[ryandrake]

And thank goodness for that!

As much as everyone here hates cars, the unfortunate fact is we currently need them. If I could snap my fingers and be able to afford a $1.2M "starter home" within walking distance to work, trust me, I would do it in a heartbeat. If there were any politicians serious about building useful public transit, I'd vote for them. But, for now, at least in most metro areas (where the jobs are), most people can only afford to live in places where you need a car to get anywhere.

[davidw]

We should be free to choose how much parking we need, and pay for it:

http://www.bendbulletin.com/opinion/5249862-151/guest-column...

[mantas]

I live in a country where very little parking is required and whatever parking is built is either free-for-all or come at a huge price. People cheap out, but still expect to drive.

The end result is parking in grey-legal spots, parking in too narrow streets making it dangerous, parking in ex-greenery-now-sandy-parking-lot and whatnot. And lots of bad blood between neighbours who took whose spot :) Yes, there're rules to fine such behaviour. But it'd be political suicide to enforce those rules because everybody breaks them.

[davidw]

There was some of that where I lived in Italy, very little in Austria, and it was all much better than having vast, empty parking lots sitting there while house prices climb and climb.

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0492073,-121.3266077,3a,75y,...

Is a pretty common sight in the US. What a colossal waste of land!

Here's the book everyone cites on the issue:

https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193...

[ckrailo]

I don't think a parking lot in rural Bend (or any rural American town) is the best example to use. People in Bend are going to rely on cars a lot more than people in downtown Portland and property is likely cheaper + regulated less.

Here's the first lot I found in Portland... nice, waterfront parking!

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.5319709,-122.6711514,3a,60y,...

[davidw]

Average house prices are north of 400K in "rural" Bend (which is actually closing in on 100K people - not big, but not tiny, either).

And of course people use cars a lot to get around here. That doesn't mean the government has to require it: any business that depends on car-dependent people is going to want to provide some parking. There's no reason for the government to get involved in it.

Also: part of the reason people need cars to get around is because we fill land up with useless BS like that, rather than housing or businesses or commercial - empty space stretches everything else out so that more trips require a car.

[mantas]

Government not requiring it encourages freeloading on neighbours. In my post-soviet country, there's a lot of pressure on government to require ample parking. Otherwise both residential and commercial buildings tend to freeride on their neighbours and use their parking.

What is interesting, this evolved despite OK public transit and very little cars in the early 90s.

[mantas]

Oh, I'm definitely not advocating for such massive parking lots. Just saying that having little parking lots sucks too. I'm talking about soviet times bloks with parking for 0.2 car/apartment or so.

By the way, over there housing costs climb regardless of little parking required. Apartments in central locations (= walkable/bikable to most offices) cost a shitload of money compared to houses in suburbs. Especially once you step in family-sized market.

[CanSpice]

This is a bit false. It assumes that the cost of living is driven solely by housing. There have been numerous studies done that show that the total cost of living doesn't change much between city and suburbs. Housing costs are higher in the city, but they're largely balanced out by lower transportation costs and house upkeep costs (apartments are cheaper to heat/cool than houses, for example).

[davidw]

Here you go:

"A cheap home isn’t affordable if it comes with high transportation costs."

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/06/the-problem-with-how-...

[ryandrake]

My transportation costs (including the purchase price of the car, all gas and maintenance) are an order of magnitude less than the home price delta between where I currently live and where I'd have to live in order to give up my car.

[closeparen]

This cannot be stressed enough. Too many people on HN seem baffled by car culture, or think it's some kind of conspiracy, but the answer is right here. Savings on land prices for getting far from the center are massive, the costs of manufactured goods like cars are tiny, and the solution that urbanism offers is is only to raise the price on the latter.

[TheCoelacanth]

> the solution that urbanism offers is is only to raise the price on the latter

The solution that urbanism offers is to stop massively subsidizing the latter. Let car culture live or die on its own merits, not because of government subsidies.

[closeparen]

Without a corresponding subsidy to lower the cost of urban living, most people will be worse off (maybe the rich in urban centers will save more in taxes than they lose in mobility, doubtful anyone else will).

Subsidizing infrastructure that increases quality of life and lowers cost of living is kind of the point of government.

[davidw]

Cars are part and parcel of modern life and they won't be going away any time soon, and I don't think more than a few extremists really want that anyway.

What a lot of people do is to rebalance things so we have more of a 'right tool for the job' culture in the US. Cars for some things, bikes or walking for closer trips (enabled by legalizing things like corner stores or neighborhood barbers again), public transportation for other things.

[wbl]

Go tell that to the 40% of New Yonkers without cars.

[thescriptkiddie]

No, fuck that. "Drive until you qualify" is not a sustainable model.