are not a solution neither. They provide better "on demand" transportation that does not have to be maintained when not used but they still have to cover additional distance to get somewhere and the lower density you have, the more distance you have to travel between customers. This means that you will often have to drive twice the distance which is not better than building underground garage.
@@imacds Whatever you say has no value if you don't refer to particular place. The same way I can say that there is so little parking space, I often had to walk 10-15 minutes from parking to a restaurant, barber or other place simply because they did not have enough parking spots for their customers. We can just throw examples at each other, it's a futile discussion. If everyone thinks "hey, I'll just use parking spots from others", then there will be no parking spot at all.
This is quite possibly the only video giving Fayetteville credit for being the first town to remove minimum parking requirements.
the video strong towns has on them also gives them credit IIRC
Also probably the first time, anything good has been said about Fayetteville
@@blastermanr6359 Also one of the only times anything has been said about Fayetteville, period.
Aside from being a fantastic video, the fact that you included part of a sketch I literally watch every single day because it makes me cry laugh, puts you in my top 3 creators this month.
There’s another relevant Michael Caine quote, from “The Holcroft Covenant.” I can’t remember the exact line, but it goes something like: “These homes are being advertised as being only 90 minutes from 42nd Street. This is a lie. The only thing that’s 90 minutes from 42nd Street is 43rd Street.”
"I'm aware you didn't have watch a punishingly long parking video on your agenda today."
Like most Climate Town videos, I really enjoyed it and more importantly found it informative and motivating. The only problem is the wait for the next video.
He really underestimates our thirst for informative videos. My agenda is always open for a good video.
2/3rds of landspace is absolutely insane. Just thinking about the difference a few trains could do is making my head spin.
Gotta say, I never realized things were close to this bad in the US.
When you start looking for all the car-centric policies in the US you start to see them EVERYWHERE. It's pretty mind boggling how fixated US culture was(and still is) on the automobile. Outside of urban areas you'll rarely see electric vehicles or anything other than a truck or massive SUV. No joke, in 2022 over 70% of all vehicles sold in the US were trucks or SUVs.
Something this video doesn't touch on either is the car culture here in the US is also a class and wealth statement. I traveled in Europe when I was younger and was shocked that everyone drove what we would call a 'beater' car here in the US and everyone's bumpers have traded paint from smushing their cars in while parallel parking. Here in the US if you just touch another person's car with your car and they're going to scream at you and call their insurance company to fix the damage. It's more than just transportation here; it's also a statement about 'who you are' if that means anything.
@@RossGoneRogueDepends what country you're in. What you're saying may be true in France and Spain, but it's not at all true in Germany, Switzerland, Romania, etc. Go to Munich and you'll see high end cars in pristine condition.
@@razorwireclouds5708 not arguing that doesn't exist, but I noticed it skews much more toward budget cars. To be fair I mostly saw this in France and Germany in Cologne. It's a different perspective. Maybe people just say "well it's a Renault so who cares" lol
@@CRneu Even in Urban areas, you might see mostly truck or a massive SUVs if you live in the south like I do. People love living out their "country" lifestyle in the city for some reasons.. It would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating seeing those trucks take up two parking spots because of how ridiculously wide and long they are without a bed that would actually justify it.
Indiana has a parking law that says that you have to have one. Handicap spot for every 25 spots
Black Friday and Christmas those lots all fill up and then some.
Not saying we shouldn't do something about the rampant consumerism, but pointing out they're not always empty
Went to my first Townhall a few months ago and got to speak about the fact that my city is not walkable after learning information from this video I cannot wait to bring it up. Next time I get a chance to speak!! I’m 22 and I love that I finally know what’s going on and what we can do about it. Love both of your channels!!
I wish you luck in changing the minds of the boomer fossils controlling most decisions in the USA.... As for myself I have the scars from battle and have retired from the field.
Hopefully you get to speak. Most of the meetings here in Dallas are about city planners talking at us instead of talking to us.
Zoomer activism hell yeah
Not our fault you only want to walk the 10 or so blocks around your house. Get a car. explore.
@@luvshak3095 Those aren't, and shouldn't be exclusive:
- you CAN have a car to get some big shopping, get to a nice cinema, aquapark etc - stuff that just can't physically be available nearby everywhere
- but at the same time you shouldn't need a car to do some small shopping, grab a beer, go with the kids to a playground, get kids to school etc.
For that to work you need a reasonable population density in the area - and with what Rolly shows - it's impossible in the USA and it is a self propelling disaster.
Important thing to note is that it doesn't automatically require to everyone loosing their transportation freedom etc - not at all - it's just that if you want a cost effective city, good maintained infrastructure, decent access to services and businesses, and lot's of green areas in the cities, then you can't have the population density lower than in an average rural village in Europe. Economics of all of those things scales with population density, and you just can't get around it without having population centers consisting of dense yet quite affordable to build - 5-15 stories high buildings (with best walking and cycling access to schools, healthcare, shops, restaurants, services etc) surrounded by 2-4 stories high less dense buildings areas with lesser, but still good access to the above usually with the use of a variety of public transport and private transport sharing (bikes, cars, scooters etc) and normal private transport (with the normal assumption that only desperate people take a car into the city). And only around that area, can you have a suburbs "donut" of low density single family homes - but to make that area economically viable, city should only provide electricity, water, and main roads - side connecting end roads should be the homeowners problem (like in Europe), and a full blown sewage system could only be available within few miles of higher density city areas, as to not need additional pumping stations - or if the single family homes residential areas were located at a reasonably higher elevation than the densely populated city areas (and thus, not needing additional pumping stations for sewage systems - without that, maintenance and operation costs of those would be way too high to be economical - Rolly made a video on this subject quite some time ago already).
It would be great if there was PARK minimums. Developers should have to create green space next to their high density buildings.
This is genius. Have you contacted your city yet with our playbook linked in the description? If not, you have to include this idea! It's funny, attention-grabbing, and so true.
Grew up in rural areas and ever since moving to the city I've felt like a park withing walking distance should be mandatory for all residences in a city for people's mental health.
we have this in ireland, for housing developments above a certain amount are required to have public green spaces, pedestrian access and paths, and lighting etc, and a similar requirement with shopping developments
Constantly ruining charm & livability of city for profit with the blessing of greedy politicians who want more tax $ rather than maintain quality of life in city.
Straight up crazy. Cars are en evil circle. I visited the states once, and went to a strip mall for an outlet. The car park was stuffed due to the outlet sale, so we parked in a neighboring mall car park bc no problem, it was almost empty. But the walk across a couple hundred meters of asphalt parking, inlcuing coming a bit oo close to the highway and corssing over some lawn that was definitely not for walking (clearly you were supposed to drive from mall to neighbor mall if you wanted to go to both) in the californian summer was just hell.
Whyyyyy so many parking laws, and NO laws about shaded or enclosed walkways, walking areas in safe distance from high car traffic areas, etc? Both these malls could easily have 1/2 as much parking and still have plenty, if it was okay to park in either one and be bale to walk to both. And even less if the area had a frequent bus service and a good waiting area.
Malaysian here, we are car centric too, most of our parkings, apart from on street parking owned by the government, are multistorey parking complexes.
Why does American business dont build those, instead they use such a large plot of land inefficiently
Parking lots in America are so ridiculously oversized that one of the stock tips for getting in shape is "park at the very back of the parking lot whenever possible, you'll end up doing a lot more walking."
That is unintentionally funny when you think about it.
You know what is a good idea? A bus line from the back of the parking lot to the shop.
Yeah I do that constantly. I would much rather park in the empty part of the parking lot and walk to the store. Not only do I get a little exercise but I also end up getting into the store a lot faster than if I had joined the circus of morons constantly circling around the spots near the door waiting for someone to leave so they can swoop in and take one. Leaving the store is also easier because nobody else is driving around the area of the parking lot where I parked, I don't have to try and pull out and drive away through said circus of morons.
I enjoy going to a busy gym and watching people are circling the parking lot finding the closest spot 🤦♂️
@@mjc0961 I do the same. Avoid the people that cannot park straight as well.
So proud Burlington, VT eliminated parking minimums! Hopefully other Vermont cities (and cities nationwide) follow soon
Thank goodness there's a robust public transportation system there for people who come from out of town.
It sucks balls to not have parking minimums. In Baltimore trying to find a place to park is next to impossible .
@@CodyWBrownpublic transportation is trash. It does nothing but bring filth out of the city and into the county's. Take the light rail to a ravens game or to any event really. It'll make you hate it with all the trash that rides it.
Hell yea!
@@CodyWBrownEliminating legally mandated parking requirements entirely is not the same thing as eliminating parking itself entirely 🤡
Can we please appoint this guy to be our climate policy guy? Holy smokes, an educated climate policy guy who uses common sense instead of the Communist Manifesto.
I'm not a big enviro-guy but as a rehabber I hate when government stupidity makes things pointlessly more expensive.
Don’t forget how stressful parking lots can be! I’ve been replacing a lot of my car travel with my e bike recently which includes my grocery trips.
This has allowed me to avoid the absolutely clusterf**k that is the Trader Joe’s parking lot. It’s amazing how stress free grocery shopping can be when it doesn’t start and end with you wondering if you’re about to run over a small child!
Hi!
Cool if you can find a place to safely park a bike.
That's my problem too. Evehicle Parking for bikes, onewheels, eucs is sketchy enough a lot of people just end up taking their car or taking their device inside with them
@@abandoninplace2751 I’m actually planning to eventually make a video on bike parking in the future!
What I’ve found with this particular store is that it’s not an issue because they have several “U racks” by the grocery cart storage and the front entrance. So they’re both high traffic enough areas that I feel safe locking my bike there for the 20-30 minutes that I’m gone.
I don’t have a cargo bike yet so I’m unsure how much that will change things when I ultimately get one. Currently, panniers which are special built for groceries have been letting me carry two full bags which covers about half a week’s worth of groceries.
In the event that we want to get a whole week’s worth then my wife brings her bike and we bring another set of panniers.
So yea, my situation works super well for me but obviously your mileage may vary depending on your own factors. Luckily, my city is actively pushing businesses to reduce the amount of car parking that they offer while increasing the amount of bike parking so maybe I’ll avoid this ever becoming an issue!
100%!! I replaced my car this year with an ebike. I'm saving my money, my time, and my sanity by biking instead of driving everywhere. Its amazing how stress free it is to pull right up next to the entrance, whip out my bike lock and waltz right into any store. BTW my commute is 11 miles, and none of that is bike lanes.
I did a research paper on urban heat islands! We need more trees and natural canopy, fewer impermeable/non-reflective surfaces, more air-to-ground heat pumps, and even aerodynamic buildings that allow air to properly pass thru cities. I hope you make a video on it soon!
Oh, and the impacts of urban heat often impact those most disadvantaged economicly and kids have the worst access to green spaces to cool off. Curiously, the heat impact on the elderly largely depends on the city and is likely dependent on wealth.
I write zoning regulations, but have to put LIMITS on parking lots because many developers and major retailers want to build 50% more spaces than necessary so that on the busiest shopping day of the year (black Friday), shoppers will see available spaces and still come to shop. I don’t require minimum parking in downtowns or urban areas. Many urban planners are trying to undo the seas of parking.
The city of Paris invented a way to separate pedestrians from vehicular traffic when the Pont Neuf was built. The surface for pedestrian use was raised and hence a curb separated walkers from all other traffic. This was 1639. Strolling to be seen was invented at the same time.
No stronger indicator you took the orange pill than being very excited to watch a 30 min Climate Town video on parking.
Been waiting for this my whole life.
"I'm aware you didn't have 'watch a punishingly long parking video' on your agenda today."
Actually I've seen enough NJB and strongtowns that this is the top of my agenda today.
@@will7873 Yes, I specifically set aside time in my day to watch this.
🍊 I'm back for more 😎
Everything is turning orange
Wtf is the "orange pill"? This is my first time seeing that term.
Another good song about parking lots taking over cities is My City Was Gone by The Pretenders. It’s an Ohio native telling how when they returned to their hometown buildings were destroyed and replaced by parking leaving their childhood memories unrecognizable.
Forty one years old and still as relevant.
I've been unable to park at Walmart on black Friday before 😂
Love your videos. They are so well researched and informative while also entertaining. Also I love how at minute 9:00 you can still see the family feud board with the word bu//sh/t on it in the background. That’s the attention to detail that keeps me coming back every time.