If you want to have a car, you have to live somewhere that has an alley/garage space for you. If you want your business to be usable by drivers, have a parking lot or do a parking validation deal with a nearby garage.
I think the SpotHero/ParkWhiz model is very cool, would love to see it turn into a real-time auction with very precise competitive demand-based pricing. "Parking is surging right now, consider taking UberPool for $x less."
I already don't drive anywhere in Chicago unless I know there's an adequately sized parking lot, or I've booked reasonably priced parking ahead of time.
Seeing ahead of time that there is no reasonably priced parking generally makes me take the CTA, whereas otherwise I might have circled for a while before breaking down and paying $25.
These things only work for some of the residents (predominately younger residents without families).
> I already don't drive anywhere in Chicago unless I know there's an adequately sized parking lot, or I've booked reasonably priced parking ahead of time.
And those parts of Chicago suffer economically for it. Much more than what free parking would cost the city.
It's not by accident that you can chart the growth of civilization by the roads.
Leaving aside the fact that seeing families on buses is not remotely uncommon, the same statement could be said of automobile modes. Those who can't legally drive (which probably constitutes a quarter of the US population) along with those too poor to afford automobiles are at least partially excluded from the benefits of automobile infrastructure. Given current technology, a transportation system for everyone needs to facilitate the use of a variety of modes, even if no particular mode serves everyone.
> And those parts of Chicago suffer economically for it.
Do you have any data for that? Most of the literature suggests that the provision of free parking reduces economic prosperity. The simple theoretical explanation is that parking should be provided at cost, just like most goods and services. But there is also empirical evidence to back this up. For instance when Old Pasadena raised street parking rates in the early nineties to deal with a dearth of parking in their commercial district: "The cities sales tax revenue tripled within the first year."* That's one anecdote, but consider googling Donald Shoup for more literature and data.
There are two additional theoretical benefits to using pricing to adequately supply parking. First, it favors persons who value their time relatively more than their money, which are exactly the kind of people who tend to buy stuff in stores. And two, increased parking rates can increase turnover, which in turn increases total sales. For more info on the importance of turnover, check out this SNL sketch: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/the-olympia-res...
*Speck, J. (2012). Walkable city: How downtown can save America, one step at a time. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (see page 134 for the quote on Google books).
To provide free parking in popular destinations such that it never completely fills up, the city would have to buy property (shutting down or relocating the businesses already on it) and build parking structures on it.
As do people in Hong Kong and Tokyo and Singapore and Seoul and London and Berlin.
I've wondered what would happen if a city was built with a mandate that there must be a parking garage on every block, or every X blocks. You could even make them a public utility, an extension of the public road network.
In any case, that doesn't quite cover what I was thinking of. I'm curious what would happen if there was a major city with enough parking for everyone to find a space within a block of their destination, whether that's home, work, shopping, or whatever.
You're obviously not referring to NYC.
That's a decision the city has made, and the current state of much street-space in NYC.
Copenhagen has made the opposite decision: space in the city centre is allocated to bicycle lanes and footpaths on many streets. I live on such a street. If I bought a car, I'd need to rent a parking space.
London has an intermediate approach: resident parking on the street requires an expensive permit.
The principle of induced demand is that by making it easier to drive, you encourage car use, creating more congestion. You are better off making it harder for cars to access the city centres. Where major routes prioritise modal equality where separate space is provided for walking, cycling, and driving. Only after those are catered for do you provide on street parking.
Traffic evaporation is a term to describe the way humans think about driving. Most people perceive traffic in a similar way to the way water works in rivers. If you reduce flow then you create massive tail backs. However humans do not behave that way. What happens is that if a route becomes too difficult/congested, people look at alternative routes or even change mode of travel.
Parking control (you know you can't park in that area unless you have a permit) has been used extensively in NYC to discourage car use. Conversion of parking space to cycle spaces is also key to encouraging modal shift [3]. Nottingham UK, is using the workplace parking levy to finance and built its tram system [5].
Use of filtered permeability [4] is a significant tool in still enabling access to roads for motor vehicles, but making it less direct for cars by closing off roads as a through road. Rising bollard systems can enable a city to provide efficient public bus services.
The key bit to realise is that with urban design the car is no longer considered a good form of transport, particularly as more people move into cities. It is exceptionally inefficient and requires an immense amount of space as well as storage space.
I suspect that most cities will move towards a hyper aggressive approach to keeping cars on the edge of cities using a combination of parking control, congestion charging, making available routes into the city less direct for private vehicles.
I also see technology being vital to bridge the boundary between urban and rural living. Current public transport models are based on providing regular services using peak hour vehicle requirements. Yes a 120 capacity double length bus at 8am is right, but at 9pm it could easily be an 8 seater bus.
(I really should have applied for the ycombinator future cities team ;) )
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_traffic [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share [4] http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/dictionary/filtered-permea... [5] http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/transport-parking-and-stree...
Cycling is great... in the handful of months the weather allows for it in northern states.
It's also frustrating that cities are looking to make driving worse, but not (generally) to build rail infrastructure to make transit better.
I was once enthusiastic about carless urban life, but after experiencing it for a while... all the things you mentioned are likely to push me out into the exurbs.
1) Negotiate with all those stores to move deliveries to night-time. So more parking opens up and they don't clog the streets. Any losses from eg tax breaks would be more than offset by the increased productivity.
2) Reward companies that allow employees to work from home one day a week, or that organize carpooling for employees. Install wifi in city subway CARS and run a campaign targeting companies letting them know their employees are more productive on the train with both hands free than stuck in traffic.
3) Get an official app for the city to let drivers know when parking spots open up. 30% of traffic in the city is cars circling around looking for parking. Charge a monthly fee for the app, and allow paying for parking via the app. However, I probably wouldn't want to allow people to renew their parking past 2 hours so the city could still make revenue from people who overstay. Also prevents people hogging the spots.
4) Apply the results of traffic research to tunnels and bridges which have heavy delays. Make all the traffic lights leading up to the tunnel reward 20mph driving, while at the tunnel exits it would reward 30mph driving. It's easy to force traffic to preset speeds like this using traffic lights, and you could do this for several blocks leading up to and away from the tunnels.
In short - less frustration, less pollution, less circling around, people get to where they want faster, make more money and city is better off.