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1. I think MLD makes a point not unlike JJ's, but a bit rounder, that people want to live by Metro, have bus service, be in a great walkable community, and have a relatively free place to park their car. This is an attitude that is sort of urban/suburban, a function of an automobile centric paradigm.

2. The thing about the parking space inventory that matters is that rowhouses tend to be about 15 feet wide. A small car such as the VW Beetle is 12 feet wide and when you figure space in between cars, that takes up about 15 feet. So if you have more than one car per house then you have a serious inventory problem. (Except for corner houses on the side, which have space for about 3 cars along the lot.)

This is why services like Zipcar should be encouraged, not discouraged, because since so many people, as Tom Coumaris points out, use cars only occasionally, it's better from a space utilization standpoint to encourage them to rent/car share when they need a car, rather than to own a car and store it on the street.

3. FWIW, I am not advocating for market rates necessarily for RPP, just a lot more expensive than currently, in the Toronto range of $40 to $50/month.

The thing that bugs the s*** out of me on "performance parking" "tests" is that the residents are given even more parking privileges, without having to pay any more for it.

4. WRT concerns about lower income people and hardships for parking costs, the proper policy response isn't to prevent a better policy and practice from being implemented, it's to provide a means for the lower income to participate in the market extranormally, e.g. with vouchers, rebates, etc.

At the same time, you have to be very careful that this privilege is not abused like handicapped placards tend to be abused, e.g., studies find that 30 to 40% of handicapped permits are used improperly/illegally.

by Richard Layman on Apr 4, 2012 9:48 am • link • report