So, in Dallas, the parking requirements for restaurants depend on the amount of seating the restaurant has. A few restaurants got around that by building giant patios with several times the seating as inside, because the regulation doesn't consider outside seating as seating.
Residents complained about people parking on their streets and blocking their driveways, and they threatened massive lawsuits. The city council caved and passed a new regulation counting outdoor seating as seating, with no grandfather clause. Now these restaurants have to either build massive parking garages or close their doors.
No, the better option is for shopping centers to have enough parking for the customers they anticipate having. Maybe giant parking lots suck, but a business shouldn't be able to destroy a residential neighborhood like that.
I've lived in plenty of places where the stores were above the parking garages, and no one from the street could tell there was any parking at all. That's always an option.
Many neighborhoods that enforce parking permits have a card you can give your guests. Alternately, there may be paid parking nearby.
> business shouldn't be able to destroy a residential neighborhood like that.
Indeed, but I'd rather our laws and enforcement target the harm (non-residents taking your parking spot) and allow the nearby business to decide whether to offer parking or not. I've lived in and visited many large cities. All my favorite neighborhoods have solved this problem and for the most part the businesses chose to have very little parking, if any.
- The casinos are making an additional $7+/day from every vehicle parking on their properties (those who haven't found a way to get free parking, including being on a higher than lowest gaming tier).
- MGM Resorts started the trend, and within months Wynn and Caesars followed suit. The increased revenue in MGM's case was to fund an additional paid parking garage.
- All future projects will probably follow suit and limit the amount of spaces.
Throughout all of this, the only big improvement in public transit discussed has been some kind of rail option going down the Strip in the future. Otherwise, it seems to be that locals will pay more by either paying to park or using ride hailing/taxis. In other words, not necessarily moving us forward in transit efficiency and additional revenue to the benefit of a few companies.
I imagine the impact on visitors isn't that great. I know I won't rent a car unless I'm going outside of the city and it's just cheaper/easier to keep it while I'm staying on the strip. For locals, I imagine it will make some pay more and some switch to off-strip casinos but the higher gaming tiers still get comped anyway.
ADDED: I've been told that one of the issues was increased freeloading by people going away on trips and parking at strip hotels, especially Mandalay Bay but I'm not sure how much to credit that given other solutions that don't involve charging everyone for parking.
Honestly though, this is your experience and nearly decade of car-hostile planning has paid dividends in cities across the country, even if it doesn't work for all use cases. The suburbs and car-centered world only work in a single use case.
But if you drove to a WalMart in a suburb, there would be 20 checkers open with ten or twenty people queued up for each.
This is just sensible town-planning.
Believe it or not, we actually have businesses that are so dense that walking between them not only makes sense, it's the only way to get around. They're called "shopping malls" and everyone hates them.
Luckily, there are some developers with deep enough pockets that they can plan an entire district. It's been wonderful for revitalizing many blighted neighborhoods.
I also cannot frame a disparity in mass as "taking away rights." It only gets worse if this is identity politics.
Don't get me wrong - people commuting alone in a car an hour or two a day is simply obscene.
The article does a great job of identifying that the experiment in making all people drivers has failed, though. As long as I live, I'll never understand how people can be so blase about such high risk behavior.
I don't know what you mean by that.
> cannot frame disparity in mass as "taking away rights"
I'm guessing you're referring to the difference in the mass of an automobile and a person. Right-of-way laws are only one of the policies that I'm referring to, but that in particular was/is in fact taking away rights. Pedestrians had the right to cross the street at any place or time until automobile manufacturers ran marketing campaigns (such as inventing the term "Jay walking") and lobbied to change laws.
Of course there should be some compromise, to promote safety and convenience, but perhaps we erred too much on the side of the automobile.
"Walkability" is inherently political ( goes to land use ) , and it's strongly correlated at least with people's identity.
Cars have been about for 100 years, but it's only recently that there's been any writing to the effect of there being conflict. I think the basic mindset of drivers is a lot the problem, but it should be clear that as a pedestrian, you cannot trust car drivers to be very aware. There's only so much gain to be had there with things like rule changes.
I see this as an extension of "everything is a college campus" but maybe that's just me.
Perhaps you should do a more thorough literature review.
The NYT reported, "Nation roused against motor killings" in 1924.
Since the dawn of modern governance at about the turn of the last century, governments everywhere have been going in one direction: expansion.
So they'll find other things for cops to do :)
On day, about 2030, a Scandinavian country will 'ban human driving' citing safety risks. Then California, and NYC.
In 2070, you'll sneak your grandchildren into an old Buick in and take them for a spin around some old parking lot - and your daughter in law will freak right out and get seriously pissed at you, threatening to call the police. 'Those crazy old people who actually think they can drive' ...