they paved paradise put up a parking lot
September 21, 2015 11:01 AM Subscribe
Parking sign company goes meta: Free Parking Infographic
If all of America's parking spaces were clumped together, they would take up an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined.As a resident of Michigan, I am in favor of this plan to have everyone park in Delaware and Rhode Island.
posted by Etrigan at 11:14 AM on September 21, 2015 [10 favorites]
Improved public transportation would reduce parking needs all around, but that would be socialism.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:15 AM on September 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:15 AM on September 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
Improved public transportation would reduce parking needs all around, but that would be socialism.
One of the problem with today's public transportation is that when busses stop "at" the grocery store (or mall or whatever), it drops passengers on the edge of the parking lot. They then have to walk through acres of empty parking spots to get to the door, safeguarding children, dodging cars, getting soaked in the rain, etc the whole time. Using 10 or so spots to set up a bus stop near a building entrance would be a great use for some of that empty space.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 11:22 AM on September 21, 2015 [27 favorites]
One of the problem with today's public transportation is that when busses stop "at" the grocery store (or mall or whatever), it drops passengers on the edge of the parking lot. They then have to walk through acres of empty parking spots to get to the door, safeguarding children, dodging cars, getting soaked in the rain, etc the whole time. Using 10 or so spots to set up a bus stop near a building entrance would be a great use for some of that empty space.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 11:22 AM on September 21, 2015 [27 favorites]
One of the problem with today's public transportation is that when busses stop "at" the grocery store (or mall or whatever), it drops passengers on the edge of the parking lot. They then have to walk through acres of empty parking spots to get to the door, safeguarding children, dodging cars, getting soaked in the rain, etc the whole time. Using 10 or so spots to set up a bus stop near a building entrance would be a great use for some of that empty space.
You're right; one little-appreciated aspect is that most of the time when you take transit, it's like you had to park in the worst parking stall in the lot, every single time. However, this isn't the solution; if it were adopted, the problem with tomorrow's public transportation would be buses that detour through every mall parking lot and so on, wasting the valuable time of everybody who wants to go past the grocery store and actually get somewhere, and that all the buses run less frequently because instead of spending 30 minutes going from Suburb to Downtown via Corridor, they now spend 45 minutes going via 20 Parking Lots so you have to wait more. (Jarrett Walker has a more thorough discussion.)
The actual solution is to build our cities in a way that makes public transportation more useful; to require that development be done in a way that makes transit service the best alternative, not the worst, and to stop requiring people without cars to subsidize people with them via minimum parking standards. This is also much more politically difficult (and more of a long term process).
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:35 AM on September 21, 2015 [20 favorites]
You're right; one little-appreciated aspect is that most of the time when you take transit, it's like you had to park in the worst parking stall in the lot, every single time. However, this isn't the solution; if it were adopted, the problem with tomorrow's public transportation would be buses that detour through every mall parking lot and so on, wasting the valuable time of everybody who wants to go past the grocery store and actually get somewhere, and that all the buses run less frequently because instead of spending 30 minutes going from Suburb to Downtown via Corridor, they now spend 45 minutes going via 20 Parking Lots so you have to wait more. (Jarrett Walker has a more thorough discussion.)
The actual solution is to build our cities in a way that makes public transportation more useful; to require that development be done in a way that makes transit service the best alternative, not the worst, and to stop requiring people without cars to subsidize people with them via minimum parking standards. This is also much more politically difficult (and more of a long term process).
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:35 AM on September 21, 2015 [20 favorites]
"That was Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell, a song in which Joni complains they paved paradise to put up a parking lot, a measure which actually would have alleviated traffic congestion on the outskirts of paradise, something which Joni singularly fails to point out, perhaps because it doesn't quite fit in with her blinkered view of the world. Nevertheless, nice song."
posted by Zerowensboring at 11:36 AM on September 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Zerowensboring at 11:36 AM on September 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
the christopher hundreds: One of the problem with today's public transportation is that when busses stop "at" the grocery store (or mall or whatever), it drops passengers on the edge of the parking lot.
Rather than have buses divert into parking lots, I would think the solution would be to put the store next to the road and the parking behind it or to the side. Washington DC has this as part of its zoning code for precisely that reason.
posted by xthlc at 11:40 AM on September 21, 2015 [16 favorites]
Rather than have buses divert into parking lots, I would think the solution would be to put the store next to the road and the parking behind it or to the side. Washington DC has this as part of its zoning code for precisely that reason.
posted by xthlc at 11:40 AM on September 21, 2015 [16 favorites]
I didn't know there were places where buses didn't go all the way to the front door of the damn mall. Our city is adamant about it -- for one thing, a lot of elderly take the bus when they can't drive anymore.
posted by Mogur at 11:44 AM on September 21, 2015
posted by Mogur at 11:44 AM on September 21, 2015
This reminds me of when I had to read Parking Today magazine for work, which serialized parking-related detective fiction for a couple issues, I shit you not
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:46 AM on September 21, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:46 AM on September 21, 2015 [12 favorites]
Worth it for the parking spaces/miniature golf holes breakdown alone.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:48 AM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:48 AM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Using 10 or so spots to set up a bus stop near a building entrance would be a great use for some of that empty space.
Except public transportation in the kinds of places where free parking is everywhere is designed with the assumption that people who use it deserve neither convenience, nor comfort, nor safety.
In order to shave 20 minutes off my daily commute, when I arrive at the bus stop closest to my work, I run across a busy 8-lane street and hop a barbed-wire fence that exists only to deter bus riders from cutting across the parking lot of a green coffee bean distributor. Nonetheless, it seems to get trampled and cut so often because for anyone who takes the bus and works in one of the complexes near me, not hoping that fence means a 15 minute walk instead of a 2 minute walk. I already spend 15 hours a week commuting. Fuck that.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:51 AM on September 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
Except public transportation in the kinds of places where free parking is everywhere is designed with the assumption that people who use it deserve neither convenience, nor comfort, nor safety.
In order to shave 20 minutes off my daily commute, when I arrive at the bus stop closest to my work, I run across a busy 8-lane street and hop a barbed-wire fence that exists only to deter bus riders from cutting across the parking lot of a green coffee bean distributor. Nonetheless, it seems to get trampled and cut so often because for anyone who takes the bus and works in one of the complexes near me, not hoping that fence means a 15 minute walk instead of a 2 minute walk. I already spend 15 hours a week commuting. Fuck that.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 11:51 AM on September 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
"If all of America's parking spaces were clumped together, they would take up an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined."Why mix standard and exotic units like this? It just confuses things. 1 Delaware and 1 Rhode Island adds up to almost exactly 3 Rhode Islands. Couldn't be simpler.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 11:54 AM on September 21, 2015 [9 favorites]
Why mix standard and exotic units like this? It just confuses things. 1 Delaware and 1 Rhode Island adds up to almost exactly 3 Rhode Islands. Couldn't be simpler.
You can't park one car in Rhode Island three times. That's just silly.
posted by Etrigan at 11:56 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
You can't park one car in Rhode Island three times. That's just silly.
posted by Etrigan at 11:56 AM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
This reminds me of when I had to read Parking Today magazine for work, which serialized parking-related detective fiction for a couple issues, I shit you not
YOU ARE WELCOME METAFILTER.
posted by Etrigan at 11:57 AM on September 21, 2015 [25 favorites]
YOU ARE WELCOME METAFILTER.
posted by Etrigan at 11:57 AM on September 21, 2015 [25 favorites]
YOU ARE WELCOME METAFILTER.
I thought...I thought I had seen everything. I was wrong. So, so wrong.
posted by Mogur at 12:00 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I thought...I thought I had seen everything. I was wrong. So, so wrong.
posted by Mogur at 12:00 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
You can't park one car in Rhode Island three times. That's just silly.
Tell that to all the Brown students using up the parking near my high school. I swear there must have been some crazy multiple-parking of the same car quantum wormhole nonsense for them to take up that much fucking space.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:02 PM on September 21, 2015
Tell that to all the Brown students using up the parking near my high school. I swear there must have been some crazy multiple-parking of the same car quantum wormhole nonsense for them to take up that much fucking space.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:02 PM on September 21, 2015
Since then several more books were published.Amazon does not support this statement. Not what I was looking for, Amazon.
posted by maryr at 12:03 PM on September 21, 2015
I love how you'll see a store like a CVS in the city with a giant parking lot next to it covered in signs threatening to tow anyone who parks there without being a customer but the damn lot is 4/5s empty. And next door there's a restaurant with it's own parking lot with similar signs. And on down the street. Each business needs its own lot and can't share with anyone else even if none of them are normally ever filled.
posted by octothorpe at 12:03 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 12:03 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
My partner is pretty excited about that detective series.
posted by aniola at 12:03 PM on September 21, 2015
posted by aniola at 12:03 PM on September 21, 2015
I already spend 15 hours a week commuting. Fuck that.Not all expletives.
posted by [expletive deleted]
posted by cardioid at 12:16 PM on September 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
You can't park in the same Rhode Island twice.
posted by ardgedee at 12:36 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ardgedee at 12:36 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
The U.S. is oversupplied with free parking due to disorganized and sometimes ill-informed municipal planning practices, resulting in wasted land and resources.
The market value of America’s parking is over $310 billion, but only a tiny percentage of its costs are ever recouped directly.
The premise of these two statements read to me as: "PRIVATIZATION!" and "LAND USE TAX!" neither of which gelled with my actual desire for Free Parking...
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:37 PM on September 21, 2015
The market value of America’s parking is over $310 billion, but only a tiny percentage of its costs are ever recouped directly.
The premise of these two statements read to me as: "PRIVATIZATION!" and "LAND USE TAX!" neither of which gelled with my actual desire for Free Parking...
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:37 PM on September 21, 2015
"You know that the market is hyper competitive when Parking Sign companies - PARKING. SIGN. COMPANIES - up their SEO content game."
Got our eyeballs sticky. Since I was there of course, I went shopping for the person least deserving of their own space but the fun was ruined some when I found out you could just make your own.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:46 PM on September 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
Got our eyeballs sticky. Since I was there of course, I went shopping for the person least deserving of their own space but the fun was ruined some when I found out you could just make your own.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:46 PM on September 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
The City of St Paul, MN recently floated a plan to add metered parking in a couple areas that have high concentrations of restaurants/bars and limited parking options. This, of course, is viewed as a harbinger of the apocalypse second only to those god damned kids who won't get off your lawn or bike lanes stealing your car's precious bodily fluids.
posted by nathan_teske at 12:47 PM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by nathan_teske at 12:47 PM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
DC has a big issue with crazy-ass parking zones and permits, along with an enforcement agency that aggressively tickets you even if they're completely wrong. Surprisingly, there's a ton of parking garages, but they're all subterranean and has inflexible hours while costing ridiculous prices. Fun fact: all city schools let you park curb side next to the school during summer vacation and days when there are no schools. A lot of my coworkers that drive to work from outside the city are armed with DC public school schedules for every year just for that reason. Otherwise it's a fight over the few free all day parking spots around here, with people coming to work as early as 6 AM just to get a spot. So while it's true that there are a lot of unused free parking spaces across the country, it really doesn't feel like that here. But there's not really any more paradise to be paved over that hasn't already been.
It might not be that different for similar big and dense cities, but the public transportation in the city, combined with enough taxis and Uber/Lyft drivers, are substantial enough that if I lived here I wouldn't mind giving up my car.
posted by numaner at 12:49 PM on September 21, 2015
It might not be that different for similar big and dense cities, but the public transportation in the city, combined with enough taxis and Uber/Lyft drivers, are substantial enough that if I lived here I wouldn't mind giving up my car.
posted by numaner at 12:49 PM on September 21, 2015
This reminds me of when I had to read Parking Today magazine for work, which serialized parking-related detective fiction for a couple issues, I shit you not
I admit my initial reaction is laughter, but then I recall that when I worked at a law firm the nastiest lawsuits involved parking easements. As in the lawyers regularly used 4-letter insults about their own clients. I could easily see a parking easement dispute leading to the hiring of a private detective...or a coroner.
posted by happyroach at 12:58 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I admit my initial reaction is laughter, but then I recall that when I worked at a law firm the nastiest lawsuits involved parking easements. As in the lawyers regularly used 4-letter insults about their own clients. I could easily see a parking easement dispute leading to the hiring of a private detective...or a coroner.
posted by happyroach at 12:58 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
They mention a $310 billion "national subsidy for free parking." I assume this is the same $310 billion they claim governments could take in but so far have chosen not to. Calling this a "subsidy" is pretty crazy. With that logic, I wonder what the national subsidy for free air is? That is, how much money is the government WASTING because they choose not to tax the air we breathe? I have a feeling that compared to that, $310 billion is peanuts.
posted by ubiquity at 1:11 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ubiquity at 1:11 PM on September 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
ubiquity,
I think they are referring to the amount spent to create all those parking spaces which are then provided free rather than at a parking rate that reflects their cost. In other words, I think national is reflective of the scale of the measure, not a suggestion that it is (all) a governmental expense.
As numaner said of the parking structures in DC, "while costing ridiculous prices" and that is the crux of the problem of free parking. We have created a baseline assumption that the place to store your car 'should' have zero cost, or if not zero, then low. That isn't true in any other part of our lives.
posted by meinvt at 1:17 PM on September 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think they are referring to the amount spent to create all those parking spaces which are then provided free rather than at a parking rate that reflects their cost. In other words, I think national is reflective of the scale of the measure, not a suggestion that it is (all) a governmental expense.
As numaner said of the parking structures in DC, "while costing ridiculous prices" and that is the crux of the problem of free parking. We have created a baseline assumption that the place to store your car 'should' have zero cost, or if not zero, then low. That isn't true in any other part of our lives.
posted by meinvt at 1:17 PM on September 21, 2015 [4 favorites]
no, no, you see public money spent on autocentric infrastructure is Freedom(tm) and in no way a subsidy. public money spent on public or active transit is socialism and a big fat wasteful subsidy.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:23 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 1:23 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
This reminds me of when I had to read Parking Today magazine for work, which serialized parking-related detective fiction for a couple issues, I shit you not
Opening of book 1:
"A ringing in the distance stirred me from a dark sleep. It took a moment before I could determine whether it was the phone or the door. It was the phone."
Way to ruin the suspense.
posted by OrangeGloves at 2:07 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Opening of book 1:
"A ringing in the distance stirred me from a dark sleep. It took a moment before I could determine whether it was the phone or the door. It was the phone."
Way to ruin the suspense.
posted by OrangeGloves at 2:07 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
Sure would be nice if some proportion of required parking was dedicated to self serve bike lockers.
posted by Mitheral at 2:13 PM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 2:13 PM on September 21, 2015 [2 favorites]
you make me wanna shoup
shoup ba doup
shoud ba doup ba doup ba doup
posted by threeants at 5:58 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
shoup ba doup
shoud ba doup ba doup ba doup
posted by threeants at 5:58 PM on September 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
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