In the past, Market Urbanism has not been very pleased with municipal parking privatization schemes. While we are pro-privatization in theory, in practice, many of the schemes turn out to be seriously deficient in market credentials. For one, true privatization would mean giving the "owners" full … [Read more...]
Even a HUD project in a high-density Bronx neighborhood can’t escape the parking minimum
This should come as no surprise to anyone who's taken a look at America's absurdly restrictive minimum parking requirements, but Streetsblog has come up with a really great example of really bad parking policy in action: The HUD-sponsored project, located on Bathgate Avenue between 183rd and 184th … [Read more...]
Links
1. China's high-speed rail scandal. So much for Obama's State of the Union shout-out.2. Boston, Philadelphia, and DC are all moving towards parking reform – both of minimum off-street requirements (unfortunately to be replaced with maximums in most cases) and of underpriced curb parking – but … [Read more...]
Jamaica, Queens upzoning was great, but don’t forget the parking minimums
In Next American City, Aaron Barker discusses the failure of NYC's massive rezoning in the highly transit-dependent black and immigrant neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens: One of the centerpieces of [NYC's] initiative to house an expected 1 million new arrivals in the coming decades was the Jamaica … [Read more...]
More empirical evidence that parking minimums matter
The other day, I had a meeting with Sam Staley and we both lamented the paucity of good empirical evidence about how land use regulations actually affect the built environment. For the ubiquitous minimum parking requirements, the only thing I've seen up until now was this study about the effects for … [Read more...]
Links
1. Systemic Failure praises Gov. (again) Jerry Brown's efforts to do away with California's redevelopment agencies and "enterprise zones" (there's a euphemism if I've ever heard one), which the author claims promote autocentric development with public funds. He then cites a few examples of … [Read more...]
Links
1. A report on (Western) European parking policies. Abstract of the abstract: Big on charging market rates for on-street parking, but also big on capping private developer's ability to build parking. I'd be interested to see an analysis like this done to see if the caps are actually set lower than … [Read more...]
Long weekend links
1. The NYT utterly humiliates itself with a story on how difficult it is for a kid straight outta college from "a prominent Portuguese banking family" to rent a $2,500/mo. studio in a Chelsea coop for less than 12 months. Sounds like the perfect posterchild for Sheldon Silver's rent control … [Read more...]