Unfortunately insufficient parking is also a big issues; one in which these regulations are an attempt to solve. One could prevent less parking to be built but that would put more pressure on public roads. If you've ever been to an area with insufficient parking, it's pretty horrible. More so for people with cars but it affects those without cars as well.

Is it, really? Or is cars as the default transportation the problem?

Come to Tokyo, you'll see how well things work with effectively no parking in general.

Its an American problem, but it isn't one you just solve banning cars or something. Post-war US built up all its major metro areas on the hype for the automobile. Where European and Asian cities are walkable, American ones are not, and to try to retrofit car cities into public transit / bike / foot traffic is insanely expensive.

Add to that America has a systemic car culture (there is a reason cars are all bigger in the US, and why it is pretty much the only market for pickup trucks) and you will never be in a position politically to transition elsewhere without destroying your favorability.

Not all cities in Asia are walkable.

I was in Thailand recently and I found it's cities incredibly difficult to walk around. Roads often don't have sidewalks, often have many lanes, and pedestrian crossings are just marked on the road - without traffic lights - and are ignored by the traffic. The level of traffic makes the roads extremely difficult to cross.

Everyone in Thailand, even the very poor, seems to have a moped. If they don't have a moped they have a pickup truck. Tourists are forced to take taxis - the locals think you are weird for wanting to walk even 200 metres to a shop.

"... pretty much the only market for pickup trucks"

I thought, huh? 'cuz where I live it's pickup trucks as far as the eye can see. Turns out that my country has the highest per capita ownership of pickup trucks [1]

[1] http://wardsauto.com/industry/pickup-trucks-reign-thailand

> Its an American problem, but it isn't one you just solve banning cars or something.

We're discussing a law that forces people to provide excess parking whether they want to or not, and your counter example is banning cars?

There's a universe of options in between those two extremes.

Judging by photos of the crowding on Tokyo public transit, staggeringly poorly.

" If you've ever been to an area with insufficient parking, it's pretty horrible."

So are places with excess parking. Do you _enjoy_ sauntering through your local big-box shopping center's acres upon acres of parking?

Also, if parking is so valuable why is it free? Charge market rate for the land and let people build parking on it if the market will pay. If the market doesn't pay, maybe they don't want the parking that bad after all.

> So are places with excess parking. Do you _enjoy_ sauntering through your local big-box shopping center's acres upon acres of parking?

You'd typically park in one of the closest open spots, so you don't need to walk through the excess spots.

And the person who walked there?

But when parking sucks, isn't that an incentive to take transit? My sister was married in Toronto this past summer, and explicitly requested on the programme that people leave their cars at the church and take the subway across to the reception location (at Bloor/Dovercourt, where parking is horrible).

Obviously having a decent transit option available is a prerequisite, but at least in that one case, it worked wonderfully.

I can buy myself a car. I can't buy myself a train. That's the problem.

Why? So you can customize the paint? It’s not like you have access to the interesting control systems of a modern car, anyway.

Donald Trump does bring up a legitimate point: The train can be operated by a corrupt entity. With a car, you have options. With a train, you are stuck.

However, I prefer to arrange my life so I can use bicycle.

Biking in the US mostly sucks too, almost entirely due to car-oriented legislation at all levels of government.

> One could prevent less parking to be built but that would put more pressure on public roads.

Yes, and if demand on public parking exceeds supply, you just do the obvious: charge for it until you hit equilibrium.

> If you've ever been to an area with insufficient parking, it's pretty horrible.

It's actually not, you're just thinking with a very American mindset, assuming that everyone will drive everywhere, all the time. I recently moved to Munich, a place that, by American standards, has relatively little parking. It's fantastic, because you can actually walk and bike and take transit places, and it's comfortable and convenient.

Now I know what you're thinking: what does that have to do with offering parking? But the thing is, land use is mostly zero sum. Forcing everywhere to have huge streets and parking lots means that everything is spaced further out; not a big deal when you're in a car, but a very big deal for walking, biking, and transit. Requiring parking helps cars at the expense of other modes.

Insufficient parking is a problem which is so vigorously solved in many places that it leaves a lot of always-empty parking spaces.