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by kec 139 days ago
Even if on street parking were metered consistently and priced appropriately that's too divorced from the developer & their incentives to solve this. Parking after the building is sold is the definition of not the developer's problem, which is part of the reason we have parking regulations to begin with.

A better solution might be to mandate parking minimums (to ensure the property is actually useful / not encroaching on the street) but not allowing "open air" spots to count to the minimum, meaning an open lot gets you nothing, a 2 level garage counts for half the spots, etc. Maybe tack on some credits for proximity to public transit while we're at it.
1 comments
bluGill 139 days ago
It is very much important to the developer - whoever buys the land wants to know that their employees and customers can get there. That means there needs to be enough parking, transit, or pedestrians. If it is in a car centrist area that won't buy if there isn't enough parking. Downtowns can get by with less parking only if there is great transit to bring people in. Developers are not stupid, they know that if there isn't enough parking property values go down.
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bombcar 139 days ago
This is the root of the issue, which people often want to ignore - it's a class chicken'd egg problem.

The "there is no parking at all" wonderlands can exist (even NOT counting artificial ones like Disneyland) - and the "everything is acres of parking and there's no street parking at all" also.

The question is how you get from one extreme to another - in a way that does NOT require you to redevelop the entire city Simcity style, nor puts onerous costs such that all development is stifled.

Part of it might be that if the parking lots/garages are not heavily used, or not used much, they'll "redevelop themselves" - but that likely requires making transit and other options better which is difficult, expensive, and often politically unsound.

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gamblor956 139 days ago
Disneyland has one of the largest parking structures in the world.
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bluGill 139 days ago
But it isn't inside the park, making the inside car-free.
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bombcar 138 days ago
Exactly - the only other example I could think of was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackinac_Island
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