Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it

Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by TulliusCicero on Friday February 17, 2017 @03:48AM (#13666875)

Then you probably haven't noticed how every time replacing parking lanes with bike or bus lanes come up, many drivers scream bloody murder, even though a lane of travel is clearly more useful for surface land in a dense urban area. And there are quite a few cities where due to public ownership and regulations, car parking takes up a significant percent of land in the city.

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Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by osdiab on Friday February 17, 2017 @05:00AM (#13667167)

And not only that, but just consider the use of land. Do you think that a parking lot that charges like $40/day for its 40ish spots, or a mid sized or large tower with tens to hundreds of people paying rent, and businesses at the ground/lower levels pumping the economy make more money? To recoup the loss in investment would take a staggeringly high cost of parking.

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Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by chc on Friday February 17, 2017 @02:17PM (#13670890)

That building will only make money if people or businesses want to be there, which is pretty questionable since the entire idea behind this building is "Let's make it effectively impossible to access via the most common form of transportation."

On top of that, you hurt all the surrounding businesses because people can no longer easily get to them.

But I guess if nobody's there, at least you don't have to worry about traffic problems, so mission kind-of-accomplished?

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Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by rocqua on Friday February 17, 2017 @06:42AM (#13667533)

You can't just replace that entire low with buildings though. Those homes and buisineses still need some parking.

No need to make that parking mandatory, but anyone building that stuff will want to include some parking. How much can be left to them. Maybe it makes sense to do underground parking, maybe that is too expensive.

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Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by TulliusCicero on Friday February 17, 2017 @09:30AM (#13668437)

> Maybe it makes sense to do underground parking, maybe that is too expensive.

Interesting semi-tangent: so I recently moved from the states to Munich, and I live in a little apartment complex in a low-ish density neighborhood (Solln) that has 10 units. Somehow, this place has underground parking, which was initially shocking to me, because I don't think I've ever seen such a small apartment complex in the states with that; usually you'd only seen underground parking in far larger complexes in the middle of a downtown-type area.

And my complex isn't unique, tons of small buildings here seem to have underground parking. So maybe it's not that expensive when it's a common thing to do.

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Re:Let’s not demonize driving, just stop subsidizing it by rocqua on Friday February 17, 2017 @10:02AM (#13668648)

I imagine soil has a lot to do with it as well. Munich probably has a somewhat stable soil given how close it is to the mountains.

Might also just be a side effect of Munich being one of the highest quality-of-living cities in the world, with some pretty high-end auto manufacturing as well.

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