10 Cities That Destroy Their Downtowns With Parking
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- Опубликовано: 9 янв 2024
- It's sometimes said, you can have a place with cheap, ubiquitous parking, or you can have a place that's worth going, but you can't have both. (OK, maybe I'm the one who says it.) So for today's video I teamed with the Parking Reform Network to presented the all new, revamped parking maps for US cities. Which cities do it best and which do it worst? Watch and find out.
Want to join an advocacy group that is TRULY making a difference in the urbanism space? The Parking Reform Network has been doing incredible work for years, and your individual contribution goes a long way. This is an unpaid endorsement!
Join here: parkingreform.org/support/
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- Heinous Land Uses: Parking Garages • How Parking Mandates W...
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Resources:
- www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque...
- www.axios.com/local/columbus/...
- newsantaana.com/22-of-downtow...
- planning.lacity.gov/odocument...
- clevelandgis.maps.arcgis.com/...
- pvdgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/w...
- egis.stpete.org/portal/apps/w...
- gis.elpasotexas.gov/planning/
- property.nola.gov/
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton...
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- Massive thanks to the Parking Reform Network for use of maps and photos!
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To be fair when u were crapping on virginia beach building a crapload of stuff for carps is the obvious move cause most citiea do not have a lot of money and transit is much more politically difficult get passed but if u want to build a road the state and feseral government likely pay for it or give u some percent of it
I would love for you to do a video that includes Springfield MA. I’m sure it will show up in your best Springfield’s video.
What am I missing: Oakland has lower parking lot percentage than Philadelphia and San Diego but ranks lower.
Similarly, Anaheim is the only one among the bottom 10 (and 8 cities you cited but not included in the bottom) with under 25% parking, yet ranked 5th worst?
Its sad you did not make this a 2 part video. One with the most parking and another with the lleast parking. IMO your audience would like twice the detail you had time to cover in this video.
Oh yes lets all live like sardines in a can 🤣 instead of spacing things out lets jam even more people into cities. No thanks, I'm keeping my car, AND my parking lot lmao
As a Puerto Rican channels like these and not just bikes have opened my eyes to the sheer lunacy of organizing society around the movement of giant metal boxes. Especially in an island with high population density, median household income of like 20k and a ~45% of people living in poverty.
Hello from a former member of the Parking Commission in Riverside! Every single meeting I went to, we had somebody complaining there wasn't enough parking downtown. Every. Meeting. I'm proud to say that I helped to arrange an inventory of lot space and typical usage, which we used to respond to folks who demanded the construction of more parking. If I recall correctly, the fullest any of the three city-owned garages got was about half full.
It's still understandable that politicians produce this kind of policy when that's all they hear though. Just a reminder to show up at your local government meetings!
Yeesh, that's rough. Every time I've ever parked downtown I've always thought about how maddeningly wasteful it is since they are NEVER full, even during events. Depressing but not surprising to hear people would still complain for more.
@@Katherine_Tea *THEY DON'T EVEN FILL DURING FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS*, it's such a waste. If I was going downtown I either biked or took the RTA.
@@plattypus42 Oh I believe it. I was dragged along to this year's FOL and it was all mostly empty. It was absolutely maddening. Such a mess of a city.
Hello, thank you for your work! Until this video I've never heard of too much parking in a downtown lol. Please continue to do the good job you do to increase the parking in downtown so that we can go downtown.
My dad grew up in San Bernardino. He was old enough to remember when you could take streetcars from there to the beach in LA.
Yes, southern California was ruined when the freeways and coastal-county airports replaced the trains and trolleys.
San Bernardino, in fact, was a bigger city than Los Angeles, in terms of population, years ago. And, the Inland Empire was the region of choice for wealthy easterners moving to California.
Riverside and Redlands were the two wealthiest cities, per capita, in the U.S.
Thankfully, the trains and trolleys are being restored.
I never knew that streetcars went that far inland. I live on the border of Redondo Beach but even though I’m less than 2 miles from the coast, it can take anywhere from - I kid you not - one to THREE hours to get there by bus!
Tulsa's downtown is over 60% surface parking. Walking downtown feels like walking through a nuclear wasteland
Tulsa was absolutely ruined in the 60’s/70’s. You can literally still see some of the shitty “renovations” done on the very few beautiful buildings remaining in downtown. If our downtown was never destroyed Tulsa could’ve been a major destination for urban, car free living.
Grew up in OK so I spent some time in Tulsa and yeah, its pretty rough from an urbanist perspective. It's also walled in by freeways...
It's really frustrating too, considering how many of them are consistently nearly empty. I live near downtown, and walking from my place into downtown is so weird looking. Just a ton of empty lots. I hope one day change can be made.
Wild Tulsa fact: Downtown Tulsa has actually *never* had minimum parking requirements! Instead, the extremely entrenched car culture, lack of transit, and heavy subsidization of car infrastructure created a self-reinforcing demand for parking that ended up demolishing our city. Fortunately things have been changing for the better at an accelerating pace in the last 10 years... I'm hopeful. (Despite the plethora of people who STILL say there's not enough parking downtown. Holy crap.)
I'm just thankful you recognize Oakland as the core city it is instead of just San Francisco's quirky brother.
I think of it as the quirky subcore brother to San Francisco. In the same family but definitely the runt of the litter.
Oakland is a real city, but it's too bad Las Vegas keeps stealing all of the Oakland sports teams
Oakland rocks!
🧢
Is Oakland even still a city?😂
While I'm not surprised that my hometown of Philly was in the top 10 cities with the lowest percentage of off street parking, it's worth noting that due to the residential building boom that has been going on in Center City and nearby areas for quite some time now (and barely experienced a hiccup during the pandemic) the remaining surface lots are quickly disappearing, as they are replaced by mid and high rise apartment/condo buildings. In the last 20 years, it's amazing how many surface lots have disappeared and happily the trend continues.
Not just parking lots but parking garages are disappearing in CC Philadelphia----mostly replaced with hi-rise residential.
Philly is the paragon of good US urbanism. It should be more hyped up than it is.
There's the giant parking lot between Chinatown and Franklin Square. It's prime real estate for Chinatown to expand
It would be fun to come back and revisit this every few year, some cities are making good progress!
@@hudson5112 FWIW the methodology of the measures presented here appears to be that parking-dedicated uses are counted, but a garage under a building is not.
Kudos to classifying parking as “storing personal property.” I intend to use that from now on.
The idea of the American Dream is to live like Old World nobles, right? A detached manor home with a monocultural lawn as opposed to a rowhome or tenement like the commoners of old, with your own horse & wagon. Framing parking lots as places to store your bougie carriage really paints it in a different light. Yeah, everyone can "afford" this bougie carriage, but technically on credit, so...
Yep. And just try keeping a storage shed on the street, see how long it takes for the neighbors to start complaining.
@@seriphyn8935 Most people don't realize that the horses and carriages/buggies back in the day actually had parking spaces, too. There were entire buildings in cities dedicated to storing the carriages/buggies and boarding the horses - not unlike parking garages of today.
Usually for free!
Only a Marxist would use the term "storing personal property".
One historic thing I wonder about is how many cities thought it would be a great idea to have their new interstate highways go straight through their downtowns. Highway 99 did that through lots of towns sending a pair of two lane stroads right where people had been crossing for decades. I bet the sound of 18 wheelers rumbling through downtown did a lot for business.
St. Louis checking in, we have three highways going through downtown/downtown adjacent and four going through the urban core.
It's so bad that anytime there's an event downtown, to get from Ballpark Village (the baseball stadium and it's bars) to Soulard (the french quarter) always has multiple shuttles.
They're less than a mile away from each other, but that mile is freeways and freeway esque developments and roads.
Cincinnati messed up big time the same way as did Columbus with 2 interstate highways. The interstate highways were never intended to go through cities but the powers that be at that time begged for that problem.
Boston built an elevated express highway through its downtown and built adjacent thereto a below grade turnpike and a surface level parkway Robert Moses would be proud of.
Needless to say the elevated highway has since been torn down.
It's not just big cities; in far Northern Ca Highway 101 runs through the middle of Eureka and split Arcata in two. It's a nightmare; the corridor in Eureka is the most deadly for a city its size in the entire state.
I'm thinking mostly about the hundreds of small towns (which aren't covered on this channel) who thought it would be an economic boom to have the new fancy highway go straight through the middle of their town. I don't know of any towns who formed around a highway after it was built (but there must be some).
I pick on my hometown LA suburb of Torrance a lot here, but one thing they seem to be doing right these days is parking lot conversion. There are a number of plans to convert sprawling parking lots into more functional spaces. Will be interesting to see how that alters the character of the area. Now if they could just do more about their homeless population and public transportation problems (buses run once an hour!!!), I'd be really excited.
Lmao my city of 86k has a "BRT" that's once every 20min and I thought I had it bad
Well, parking lots waste space that could otherwise be used for housing. And that doesn't apply to just the CBD, but anywhere in town. More supply, lower prices, less homeless, and so on.
You also have Joyce Manor, so that's a plus
@@PeripheryFanboy I had to Google. Musicians from Torrance?! Shocked, I’m shocked.
the problem is that the homeless population makes using public transportation more difficult. i don't want to take a bus if i'm going to have to sit next to someone tweaking or yelling at themselves
I live in Capitol Hill in Denver and there’s a banking complex near me that has like two blocks worth of parking. On an extremely busy day the lots are maybe 40% full. Can’t help but think of how nice it would be if they were turned into green space or social housing
I fully expected to see Denver on the naughty list, but the city has been doing a lot of infill over the past 20 years. If this were the 80s, Denver's downtown surely would have made the list.
@@tomindenver1331 yeah i’ve seen aerial shots of downtown from the 60s-80s shit looks bonkers!
@@tomindenver1331 for Denver it really depends on how you define downtown. Their definition is between Speer and 20th St, Union Station and the Civic Center. Some definitions use 25 as the boundary, which would add the Auraria, Ball Arena, Elitch's, and Aquarium parking craters, which would almost certainly put Denver on the naughty list. And that's not even mentioning Mile High or Coors Field. Fortunately there are plans to remedy at least some of these!
@@bruceperry8107 on top of that, many of the places you listed were constructed on or before the cusp of 2000. That's somewhat significant since that may have validly been the best / necessary use for that land *at that time* especially prior to the expansion of the light rail system. Elitches is an interesting case here considering it is slated for near term demolition and redevelopment.
I'd argue there is some merit to intentionally having an oversized surface parking lot at either (but not both) stadiums, preference towards Ball, as it's a great place for the city to handle emergency needs. Be that space to put snow after extreme storms, a receiving ground for mass accidents, or future pandemic handling.
Instantly a top 10 CityNerd sarcastic segment with Virginia Beach.
As an Oaklander, I am genuinely shocked it made this list. I'm used to NYC and DC, and downtown here feels like it's completely hollowed out by parking.
I’m shocked too. It’s pretty incredible how many surface parking lots there are in downtown oakland given the land value. Though it’s definitely changing for the better, slowly..
I guess that just goes to show how bad the situation is in all the cities outside the top ten..
It’s probably just proof that the US doesn’t have ten cities with proper downtowns to fill this list with.
But 99PI tells me that Oakland is beautiful!
Oakland has a lot of things going for it. Watching them get squandered is horrifically painful.
I'm from the Houston area and the first time I went to Ft Worth, i literally was shocked on the amount of parking available
Which is weird because for many years, downtown Fort Worth was considered a much more lively and enjoyable place than downtown Houston. However, that speaks to the positive strides Houston has made, now that it's had a lot of infill and redevelopment.
@@stevenspillette148You aren’t lying, it shocks me how much Houston has changed. In high school I took the metro until I got a car and my bus stop is where House of blues is. All that was parking lots lol. Fort Worth I haven’t been to in so long but I remember the downtown being pretty lively.
Funny thing is, I was shocked Houston didn't make this list. But maybe it's changed a bit since I was last there, or at least last in downtown. I just remember there being tons of surface lots around downtown. But not surprised to see Ft Worth on there.
In Atlanta here recently, they have been eating up these parking lots to build on like they taste good...unfortunately...these builds come with the hideous parking podiums
Hopefully, we will get a video on all the major changes in Atlanta over the last 15 years. It seems the Beltline has been an integral component.
Yep, would rather have parking lots
One thing to note on why a lot of cities still have flat surface parking lots on extremely valuable land: The people who own the land make a ton of money on them for basically nothing. Fun fact: a big reason why Frankie Muniz basically stopped acting after he grew up was because his financial advisor got him to buy a bunch of parking lots in downtown LA when he was like 18. So yeah, while it seems absurd to have downtown space dedicated for personal storage, to the people who own that land, parking lots are money printing machines. Sure, you would make more money by turning it into apartments, but apartment buildings require at least a modicum of work.
That would usually be more about growing property value rather than cash flow. An one-acre lot might profit a few hundred thousand dollars a year if there's high demand and no debt, but the lot can also go from $30 million to $50 million in value in a few years if the economy plays along.
@@matthays9497And the pandemic had to affect the solvency of the parking business. Lots of people work from home at least part time if not 100%.
Pennsylvania somewhat solved this by taxing "unoccupied" land at a higher rate than land with actual businesses or housing on it. It's not perfect but Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have few parking craters compared to many other places.
@@danielkelly2210 A parking lot is technically a business.
It's kinda ironic that Frankie Muniz is now a racer in ARCA, which is a lower-tier NASCAR series, seeing this comment lol.
This is why public transportation is necessary in all major cities around the US and around the world
Could you make a video on road width in downtowns? I feel like that is becoming a bigger problem than parking lots, since a lot of a city's space is taken up by roads that are wider than they need to be
That's a great idea, however road width can be tricky to define because if it's defined as the public space between buildings, even a very wide road could only have 1 lane each way for vehicular traffic with the rest dedicated to tram tracks, bike lanes and wide footpaths. So I love the idea, but perhaps a good measure would also be the % of road width (as defined by the space between buildings) that is dedicated to private cars. Because if roads were built 100-150 years ago, it's hard now to change their total width as you can't move the buildings, but improving the way that space is used is probably the most important.
My city has very wide main roads in its CBD/Downtown as it was laid out way back in 1837. However, I look at 30-40 year old footage or photos of my city, and see 2 lanes of traffic each way, plus a lane of parking on each side with trams sharing the middle lanes with cars, and compare that to the same roads now which have dedicated tram tracks, only one lane of cars in each direction, separated bike lanes, and significantly wider footpaths. The roads without tram tracks generally have the same, except with dedicated bus lanes on the outside instead of dedicated tram tracks on the inside. So while the total width is still the same, there have been huge improvements to how they are used with a much smaller percentage being dedicated to cars now.
I moved from a town on the border of DC to Salt Lake City. I never took my car into DC because there is a lot of one way streets, no left turns and pretty much no parking. If you visit DC then don’t drive there. Use the Metro..
I moved to SLC and although they have a decent public transportation, eventually you have to get off and walk to your destination and the walk is always long because of parking lots. And SLC is not flat!
They need to put nice medians in the middle of those big roads to make them easier to cross.
I grew up in DC (the city itself, not the suburbs). I started riding transit by myself when I was 12. No Metro back then, just buses. I learned that bus system inside and out. I was the one person in 1000 that got and used bus timetables. People whine about how long they have to wait for the bus, but they'd have it easier if the found out when the bus runs first..
My dad worked for the government 1941-1976. Best I can tell, he never drove to work a single day. He did have to join a carpool during the big transit strike in 1955. He'd do a lot of reading on the bus and rarely had to look up. He knew where he was by knowing when the bus turned.
We walked everywhere-school, church, the grocery store, Or else took transit, I remember the streetcars very well, especially the one to Glen Echo Amusement Park.
We didn't even have a car until 1959. @@rebeccarobb4121
Oooooohhhh that's actually an interesting one. Having spent the better part of a couple decades in Portland, I got used to relatively narrow downtown streets, but so many of our cities have wider streets in their centers. Which doesn't necessarily have to be a problem -- it means lots of space for transit and micromobility, street seating, etc.
SLC, like you say, is absolutely getting better. We have turned a lot of those massive downtown parking lots (and car centric land uses like car washes, gas stations, mechanics) into 5-over-1 apartment buildings, and even some much taller ones. We turned the state street Carl's Jr (with lots of surface parking) into one of the tallest buildings we now have. Old parking lot next to Gallenson's guns? Now an apartment building. And beyond just redevelopment, SLC is doing a good job of rebuilding streets for less cars and more people outside of cars. Slowly but surely, SLC is improving. There's a potential new downtown TRAX line in the mix as well, although we do wish they would also expand the free fare zone. SLC is seriously unrecognizable from 10 or especially 15 years ago, in the best way.
I'm always amazed when I dig into aerials and streeetviews in SLC how much new development there is.
@@CityNerd there are definitely some great games of "streetview: before and after" to be played in the SLC core. I work on some of those 5 over 1 projects. Had a developer build one near enough to transit that SLC allows a reduction in parking minimums (bleh) to 0.67 stalls per unit. The developer chose to build 1.0 stalls per unit anyway. Maybe those extra 50 interior parking stalls at like $30k/stall will be reflected in the rents. SLC does have a lot of single-family neighborhoods, and they've been good about allowing secondary structure ADUs for a while now. Hopefully you can make it out to the promised land this year and see the differentness and newness.
I really hope that something comes of the Rio Grande plan, because that would help a lot, too.
As a black trans person who is also autistic your presumptuous characterization of Houston's zoning plans is deeply problematic.
Just for use as a benchmark for comparison, the percentage of London's area dedicated to parking cars (incl on-street dedicated parking spaces) is 2.4 percent of the city's area.
Book recommendation for anyone interested in the Inland Empire and mobility: Collisions at the Crossroads by Genevieve Carpio. Carpio traces the development of San Bernardino and Riverside through the lens of race and mobility over the past two centuries. There's a chapter on car culture, criminality, and Mexican-American identity that is extremely good.
Thank you! 🙏
I currently live in New Orleans where in the past few years a bunch of parking lots at the northwest corner of downtown have been redeveloped as buildings. The percentage of surface parking since 2005 or 2010 has been significantly reduced, so maybe you and your friend can do a list of 10 most improved and 10 most backslidden/least improved. Thanks 🙂
Yeah and there has been a good bit of streetcars built and there are about to reopen the one on N Rampart. I hope this continues cuz nola is in the top 20 in terms of non car commutes.
@@nathanc7566 Top 20 for non-car commutes means this town deserves a skytrain! (Underground metros are impossible here)
@@edwardmiessner6502 Unironically, a high speed automated monorail running from Canal Place and/or the casino, to the convention center, then turning and running along the Pontchartrain Expressway right-of-way to the Superdome, then the train station, then express via the I10 right-of-way to the airport would be amazing for the city imho
My ideal version would be to do build a dual guide-way with the express using hanging cars, while on top using standard cars but with more frequent local stops, and larger commuter park & rides at the larger exits in JP. Even more fantastical would be an express spur along the causeway, and a spur under/between the CCC and hooking over to Algiers to connect into streetcar lines on the west bank
While KC has work to do, we are making positive strives! Our streetcar line is being expanded 3 miles to the south of downtown and should be open sometime next year. There is also a transit study in the works about adding a second streetcar line through midtown KC (probably several years away from being built though.) Amtrak also announced their desire to extend the Missouri River-runner route to st Joesph, Missouri, which would give the north side of the metro passenger rail service for the first time in decades!
Overall, there are several large high-impact projects underway in KC that will really improve the city over the next decade. Im excited to call KC home!
both KC and Detroit have so much potential despite how much has been destroyed but those pockets that survived are great seeds for fantastic urbanism. KC seems to be on track, Detroit really needs some leadership to attract investment and people once again. One thing KC should really investigate more is connecting its airport with a rail link. It could connect to the existing rail corridor on the West side, 7 miles of new rail would be required for connection but it mostly would go through farmland. Also upgrading and expanding existing corridor would be necessary so by any means not a small investment but it would be very useful and would immediately put KC close to or even between the elite cities of US.
The St Joe line could also go through the airport, which would be huge
I think its also with worth mentioning that we have been aggressively redeveloping over the past 20 years. Tons of new building construction and revamping dilapidated buildings. Those parking lots won't be able to stay forever. The land is becoming too valuable.
Nick Johnson or another travel guide influencer showed Saint Joseph on RUclips and I have to say, it's not the best and to say it's struggling is an understatement. It needs a commuter rail to its downtown from downtown KCMO because there's still plenty of historic architecture that could be absolutely stunning if they received some investment and TLC.
Downtown ironically seems like it's kind of being left behind by all the positive developments recently. Tons of mixed use being built in the suburbs while the downtown loop is still full of parking. The part of the metro I live in just had a road diet and is getting two new apartment complexes
As a Virginia Beach resident there is so much parking, however, most people don’t even live in the Oceanfront, the area that you showed. The city is essentially a county in the way that its all suburbs and the “downtown” is likely the Town Center area, not Oceanfront. Someone else said this but Norfolk is more of a city.
Honorable mention for Madison 🙌
More of those existing lots are due to be built upon in the coming years too. Especially on the east side of the isthmus.
Along with the BRT and increased pushback on building height limits? I'm actually excited for what the city could be even if I don't live there!
It would be nice to afford to live here without being a pauper, though.
Would be curious to see the map and rating for actual Downtown Manhattan, not just Midtown which was shown
Yeah. NYC was kind of surprising. I'm there frequently and there seems to be a parking garage on every block. Perhaps they don't count if there are air rights to commercial or residential space above the garage.
Pretty sure only surface lots were included, not garages.
@paulkoza8652 Boston is the same way, while there are few standalone garages and effectively no surface lots, a lot of parking is under or a part of the buildings themselves.
@danielkelly2210 he did say "structures".
didn't the whole concept of downtown come from actual downtown nyc? as opposed to midtown which is highlighted here. kinda silly.
I love your use of maps and satellite imagery.
We just stayed in Salt Lake City over the holidays - across the street from a parking lot in fact. Pretty depressing effects on the neighborhood considering it was for a local neighborhood community college that was off for the holidays. So more of an urban desert. Salt Lake has had a massive boom in condo and apartment construction which is amazing but they're all hemmed in by 6-lane roads and vehicular traffic averaging 35-4 mph.
So it's 35 mph when the traffic is free-flowing and 4 mph under traffic gridlock? Just askin' 🙂
@@edwardmiessner6502 sticky keys. 40 MPH was what I meant to type out.
The SLC street grid is really incredible, and it CAN be hostile, but it also presents tons of opportunity to use the right-of-way better. It's really an interesting city to keep an eye on.
They're slowly improving that but you are right. Streets like 400 South, 700 East and downtown State Street, 500 and 600 south are too fast and have too many vehicle lanes. Streets like 900 South, 300 South, 100 South (I think) and South Temple have made great improvements to narrow up and slow down cars. They also slapped a bunch of 20mph speed limit signs on existing wide streets that look good for 30mph, which won't work until those streets get rehabilitated. Generally, every time I see a SLC street project, they're removing curb parking and/or travel lanes and replacing that space with separated bike paths and/or wideboi sidewalks. The future looks promising but it's just not quite here yet. Luckily, SLC does not have anywhere near the car addiction culture that places like... all of Utah County do.
Stroad Lake City
Tangent: Your phrase “storing people’s private property” got my wife and I talking about how our small town has an obscene amount of self storage outfits.
Our population is around 12,000 and we have 5 large businesses: 2 are converted big box stores and three are endless rows of garage lockups. Plus there are many private places with barns that offer storage too.
Americans and their stuff.
Thats so weird
It’s pretty awful. I made my living for 7 years cleaning out storage units. Nothing like the tv shows. Americans mostly store Christmas crap, mattresses and tax documents from 1982.
It would be interesting to see which/if any of the cities on this list have gotten rid of minimum parking requirements, etc.... Or if there are any examples of cities that did get rid of them and how they improved over time.
Great video as usual!
If you go to the maps it will tell you in the information box what the situation with parking minimums is for the particular city. But it would be cool to do a case study of "what happened after parking minimums were removed." SOmetimes there are additional regulatory barriers or market conditions that present obstacles
@@CityNerd Thanks for the reply! I'll definitely go play around with the maps. We just started our own little transit related podcast and you were a big inspiration! Been watching your videos (as well as some of the other city/urbanism channels) for over a year. Not sure if it will go anywhere but we are having fun doing it 😅. If you are ever in Austin reach out! We have a lot of work to do here still, but there is growing YIMBY sentiment (and even policy) going on here despite the state government overlords doing what they can to prevent it 🙃
Would you ever consider analysing transit costs over time for different modes? I often here that rail transit is more expensive to build but cheaper to maintain. At what point do they cross over?
I think he’s done one on user costs, but would be great to see cost for cities!
Good idea
Google "transit costs project" -- those people have done way more on this topic, I can't tell you if they've done a longitudinal study of transit capital costs in the US, but that would be interesting. I wonder if that paper is out there!
Complicated by the fast that building rail in the US is way more expensive than elsewhere, so there's what rail vs. bus should be, vs. what they are in the land of NIMBY red tape.
Trans people demand better representation in city councils and you will see where is crosses over thank you.
It's particularly sad when one of the Trax stops in downtown Salt Lake City quite literally stops next to an entire empty parking lot(Courthouse)
I bet my home city (Darmstadt, Germany) is around 2 or 3%. There is only one larger parking house and a small parking lot in the center. The rest of the parking is under ground and not so cheap. That's how we do it regularly in Germany
I live in Hampton Roads which you have mentioned as being confusing (because it is). I hate going to Virginia Beach because it feels so suburban (probably due to the parking). But I would say Norfolk has more of a central city/downtown feel, and Norfolk's downtown does not have much surface parking. I chose to live in Norfolk because I wanted a dense, walkable neighborhood which is what I have. The reason VB has the higher population is because it is a massive city geographically but it is is the definition of suburban sprawl (there are a good many apartment complexes and military bases which are relatively dense and help give it the higher population, along with tons of single family housing). So Virginia Beach deserves to be on the list but don't look down on the rest of Hampton Roads, VB just makes us look bad lol.
9:43 That historic San Juan downtown is beautiful, my goodness
As a Redlands native I just wanna say how awesome it is to see my little town mentioned. We have such a lovely, historic downtown & it's only getting better! Plans to redevelop the mall into A mixed use, dense, neighborhood are currently underway (tho they seem to be delayed) & they just installed a new European-made train that connects to the metrolink in San Bernardino so you can go all the way to LA. So if you're ever in SoCal & wanna check out a good (for SoCal) little town, take the train to downtown Redlands!
Sounds like a nice train trip from San Diego
If you like alcohol, downtown Redlands is knowns for it's breweries & bars. Plus we have plenty of good restaurants & shops. @@GirtonOramsay
the Area within the line created in SF is specifically Financial District, while I debate downtown expands further than that despite not having as many high rises. I at least say it also includes Union Square, Yerba Buana, and Civic Center at the very least while maybe throwing in South Beach, China Town, and Soma but that's just me judging downtown by how active it can get
The Financial District is basically SF's self-designated central business district. I could see an argument for including Union Square, but adding South Beach, China Town, and especially Soma/Civic Center is really stretching it imo
@@BlakeWilson1 thats why I said theyre a maybe compared to U-square
With the downtowns that are littered with surface parking (like with the 1970s Houston TX photo), it looks like Godzilla or some other large monster rampaged through the city. I remember making a meme with Godzilla saying, "The next time you accuse me of destroying your city, I have one word for you. Cars!"
This is a great video! I’ve spent a lot of time looking into these maps and it drives you crazy the more you think about it. I’d love to see comparisons with cities in other counties to give a better idea of what they look like. I was able to get some stats for Paris but nothing with this level of detail.
Virginia Beach is interesting. As someone from that area, Norfolk (pronounced Nor-fuck lol) is definitely the core City of Hampton roads. Virginia Beach while being an independent city is effectively an incredibly large and spread out suburb filled mostly with people who are affiliated with the military or defense companies. Norfolk has a downtown (and a controversial light rail) but still probably doesn't do great in the parking department 😅
The only real controversy around the light rail is its limited route.
Really needs to be expanded and made to mirror the DC metro. Would love to ride it to places like Busch gardens instead of sitting in traffic.
VA Beach refused to allow the Tide to be extended aa the way to Boardwalk. The treasurer actually said "millennials who want public transportation and dense living aren’t a good fit for Virginia Beach". F him and F VA beach too!
I live in VB (at the southwest part of your map) and it should be noted that the area VB really WANTS to be known as the town center is well off to left, despite the fact that none of the municipal building are there.
And Virginia Beach is the one that stopped the progress of the light rail. There is so much potential in the region but Norfolk alone seems to be the only city interested in doing much. @@The_Lone_Aesir
Or Naw-Fuck, the good thing is either way we got vulgarity in it. And don’t worry he’s digged into Norfolk a couple times including the light rail
I think they should use different colours for parking garages and surface parking lots because parking garages, while ugly, are much much MUCH more efficient land use than surface parking lots. They also fit with the landscape better due to having height
Virginia Beach! I grew up there. There is no downtown because it’s not really a city. It’s a former county that incorporated as a city to prevent Norfolk from annexing more land. The county used to be highly rural, but now is covered by suburbs. They built a tiny fake downtown at one point but it’s pretty sad. 😆 The oceanfront does not serve as a downtown for locals in any way.
The town center (which is weird for a city to have a center when it's not a town) is the closest thing to a downtown. Virginia Beach is just a consolidated city count like other Hampton roads cities very different from most metro areas.
I love your videos. You’re so easy to listen to!
Could you ever do a top 10 list for best urban Canadian cities only? or even on another theme, but highlight the other major Canadian cities that usually dont make your NA lists?
I was going to make a silly "DoEs CaNaDiA eVeNn HAVE tEnN cItIeSs???? 🤔🤔"-style comment...but I was able to name 13 before getting tripped up in the maritimes. And not only managed to omit 3 of the top 10 most populous, but cities I've actually been to (and slept there! Not just in transit!)
I wanted to publicly admit this self-own, wholeheartedly agree with the request, and then go eat my slice of humble pie in the corner 🙃
You're right about Chicago's downtown definition. I would consider also including River North and Streeterville areas as "downtown" all the way to the end of the Magnificent Mile ends, when lakeshore drive bends to the west. Just the loop is too small of an area.
San Juan has issues redeveloping due to the reducing population and the lack of resources. Having adopted the sprawl model in the 1950s makes it even more difficult because we can't afford such an inefficient model.
in Chicago, the VAST majority of "off street parking" in the central area of the city are parking garages often built as part of residential or office towers themselves; the parking garages are often disguised as office buildings and often ARE part office buildings. Now once you get outside of the central downtown area, you do find a bit more surface parking, but even that is spread out.
Great video! Suggestion: I read LA had plans for select street reforms, would love your take on it relative to the Barcelona "superblock"
Petco Park in San Diego has a YUGE surface parking lot a few blocks away that the city recently just allowed to be redeveloped and it looks like it's going to be quite a large project. Could be fuel for a future episode on redevelopment projects aimed at reclaiming land from giant parking lots.
Yeah, I was going to say 20 years ago - even 10, San Diego’s percentage of surface parking was vastly greater. Does anyone remember Street Scene, the concert series that required all those parking lots for the various band venues? That could never happen today. Until last year, Apple Maps 3D view was out of date enough to show dozens of parking lots that have since been developed. It was good to see the city make a decent showing and it’s only getting better,
Anaheim gets recognized for something finally and it’s this… why am I not surprised
Great video! Thank you!
Redlands is a good town! Shocking that it's so close to the dump that is San Bernardino. There's street after street of old Victorian homes in Redlands. It's got a fun culture all its own.
Here in NYC on street parking regulations are so insane with commercial, diplomat, courts, specific city agencies, ect that even finding a regular metered parking is rare. Almost all parking in manhattan is in garages under skyscrapers. I work in lower Manhattan and park at battery park parking garage the only self park garage here and early bird parking is $32 a day. So just don't drive here! 😂
upside is its really easy to get into Manhattan, Hop on the train and ride right in.
Thinking of diplomats I remember one time I did have to drive in to go to JFK and on the way back out the Van Wyck was totally gridlocked(surprise surprise), I hear the buzzer horn thing and see flashing lights like a PD car. Its a damn limo with UN plates, the dude thinking he has legal authority to make people move over like hes NYPD or FDNY.
Redlands resident here! This is the best the IE has to offer. All our friends come here from their bedroom cities to party, eat, etc. A lot of us would like to close down the main street (State St.) to cars and it is closed at certain times but a small group insists on ruining it with cars. Also super bicycle friendly.
San Bernardino is just a mess, there´s some hope because at this point its so broken down its a cheap empty canvas if someone wants to redevelop. Most of the buisinesses are gone or just holding on, lots of cheap land etc.
Now that a lot of those laws are in effect to subvert the SFH zoning and parking minimums (although not far enough IMO), there should be a lot of development in San Bernardino. It'd be crazy not to. Location is good. Also the city is getting hammered by the state about housing. They've gotta build a LOT of it or else the state will take them over.
AT LAST!!!!!
I’ve waited so long for this video!
Great video Mr. Delahanty!
Knew Kansas City would be on here. Gotta park somewhere to get to the street car lol
12:10 I-4 is being widened to allow Brightline passage into Tampa along the ROW. The Orlando mayor also tried to pass a penny transit tax back in 2022 but failed with opposition winning at 58%. Will see what happens this year if/when it comes up on the ballot again. That said SunRail is still going to expand.
tampa/st pete and orlando are going to really boom in the coming decades as south florida fills up and gets even more expensive. they're also higher in elevation (especially orlando) so less likely to be affected by the coming sea level rise...
Former DC/Chicago resident now in St Pete. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the Tampa Bay area, it’s been an adjustment for sure
Wow, thanks so much for the support! Unfortunately I'll only have been in town for en evening before I speak at the St. Pete Chamber, but I'll spend the few days after that traveling the city, filming, and thinking about what I want to say about it for a video. I'll get over to Tampa too, but may not have a lot of time to film over there on this trip. Thanks again!
Wooohoo another CityNerd Vid!!!
Glad to see Center City Philly here as well!
DC having decent bike infrastructure has nothing to do with congress. If anything, congress would hold up the rollout of further bike infrastructure. Also, I love that the bike lane you showed for DC is less than a year old and perhaps the nicest one we have-most streets don’t look like that, though.
The Congressional offices are one of the few places in downtown DC with lots of surface parking. Congress freaking loves surface parking. At least DOT is setting a good example.
Love the way you gave a fairly positive review about Houston and then less than 3 months later SNEAKILY DUNKED ON THEM for too many downtown parking lots!
Excellent pacing! Can definitely see a change from past videos, you should provide your methodology in a follow up video.
Thanks for the content!
How about a video on how much would it cost to operate a comprehensive bus network that operates on 15min interval and can take you everywhere? It could involve painting some bus lines, counting the total length and then calculating the operating cost per km. The costs per capita I got were surprisingly low, but I used some theoretical grid city.
Madison W!
I would also like to honorably mention Milwaukee as a city that dedicates some of its most prime land on the river and the lakefront to Summerfest parking
Very interesting video. Thank you!
Awesome vid, super insightful (And cool to hear about Puerto Rico in a video!) But, I had to ask if the patreon thank you note is meant to shift around like it did? It was tripping me out for a second
"If there's any purpose to this channel at all, it's to shame the evil-doers."
SUBSCRIBED. 😂😂😂
thanks for the reminder, it turns out i had forgotten to subscribe!
"Evil doers" who like to park their car? God forbid
@@martinwillinick6419no, we're talking about the evil-doers who like to prioritize building infrastructure around cars at the expense of every other mode of transportation
@@shieldgenerator7That's a narrow-minded and selfish perspective. I would like to go downtown for events and restaurants etc, and to me the evil doers are those who destroy parking for more properties making it even harder to get downtown or do anything in the city.
@@martinwillinick6419what you don't get is that by prioritizing cars and making them the only viable option, youre forcing everyone into an automobile, thus increasing traffic and congestion. i assure you, if walking, biking, busing, etc are all viable options, then driving will be more pleasant because you won't have as much traffic
"They'll spend the rest of their lives in San Ber'dino..." The horror! 😱
Haven't watched yet, but looking forward to the Tulsa shoutout
Just finished watching - this is so sad
Excellent episode. Can't believe there are cities worse than my Detroit, and your summary of Detroit v the automobile is spot on.
Redlands is a great recommendation! It's still car centric but it has a cute little downtown that is growing. Recently the NIMBY residents got mad cuz an old dead mall by downtown is being turned to high density housing.
Btw, inland in the "Inland Empire" is pronounced like inlind, similar to Oakland.
Good to see even a passing mention of Worcester on here. I would love to hear your opinion on it. We are a city that can't seem to get out of our own way planning and development wise.
That's a town in which I'd consider moving to in future. But living in Chicago has me spoiled for transit and bike infrastructure. Also, I might get lynched as a Yankees fan 😆
was also excited to see worcester! learned to enjoy the city over the past few years but it could be SO much better
What I've seen and heard of Worcester is that it has nice neighborhoods and a downtown that has potential and a Union Station that is very much underused. The terminal is actually laid out well enough and large enough to serve as a regional rail hub. Maybe the first line could be a Providence & Worcester commuter or intercity passenger rail line 🤔
@@edwardmiessner6502Worcester at least has a friendly state legislature for rail. Friendly, but not helpful. Rhode Island wouldn’t bite. Their 146 project could’ve put in better bus service throughout but chose not to.
Detroit has literally been tearing down the downtown for 30 years until about 10 years ago. It's crazy how dense downtown used to be. Projects are underway though and midtown is getting a lot done.
I suggested this video before i think. Excited to listen to
6:25 "If this is considered an appropriate urban form for the elite politicians who actually make decisions about what our tax dollars get spent on..." Weeeeell if you go back to the DC map at 6:05, the place where the *politicians* are is southeast of the CBD in the area surrounding the Capitol, which is federal land. Streetview that. There are surface parking lots all around the House and Senate offices.😬
For over 1 million in Canada, Edmonton surely gets the worst parking levels. Urban areas over 500 000 probably adds Hamilton and Winnipeg.
Great shot of the 9th Street NW cycle track in DC!
Legacy of Robert Moses and the city planners of his generation caused most of this. In addition, as an old relative told me decades ago that after the 1930s, US downtowns were filled with hard core urban blight caused by a decade and a half of deferred maintenance. Most of the planners at the time (until 1950 or so) had no comprehension about how fast auto suburbs were develop. Instead, planners expected the old demolished areas would be quickly filled with new "skyscrapers." People today in the US have little idea about how fast everything changed between 1945 and 1965.
Not seeing Minneapolis in this video is sad but also good :) haha
Yeah I legit thought it was gonna be on the low rank of bad land use lol
Claremont, CA is a lovely college town at the edge of the inland empire, with a metrolink (and future LA metro) station. It may or may not be possible depending on finances and what the commute would look like, but it's a cool place with a cute walkable downtown.
I live in Ventura County but my mom lives in Claremont. So, I’ve taken either Amtrak or Metrolink to Union Station and then Metrolink to Claremont several times. It takes longer than driving but it’s cheap and so much less stressful.
@@bbartky Yeah, my commute was not practical on metrolink (it would get me about halfway to work), but I did use it plus my bike many times. Riding a bike on SoCal streets sure was stressful.
Unfortunately the metrolink is not conducive to daily work travel. Unreliable and takes too long
@@sterlingmarshel6299 when I was living in LA it was very reliable, if infrequent. But it was always faster than driving because LA traffic is hell.
We just had a holiday ice rink at the Morrison bridgehead in Portland and we’ve considered moving the Portlandia statue there. We have a new dedicated food cart pod and several new pop up local businesses. Construction on our new Darcelle XV Plaza starts in a few months and we’re excited for the future. Everyone remember…Portland loves you and we need you to come back. 🌲
very good but that spaghetti jct. on the east approach looks frightening !
My hometown…Redlands. You’ve nailed why I had to move to the Bay Area. Car culture runs DEEP.
I have a GREAT Virginia Beach bike story:
There’s a massive walkway/bikeway in front of the beach, it’s beautiful! There are spots all along the main road that rent out bikes for an hour: regular, 4 wheels/2 ppl, 4 wheels/4ppl.
Wifey and I rented a 2 person one, because she doesn’t know how to bike and “both pedaling and one driving is a lot easier than maintaining balance,” we thought.
THAT BIKE WAS RUSTY AF, and we were (still are) severely out of shape.
We rode that bike 2 blocks before giving up, getting off, and walking it back to the shop.
They asked if we wanted a refund, and we said no because it was on us. They felt bad for us and gave is free waters. Funniest 20$ I spent that vacation.
Great video. What we should do with downtowns is instead of burying a train we should bury 2 roads that cover the 4 possible approach directions and link them to some underground parking and then remove all personal vehicles from the surface streets. Free it all up for peds, bikes, streetcars and Amazon trucks. Or alternately for a small town just end your roads at the boundary of downtown at some parking structures and ban anyone from driving straight through to some destination on the other side of town.
I also love the cities like my own that spent billions building super-wide highway style bridges that terminate at a narrow 2 lane downtown street. So we get to drive 60 miles an hour for 30 seconds before bottlenecking into the downtown core. That was worth it.
I prefer ring roads around cities anyway as I don't like going through cities when traveling. Cities are NEVER my destination.
CityNerd is my favorite adrenaline junkie. Now, let's go out there and ride those bikes! Thank you for the content. Happy 2024.
Comment to increase engagement! Love the new merch BTW.
While I generally endorse this initiative and myself live in a city centre that could likely challenge either Manhattan et al or Chicago (Toronto), I seemed to have missed any acknowledgment that what lurks beneath most of the buildings filling these top ten cores are underground parking garages…many levels deep and many acres spread. So the real story here is that prosperous economic hub cities quickly develop office towers, retail malls and apartment/condos (or redevelop) on all available land which in turn submerges what were once those parking lots. I daily walk through my city’s core and cannot see/find a single parking lot but do find dozens of entrances to underground structures. Yet if I look at an aerial photo of this core and the adjacent district I live in from 50 years ago, it’s much like your ten worst core cities with abundant parking lots and railway yards, almost all now redeveloped with offices and homes for over a quarter million people.
it is incredible how bombed out and empty downtown toronto looked/was even 30 years ago
Interesting note on the I-4 Corridor (Tampa to Orlando), there's obviously some terminally car brained policymakers in Central Florida, but part of the proposed widening of the highway includes a Sun Rail commuter line in the freeway median.
Obviously not perfect, but I always grade on a curve here in Florida. This would hopefully have an impact on the super commuting issue you discussed a few weeks back and make all the places in Polk County a little less car dependent.
Orlando seems to have the appetite for better urbanism, let's just hope we can get the ball rolling before every grumpy old person in the country moves here and makes it impossible to build anything nice.
Also the downtown Orlando area on prn seems to miss a big part of the real liveable downtown in Thornton. I'm sure it's a common issue on the map because of the issues mentioned in the beginning of the video, but it really only covered the bar hopping/night out destination part of the city.
I can’t wait for the Brightline to expand to Tampa (though I’m perplexed how people/cars keep getting murdered by this train). I love TPA but not having to drive on I-4 to MCO would be amazing. Tampa’s Howard Franklin bridge is supposed to accommodate more cars (uh oh) but also will have capacity for light rail which I was surprised to hear Florida plan for
Oh man. Even with the warning, my eyes were not prepared for the back half of this video.
Ray - In the "inland empire" check out Claremont, CA. Kind of like a mini Berkley. I think its more walkable than Redlands.
This reminds me there are so many stadiums and ballparks that could be built around to make a dense, walkable neighborhood where there's currently a parking crater. I'd love to hear more thoughts from you on this topic, maybe a video about the best locations to turn unworkable stadiums into urbanist ones? There's a ton of potential to build around United Center in Chicago, it's right next to the booming West Loop area and it's only a matter of time before some of those parking lots get bought up by developers. If the land could be rezoned it could be the location of a one of a kind, urbanist, mixed use neighborhood
Agreed, but parking for the Bulls & Blackhawks is at a premium and reason enough for push back. Should United Center build a parking structure, hopefully underground, so all that space can be sucked up by housing? Perhaps a pink line station could be added there too. It's a hike between Lake & Polk!
sports and entertainment venues attract people from the suburbs who need some place to park their rides if they are going to attend. I think these kinds of buildings attract more parking instead of repel it. Here in Pittsburgh, the stadium areas on the north side have tremendous areas of parking
@@user-pm5ck5si1i Why wouldn't they take a train in instead? Then no parking costs or concerns about driving after having had drinks at the game, etc. And are these events frequent enough to have all that parking available all the time?
@@charlienyc1 Unfortunately for most folks in the suburbs, there are no trains. In fact, in these parts, western Pennsylvania, the tendency is to move from rails to trails. And although riding a bicycle on a trail may be healthy and/or earth friendly, middle aged and senior citizens aren't inclined to want to ride a bike for 15 miles or more. Rails tend to follow creeks and rivers, avoiding the steep grades that a automobile can handle.
@@user-pm5ck5si1i Well, bummer. Is an ebike an option?
Cities in California may start getting better on parking minimums. State law now forbids parking minimums within a half mile of a major transit stop. Which is defined as any rail transit stop or station and any bus stop that that is a connection point for two or more bus routes that run every 15 minutes or more often.
They’ll just cancel buses to keep enforcing parking minimums. Just watch.
@@sparkleshyguy85 This is my fear as well. Although a lot of those are controlled by CalTrans, Metrolink, and county govs.
Honorable mention IMO is Whistler BC. One of the few places I visit and walk the entire time I’m there. Also has good bus service. It obviously doesn’t have the population.
Love the Collab
Really expected Dallas to be higher on the list, especially with those lovely framing shots at the beginning...
My thoughts on Ft Worth have changed as I got out of the (Dallas) suburbs and learned more about the roles each city play in the Metroplex. Although I suspect this sentiment has existed in some form for at least a century, the younger brother/chip-on-the-shoulder approach in Ft Worth seems to have greatly intensified over the last decade.
The TRE is delightul! I love making excuses to take it. The T&P Station preservation/renovation/reuse is an absolute triumph. Just make sure you're not traveling on Sunday and can tolerate 60 min headways for the majority of its service. The joys of commuter/regional rail?
If you do come by, I encourage you to reach out to the Tarrant Transit Alliance. There are things behind the curtain to get excited about, but such a long way to go still.
Another tip: If you come during the state fair (most of October), Dallas and Ft Worth increase train frequencies across the board and add Sunday service to the TRE!
Just checked Dallas. 27%! Only 2% less than SLC at 29%.
I'm curious what Vancouver's parking map would look like. Feels like there are a tiny amount of parking lots here, even outside downtown.
12:22 "Cities that don't feel like cities" EXACTLY! I've lived in the WA Puget Sound area my whole life and never knew that anything was a "city" because it's so sprawling and just not urban. My hometown is a configuration of roads with big box stores attached.
I think maybe this metric should account for different urban types: downtown, uptown, urban conglomerate cores (eg NYC and maybe Chicago and SF), suburban urban cores, “Main Street” business districts, beachfronts, etc. Some of these “downtowns” are very clearly not downtowns in the same sense and are thus measured very differently.