>and they will take alternate methods of transportation
More likely they simply will not go there, or will visit another location (drive to the burbs, etc).
There is another interesting aspect of the parking problem that hasn't been discussed, which is the environmental damage parking regulations cause. If you're not a $250K/yr programmer on the coasts, a $95 parking ticket is an expensive surprise, and equivalent to at least 200 miles of driving. So, if parking tickets are expensive and a uncontrollable confusopoly cost of living, its cheaper / safer / more predictable to simply drive out to the burbs, where theres usually a better selection of businesses anyway. Which wastes a lot of gas. I can afford the tickets, and there's plenty of dying retail downtown where I work, but I don't want to deal with getting tickets, paying tickets, getting towed, I live in the burbs anyway, so the downtown loses a lot of economic activity and the environment loses because of extra driving. But the priority is people aren't driving downtown. Sort of a stealth zoning, this area not fit for retail, but we'll categorize it as retail anyway. This also fits into the "high cost of being poor" concept where I might save $100 on rent on paper by living downtown in a bad area, but if the stealth tax of $95 of monthly parking tickets is applied, plus the hassle, I'm better off in the burbs.
Parking consumes a huge amount of land, which isn't free in urban neighborhoods. Requiring businesses to provide it is a 'stealth tax' on goods, which raises costs for people who can't afford or don't want a car. And when a neighborhood is built out with enough parking for anyone who possibly wants it, it becomes so spread out that it is essentially impossible to walk anywhere or to serve it properly with mass transit. Requiring car ownership to be employable (or at least to access most jobs) is a far larger stealth tax!
Its the "cars create economic diversity" argument. Can't have collectible coin stores, gaming stores, beer brewing stores, makerspace, none of that without cars because a walking or bus radius can't keep it alive in that small radius. Even big venues like the local sports stadium and the music halls would be dead without cars to bring in distant spenders.
You can run convenience stores and bars solely on walk in traffic, but there's more to life than doritos and getting drunk, or there should be. The destruction of brick and mortar retail by online will have some interesting effects... Now, or certainly in the future, I could live in a city without a car and unable to visit (closed/closing) retail shops as long as UPS still delivers "the good stuff"
Lack of competition also has a stealth tax on the residents. Why sell a banana for less than $5 if you're the only banana seller in walking distance. In car country the market is more competitive so I may burn $1 of gas to go shopping, but I'll save 50% on a bag of groceries so its a huge net win as long as my bag of groceries costs more than $2 or so.
> Can't have collectible coin stores, gaming stores, beer brewing stores, makerspace, none of that without cars
Strongly disagree. In Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, there's a block with not one, but two shops that sell only chess sets and things related to chess. Old, walkable downtowns (the ones that have survived the advent of the car, at least) have just as much diversity of retail businesses as the homogenous suburbs (where you have your Best Buy, your Walmart, your Olive Garden, and so on), if not more.
You don't need an automobile to travel beyond your neighborhood! You can take a bus or a train or ride your bike, even in suburban areas.
Plenty of midsize cities worldwide work on various combination of mass transit, automobiles, walking, and bicycles. The automobile monoculture in most midsize American cities is a product of our early development of cheap automobiles combined with federal policies massively subsidizing highways and the racial paroxysms of the mid-20th century.
Even Canadian midsize cities, which in many ways are very similar to those in USA (except for far worse weather) have far higher transit usage. In Calgary, 'the Dallas of Canada', full of oil money & newly-built single-family homes, 24.3% of commuters use transit, and that's considered low!
http://www.calgaryjournal.ca/index.php/news/2538-calgary-s-t...
Manhattan is still dependent on transit because it's one of the few places in America that's so dense, even 60 years of dedicated auto-first policy couldn't change the facts on the ground.
You don't need an automobile to travel beyond your neighborhood! You can take a bus or a train or ride your bike, even in suburban areas.
Plenty of midsize cities worldwide work on various combination of mass transit, automobiles, walking, and bicycles. The automobile monoculture in most midsize American cities is a product of our early development of cheap automobiles combined with federal policies massively subsidizing highways and the racial paroxysms of the mid-20th century.
Even Canadian midsize cities, which in many ways are very similar to those in USA (except for far worse weather) have far higher transit usage. In Calgary, 'the Dallas of Canada', full of oil money & newly-built single-family homes, 24.3% of commuters use transit, and that's considered low!
http://www.calgaryjournal.ca/index.php/news/2538-calgary-s-t...
Manhattan is still dependent on transit because it's one of the few places in America that's so dense, even 60 years of dedicated auto-first policy couldn't change the facts on the ground. But America had many other transit-oriented downtowns & dense neighborhoods, still has a few, and could have more again!
> You don't need an automobile to travel beyond your neighborhood! You can take a bus or a train or ride your bike, even in suburban areas.
Optimistic at best. Some cites like NY are better equipped for alternate transport, but my experience in California is less than stellar. Although it is my primary transport, outside of a ride between classes in university, I rarely see people my age cycling for non-recreational purposes. No only is there no desire, but most nonresidential streets I ride on have inadequate accommodations for bikes.
Trains in some cities are usable, but the coverage and stop frequency leaves much to be desired. I didn't even bother with the bus in LA. Not only did I have to travel 1 mile to get to the nearest stop, but when I wanted to travel on weekends waiting 40min+ for a bus wasn't worth it. In stark contrast to my experience Seoul which had a fantastic system of buses, trains, and taxis!
Most American cities have many neighborhoods that aren't laid out to be accessible by non-automotive means. But that doesn't mean we should have zoning codes that require that to be the case always and forever, and that doesn't mean new neighborhoods should be built in the same way. American population is shifting and expanding, and we will have to significantly rebuild our cities over our lifetimes— we should rebuild them wisely!
The fact that $200,000 houses sit on $800,000+ worth of land in Silicon Valley means that, if policy were changed to allow reasonable density, Silicon Valley would quickly densify to the point that walkable neighborhood retail and mass transit would have a lot of customers. And mass transit needs a lot of customers to run at a reasonable frequency.
That doesn't mean that we should simply accept America's sub-optimal state of affairs. We can strive for a better day, in which cars are not so dominant, and you can instead opt for a method of getting from A to B that is both healthier for you and easier on the environment.
I lived in a downtown urban area for a while, and probably will again. But you are absolutely right about parking tickets kicking the poor when they are already down. At one point when living downtown, revenue was slow and I had zero wiggle room in my finances. Then my car was totaled by some inattentive teenagers, I lost the gate remote for my parking lot, and I had to park on the street by my building. It was a weekend, there was basically zero retail nearby, so I thought I should be okay.
Not so. It turns out there was a sticker on the parking meter below bumper level that was basically invisible that said 2hr max. Two parking tickets later (plus a third fron trying to park somewhere else by my building that should have been fine), I hated cities. I could barely afford to eat (ramen profitable) and only drove the bare minimum, and here was this insane expense when I could least afford it. I moved out of the city and didn't spend a dime there for years as a result.
I have felt for awhile now that municipal fines and fees should be tied to income in the United States. Yes--there would be limits; for instance just because a person is poor doesn't mean they can continually break the law. If they abuse the system they couldn't use income
to reduce ticket/fee amount. A $500 ticket to a poor person,
in my opinion is cruel and unusual punishment. I would even
say it violates our 8th admendment. Yes, the admendment argument is extreme, but I don't think the powers at be understand just how little it takes to push someone over the edge? (Yes--I know you can plead your case in front of a judge on some infractions, but the courts aren't as accommodating as they were in the past.) In my neck of the woods, It cost's $10 to even begin to contest a ticket.
Yes--there would be limits; for instance just because a person is poor doesn't mean they can continually break the law.
I think means-adjusted fees could be reasonable, but there should be lower and upper limits, particularly for laws where the fees are there to raise revenue or direct behavior, rather than protect the public.
(Yes--I know you can plead your case in front of a judge on some infractions, but the courts aren't as accommodating as they were in the past.)
Time and transportation to the court can be just as difficult for some to obtain as the money for the ticket. If the person in question has a job schedule or medical condition that makes daytime errands more difficult, it's even more discouraging.
In my neck of the woods, It cost's $10 to even begin to contest a ticket.
Fortunately, some (or at least one small one) of the cities around here consider it a central part of the right to due process and a speedy trial that choosing a trial cannot make your situation worse than just paying the fine. So, you can have your day in court, and if you lose, the fine is the same.
You have obviously never been to an actual city. Real urban centers are not interchangeable with strip malls. The Continental Club is not found in Round Rock.
Its true that a cool attraction with a capacity of 300 (lucky) people exists in a city with a population of 885K.
The problem is its an anecdote in a discussion about public policy and lifestyle for 100% of the population, when only 0.03% of the city population can actually visit.
More likely they simply will not go there, or will visit another location (drive to the burbs, etc).
There is another interesting aspect of the parking problem that hasn't been discussed, which is the environmental damage parking regulations cause. If you're not a $250K/yr programmer on the coasts, a $95 parking ticket is an expensive surprise, and equivalent to at least 200 miles of driving. So, if parking tickets are expensive and a uncontrollable confusopoly cost of living, its cheaper / safer / more predictable to simply drive out to the burbs, where theres usually a better selection of businesses anyway. Which wastes a lot of gas. I can afford the tickets, and there's plenty of dying retail downtown where I work, but I don't want to deal with getting tickets, paying tickets, getting towed, I live in the burbs anyway, so the downtown loses a lot of economic activity and the environment loses because of extra driving. But the priority is people aren't driving downtown. Sort of a stealth zoning, this area not fit for retail, but we'll categorize it as retail anyway. This also fits into the "high cost of being poor" concept where I might save $100 on rent on paper by living downtown in a bad area, but if the stealth tax of $95 of monthly parking tickets is applied, plus the hassle, I'm better off in the burbs.