These U.S. Cities Have More Parking Lots Than Housing - They paved paradise again and again and again.
by Frank Jacobs, Big Think May 17, 2024
"...On average, about one-fifth of all land in city centers is dedicated to parking. But what’s the actual harm being done by all that parking space? For one, city centers that are more “parkable” become less walkable. In other words, fewer things are casually accessible.
...Americans’ attitude toward driving is changing. The share of high school seniors with a driving license has dropped from 85.3% in 1996 to 71.5% in 2015. The rise of shared, multi-modal, and (soon, they keep promising us) autonomous mobility will further reduce the need for driver’s licenses, individual cars, and massive parking facilities in city centers.
Perhaps it’s time for American cities to become denser, more lived-in, more walkable—and less “parkable.”
What is it going to take to get through to elected officials and progressive transportation planners, that they're working with a machine that's been designed to build freeways through poor neighborhoods and coerce anyone who could afford it into cars? A machine made of #trafficEngineers and #police which then accreted a century of CYA, cultural, legal, and bureaucratic armor against change? Giving the DOT more money for safety won't ever get us out of #carSupremacy. It's designed to not.
The whole ten-year cycle of planning and public outreach and design and legislature allocating funding, to do some cast-in-place concrete curb-protected sidewalk with bike stencils on it, that isn't wide enough to carry as much bike traffic as there are cars on the street, with no design-speed consideration, sharp corners and blind spots at intersections... It was conceived & designed as a way to get people on bikes out of the way of motorists, who are the important road users with places to go.
@msquebanh that's great news!! When I did my study abroad in Vancouver, I took the ferry to visit a friend in Victoria for a long weekend. It was a blast! I had taken the ferry several times in Seattle, but the BC ferry was magical.
@msquebanh this was, gulp, 17 years ago. The price at the time was reasonable. I didn't have a car, so it was the bus down to the ferry, then my friend picked me up at the terminal. I miss the Pacific Northwest, but it's so expensive now I'd never be able to afford to live there.
The passenger station & #train depot will function as assembly, repair, maintenance & operational center for long-delayed & anticipated – #FirstEver#RailLine of its kind in the southern metropolis.
@BarbChamberlain I would happily accept a speed limiter on my car, just like I have one on my e-bike! Above a certain speed, the motor shuts off. Wanna go faster? Pedal harder/get out and push!
#IslandLink#bus company has expanded its service to northern #VancouverIsland, taking its fleet past Campbell River for the first time.
“The company now has Vancouver Island covered,” owner Phillip Morgan said Friday.
Riders can catch the bus from #PortHardy at 8:30 a.m. and arrive in Victoria by mid-afternoon. The northern run from Victoria will arrive in Port Hardy by 5:30 p.m., Morgan said.
“I’m wondering if something subliminal has happened after reading Bicycling Monterey. I’ve been riding the Rock Island Greenway Trail for the last week and a half. Just a wonderful and beautiful ride! It’s not Monterey, California, but a real gem for Peoria, Illinois.”—Richard Coers
I don't want to undermine the importance of having public transit be safe, but media needs to stop covering "violence on the Metro" as if pubtrans is more deadly than car travel.
Sure, you're not the one driving the Metro so you don't feel as in control. But I suspect the numbers would show a lot more violence per day in car travel than pubtrans.
Let's work for violence prevention on pubtrans, but also stop stoking middle class fears of pubtrans. #Transportation#PublicTransit
@meganL 100% this absolutely makes me crazy. Yes for sure there are incidents on transit that make the news cycle but no one bates an eye by all the folks killed when driving cars is involved.
Big mega transportation projects primarily benefiting people who drive just roll along and get most of the money but the projects for non-drivers are often crumbs we’re expected to cheer for and even bigger projects are easily cut when money is tight. Thanks Kimberly for this framing.
I think a lot about the “Seattle Transportation Plan” basically threw out all the work folks have been doing for a decade+ to get some consensus on bike and pedestrian infra that should exist. Imperfect infra but better. There are maps with bike routes that will never exist in any real sense just as there are many many blocks of sidewalks that will only come into being if a big multi-family development happens adjacent. But the roads for people who can drive are already there. #nondrivers
Thousand Oaks Transit: 🚲🚍Ventura County transit operators are celebrating Bike to Work Day by offering free rides to anyone boarding with a bike on May 17! Seamlessly connect your bike route by riding any bus within Ventura County for free. http://goventura.org/free
@ai6yr Bike to Work day has been a thing for decades. What is new to me this year is that some Bay Area orgs have changed it to "Bike to Wherever Day" - so that you don't just have to be going to work. Going to school, going to have fun, whatever it is - cycle there.
@ai6yr not just VCTC busses! You can bring your bike on the bus to the Moorpark or Camarillo train stations and ride Metrolink for free ALL WEEK as long as you have your bike! Go explore some new trails after your commute!
“It’s absurd for ODOT to claim that their proposed $1.9 billion 10-lane highway is in compliance with the city’s existing plans for #climateAction, sustainable #transportation investment or neighborhood development. We filed this lawsuit because state law requires ODOT to follow the city’s #cleanAir and climate goals. ODOT shouldn’t be allowed to advance a project that brazenly violates the city’s adopted plans.” -- #NoMoreFreeways#ODOTGTFOpdx#Portland
@whitemice it's like asking whether there are good cops. Or to the extent that these people exist, is it better for them to be working for the state or freelancing? IDK, but the rules DOTs have written for themselves are inherently a form of violence, mostly to the tune of coercion toward car use as a primary directive.