This news is a few months old, but interesting.
... "The demise of the parking and traffic division is good news for those of us who think that streets are about more than just parking and traffic, auto traffic,"
"The real question is has the thinking changed."...
BTW, on a follow up to the Enquirer's
strange headline a few weeks ago that generated tons of mis-information, about the streetcar eliminating parking spaces, Tom Vanderbilt has a great piece in Slate on the
high cost of free parking:
Minimum parking requirements are based on a form of “circular logic,” in which planners estimate parking need by looking at the highest levels of parking demand at suburban locations with free parking and no transit options. As a result, the space devoted to cars often exceeds the space devoted to humans (one study found mall parking lots were 20 percent bigger than the buildings they serviced), and the country is awash in a surplus of parking supply....
... the most invidious cost of parking lots is also the most difficult to measure: the way that they kill any attempt at decent architecture, both on the level of individual buildings and on the level of city development more broadly. Your favorite buildings, your favorite cities, and your favorite vacation destinations all have one thing in common: a distinct absence of massive parking lots. So why are these things mandated by zoning regulations across the U.S.? It makes precious little sense, and it’s high time that minimum parking requirements died a long-overdue death...
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I've been quoting from the book all summer, or at least exerps I find online like
He reports that in 2002 between $127 billion and $374 billion a year was spent nationally to subsidize off-street parking, as much as the U.S. spent on Medicare or national defense that year
In 2007 Americans spent $78 billion in gas sitting in traffic jams
The library doesn't have one in circulation so I really need to break down and buy it.
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