[zhng]

> reduction in the required number of parking spaces per residence unit

Can you elaborate on how this helps people? It was my thinking that requiring a minimum of 1 space per bedroom would help things. Parking is already burdensome and very costly.

[jseliger]

Can you elaborate on how this helps people?

See Shoup, The High Cost of Free Parking: http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/1... .

Parking is already very expensive in many urban areas and it's implicitly subsidized by zoning requirements. The true cost of parking is even higher.

Places built explicitly around parking (like Atlanta or Phoenix) end up paying high time costs in the form of driving.

There is no free lunch (or in this case, parking spot).

[rayiner]

Parking wastes valuable land and creates undesirable and dangerous pedestrian spaces. There should be no parking space requirement. Let the market figure out the right number.

[nerfhammer]

As long as parking spaces are a free public good the market won't figure out the right number

[dllthomas]

Why should they be free?

[nerfhammer]

They shouldn't.

[dllthomas]

Ah. Where there is sufficient density, I fully agree. Where there is not, I'm less confident, but I don't disagree.

[gress]

Make cars unusable first, and then a decade later a decent public transit system will arise.

[wmf]

I don't think a lost decade is what low-income people need right now.

[dllthomas]

I'd interpreted that as about 60% of the point.

[gress]

Exactly - making things harder for people as a way to stimulate the market to cause change just makes the world a nastier place.

[dllthomas]

Sure, but in this case it's "doing less to warp the market in ways that make it easier for particular people". Regardless you've got to think about who will take up the slack and how while things adjust, though.

[DougWebb]

Or, a perfectly good community will have turned into a wasteland where no one can live.

[gress]

Indeed, or a haven for people who can use Uber for all transport.

[danielharan]

This is a great explanation: http://daily.sightline.org/2013/08/22/apartment-blockers/ "The research hints at the rent increases caused by some of the “rent raisers” above: 6 percent higher rent per parking space in Los Angeles, 12.5 percent in Litman’s model, up to 35 percent in the forthcoming Sightline analysis."