When I talk about car culture, people say I’m being overblown. But how else do you explain The Seattle Times deciding that it’s super important for the city to continue forcing builders to build more parking spots? I mean, I don’t think the market will solve all of our problems, but usually The Seattle Times does. Not today.
The proposal is part of a package to lighten regulations that discourage investment and development. Seattle is a highly regulated city, sometimes to the detriment of reasonable development, and generally this package of reforms is good. But to allow the spread of housing without parking is utopian and anti-family.
No. Plenty of families don’t have cars. When I grew up in a city with functioning public transit, we took it everywhere. When we moved out here, we became a 2 car family.
It is utopian to think that many people will abandon their cars. A few will, but the vast majority who can afford market-priced housing in Seattle will have a motor vehicle, now and always. If they have a vehicle, they will park it — somewhere.
This is such a circular argument. One part of the reason it’s expensive to live, and raise children, in the city is because it has tacked on the cost of parking even to families that don’t drive. I mean people on the cusp could afford a house in the neighborhood and give up their car. Let them chose. If there’s still the demand for parking, people will still build parking.
Anyway, the type of person who buys a house near light rail or a well used bus stop is less likely to drive than the typical person moving into the city, or if it’s a family with 3 people over 16, maybe they’ll just have 1 or 2 cars instead of a car for everyone. Maybe it’ll be a good house for people who’ve retired and don’t have to drive to work every day. The list goes on and on. Let them decide for themselves.
More city people these days have bicycles also, as the mayor does, but they still drive, particularly if they have children or elderly people to take care of. Seattle is famously a city with a low proportion of children, said to be second only to San Francisco. Still our leaders should think twice about making Seattle any less welcoming to families than it already is.
First off, thanks for the random shoehorning of hatred of bicycling, McGinn, and San Fransisco in case anyone needs to prove that this piece was written by Joni Balter. Second, if Seattle residents are disproportionately childless, that undermines your argument that we should build houses to accommodate your version of child rearing. Finally, and once again, you don’t have to drive to get your children around. Yes, it can be tough in Seattle’s not great public transit system, but plenty of people make it work. It saves money. And many people prefer the interactions with their kids on public transit (where parents can give them their full attention) than when they’re driving.
Indeed, Carl. Good post. I love to drive my truck. But, I’m trying to take public transportation whenever I can. That is the future.
Progress is 1 billion Chinese driving cars and 300 million Americans pedaling bicycles.
…thanks for the random shoehorning of hatred of bicycling, McGinn, and San Fransisco in case anyone needs to prove that this piece was written by Joni Balter.
Zing! Nice one, Carl. She’s Seattle’s version of a wingnut-welfare queen, far to the right of her readers, and maintained in office with total disdain for reality.
Seattle is famously a city with a low proportion of children, said to be second only to San Francisco.
In ancient days, editorialists had once practiced this thing called “journalism”, which involved obtaining facts, not rumor– aah, screw this. I don’t know how you do this, Carl.
@3 He does it for the same reason I do … society can’t afford to let these blowhards go unchallenged simply because they have access to a printing press or blog, because there are too many people out there stupid enough to believe them.
The city of Seattle’s being utopian by following what data says, car ownership and miles traveled are down and looking to stay on a downward trend permanently, and following the example of other cities like Vancouver BC that have had great success by doing this?
Parking is also expensive to build. Lowering and removing parking requirements helps keep housing costs down a little bit.
Seattle’s schools are bursting at the seams. And besides, plenty of people have kids and don’t have cars. As long as they live in a place like um… Seattle where everything you need is close at hand and there’s a transit system.
Let’s ignore the issue of whether or not to own a car vs. public transportation. Instead, let’s talk about owning only ONE car, primarily for shopping, errands, and regional trips on weekends. Until the mid-1960’s, this was the norm. Then big oil and big car manufacturers convinced everyone it was more convenient to own two cars, as long as the taxpayer paid a good portion of the infrastructure costs – highways, bridges, on-street parking spaces, and let’s not forget subsidized oil.
So if we compromise with reducing the infrastructure sufficient for one car, and creating a public transportatin system sufficient to take both a husband and wife to work, then we’ve cut the infrastructure costs and carbon emissions by more than half. And people would still have a car or truck for whatever they want to do on a weekend.
Wouldn’t this be a reasonable compromise?
Rhp, what difference does it make how many ars a person owns? You can only drive one at a time., therefore your “increased infrastructure” arguement is doa……
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@5
Parking is actually pretty cheap to build compared to other aspects of building a residential high rise….
# 8, 9: You are forgetting that the taxpayer is picking up the cost of a lot of that parking for that extra car. Developers frequently meet their available parking requirements by counting on-street parking for one or both of the cars their residents frequently own. This requires that the public right-of-way be widened, or those who would otherwise use it for a single vehicle (residents with no garage, customers of neighborhood businesses, etc. find it impossible to find on-street parking. And don’t forget the cost of parking enforcement.
As for being able to drive only one car at a time, that’s simply not true. A couple sharing a car is driving 1/2 of a car. And frequently a couple is driving two cars. Even if the car isn’t being driven at all, it is using the parking infrastructure just to keep the car parked (see above).
The cost of driving somewhere is a differenet calculation, as it includes carbon emissions, road and bridge infratructure, etc.
@9
The regulation is aimed at muti-family, which is more than just high rises. Could be an 8plex on Queen Anne.
While that parking is a small part of the overall cost of buying or renting, it’s still a cost and not having to pay for it does keep the cost down. I don’t know about you, but paying 20-30K for a parking spot sounds like a lot of money to me.
Commercial parking requirements are also over the top. When I worked for King County we tried to 1)reduce minimums and 2)impose maximums; didn’t work very effectively. Basically, you can’t get financing for a retail development unless it has enough parking to accommodate Black Friday, even if half of it is unused the rest of the year. So, lots of extra cost, not to mention environmental impact. It’s starting to get a relook in the private sector (the redevelopment around Northgate is very interesting this way), but it’s slow.
Michael @11:
If you really, honestly believe that a developer/landlord will not charge you whatever the market will bear regardless of whether the dwelling unit has a parking space or not, then I have a surface option to sell you.
The myth that not requiring parking will keep housing prices down is one of the biggest lies spread by the McGinn “war on cars” clique and their toadies and butt boys in the blogosphere.
Ivan.
1st assumption. developers will charge as much as possible, regardless if it has parking.
2nd assumption. Some think not having parking will result in less expensive homes.
I bet accountant types have run the numbers and found that people will not pay as much for a home without parking. It is simply not worth the price as an equivalent home WITH parking. Developers can charge what ever price they want, but they won’t get it, if the market won’t pay it.
@ 14:
Well, DUH! :-)
@8 Somebody should inform you that most families have had (and have needed) two breadwinners since, oh, about the early 1970s. And unless they work for the same employer, it takes two cars to enable two people to commute to two jobs.
Of course, if employers paid enough wages so families could get by on one paycheck so mom can stay home with the kids, then a family could get by with only one car — as my parents did for the first 45 years of their 63-year marriage.
But Republican demands for lower wages and fewer benefits can’t help but push more wives into the workforce, increasing the need for two-car families. Maybe this is part of a broader scheme to sell more cars.
@13 & 15. Did you have a point then? Besides that you hate McGinn and and anything that threatens car culture. Anything constructive?
@16. Or have one breadwinner and one stay at home parent. The breadwinner likely a car to get to work, and the stay at home parent absolutely needs a car to pick up the kids from school in emergencies.
It is a definition of misery to get to a puking kid at the school nurse’s office and back home on a metro bus schedule.
@17. Ha. Posted while I was writing…
That is one of the contradictions of the the conservatives. They claim up and down they are pro family, but then promote policies that don’t pay one parent enough to support a family.
Bingo!
@13
The numbers have been run, it helps keep the cost down a little. You can sell a sell a condo for more than you can sell a parking space so a greater % of a building devoted to homes helps keeps costs down a bit. Not a ton, but it does help.
I haven’t seen anything McGinn’s put out about this, but if it works in Portland, Vancouver BC, & Pittsburg, (and it does) I’m sure it will work in Seattle.