That's just the thing though, this is like the one dumb thing that's unique to America that is genuinely not making anyone rich. It isn't good for the property owners. It isn't good for the city. It's not good for the general public and I think it's a bit of a wash for the paving companies because they probably don't have very high margins. It's not even making the car owners rich. It's just making them go broke more slowly.
That was pretty wild to learn the random city that I did my internship was the first to remove parking mins. The portion of town between the UArk campus, Dickson St, and downtown is definitely walkable and vibrant for a southern city. Definitely still too much parking in downtown though.
I love that we have paved over every public space with these parking lots, but if you try to hang out in them and have a conversation the police will come and tell you that you can't be there.
That reminds me of the time when I was on a lunch break at my job at a startup in Vegas. I'd driven to a pretty neighborhood park that had a ridiculously large and, on that day, empty parking lot. I sat there for a while enjoying the view when a cop rapped on my window. He informed me that I was parked a foot over the line of the space and told me I had to move! I burst out laughing which pissed him off and he got mean, lol. I said, "really, though? There's no one here!" He wouldn't let it go so I just drove back to work. And people think Vegas is so easy-going!🙄
Literally I was hanging out with my girlfriend, IN MY CAR, in a parking lot once and this happened to me. Cop pulled up on us and asked us why we were there. Complete bullshit
I get where you are coming from but they are probably trying to stop drug dealers. We have that issue in our town so the police have to keep an eye on anything suspicious or possibly suspicious.
I live in Amsterdam in the The Netherlands. And (as shown also in Just Now Bikes) the Dutch nearly turned the city into an automobile centric wasteland by hiring an American planner. Fortunately that idiotic idea got blocked and he went home. Thank heavens.
it makes me so sad that america wasnt even always this way. seeing past footage of hundreds of people walking around and taking public transit just for all that to be bulldozed for the car, in modern day. just a complete regression
I was surprised to see that even Fort Worth in Texas had a small team going through its downtown back in the day. I do remember in the 90’s there was a huge parking area on the edge of downtown that would pick you up and rip you off into an underground mall that could take you up to the center of the city. The city blocks are actually walkable but many of them are empty lots for parking. ☠️
If you go to towns in Rural Midwest, like where I'm from, there's still a lot of historic downtowns still intact. Our South Main St still has wall-to-wall businesses for whole blocks, a lot of small business, family restaurants. There's even brick roads remaining in parts of the town, although back in 2018 another one was paved over, maintaining the brick roads isn't seen as desirable, even though people do love them, and it draws some tourists. We're connected to the interstate on one end of the town, and have 100+yr old buildings on the other side of town, less than 10k pop. I really like the towns like mine in America, and I can't stand the big cities. I'd say possibly 60-75% of the town is walkable, which is nice compared to big cities. Also where you can't walk, you can still bike fairly easily. I biked to work as a teen, I didn't want to spend money on driving when I only went to work after school. I just wanted to say that some smaller towns like mine are much more livable than the most popular places in America. You don't see our towns much cause we're small and quiet, we just keep to ourselves for the most part.
I have a weekly basketball league and know at least 4 people who live less than a mile away yet drive every time. If it saves 15 minutes then I guess it's worth :shrug:
favorite part is when the huge megastore is 'right across the street' from the other huge megastore but you HAVE to drive to the other huge megastore because of the massive parking lot separating the two of them
It wouldn’t be that bad in older parking lots where they have large trees to shade you and a dedicated sidewalk but all the new parking lots have gotten rid of dedicated pedestrian paths and trees for shade. ☠️
Do you not have overpasses in the US? Usually in the UK if there's more than two lanes of traffic between stuff like retail parks, there's a footbridge or pedestrian tunnel interconnecting them.
As someone with a bachelors in mathematics and pursuing a masters in urban planning, the methodology of how they came up with how many parking spots to assign to a business absolutely blew my mind. Thanks for the new project idea.
@@jdsmedley no. Because they won't fix the problem. As I've said, they'll only contribute to the problem. It's demonstrably so, both historically and foundationally.
@@querk3810 you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking the right questions. One of which is.....why do think it's logical to appeal to the entity that caused the entire problem in the first place and then allowed all the chaos afterwards to continue? Another one would be......why would urban planners, in all their infinite wisdom, abide by rules that created the mess we're in now?
I am a very aged woman and find your videos easy to watch and informative. I appreciate your research and collaboration with Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns. Your creativity and humor is fun and funny! I will find the podcast. Thank you for all that you do.
Parking lots have gotten so big that people living in a 15 minute city probably walk less than those walking from their cars to the entrance of Walmart.
Definitely possible. I live closer to 4 grocery stores than the furthest spots from the big box grocery store where I used to live in the American suburbs.
No way. It's the god given right of Americans to park near the entrance even if they have to drive around 10 mins for it, instead of parking a little further and walk 2 mins more.
But the "15 minutes city" is often taken by politicians not as "Make the regulations so businesses could be built so people have nearly everything in 15 minutes walking distance so they chose to walk instead of driving", but what they use to do is "Ban people from driving and hope the people will adopt"...
Just studied abroad in Vienna, Austria coming from growing up in Chicago and I was blown away by how compact and convenient walkable cities could be, a large part of that was because cars were actually more of a hassle than public transportation! Finding a parking spot, buying a license, having the space for a car all disincentivized car ownership and rather than bend to accommodate the car’s needs, the city is too old and unwilling to knock down historic buildings and thus, they have to invest heavily in excellent public transportation, which was mind bogglingly convenient. Great video as always!
Greetings from Vienna! Glad you liked it here! Dont forget also the role of Public housing and social democracy/ communism in bringing about walkable cities and good public transport in Eastern and Western Europe.
Having been growing up in Ireland, one of the most car-centric countries in Europe, I recently visited Barcelona and was astonished how compact the city is. But not only that. Public transport also sucks in Ireland, with buses often being 15 minutes late or more and sometimes even bypassing your stop entirely, and completely dysfunctional trains, I was blown away by the regional train service and the metro in the city.
It will never not sound weird to me when I hear (Americans) speak of "walkable cities", as if it's a neat special feature. Some sort of luxury. It's mind blowing to my little European mind that there are cities you literally CAN'T walk around in.
Don't forget that European cities also heavily accommodated cars, especially in the post-war decades. Great walkable European cities aren't like that magically, it took work and policy to get them to turn away from car-centric design (and some aren't quite there yet).
As a child in the Netherlands I always wondered why they only ever showed the industrial areas of Los Angeles in tv shows and movies, because that is what I associated the low boxy buildings with parking spaces all around with.
@@alligatorscrublord That's just true and it's a lie they want you to believe so we don't fight back. There are tons and tons of areas and cities that aren't like that and they are doing great.
@@alligatorscrublord and you fell for the "you just outed yourself as a liar or somebody that has never left the center of the city they were born in" trick. Stop being that guy.
One of my biggest car-centric complaints is the town I live in has 4 bridges that go over the main river that bisects the town. Two of them have no shoulder or side walk AT ALL. So depending where you are in town you are either looking at literally 4 mile detour to cross the river safely, or you're walking in traffic on one of the busiest roads in town
You also have the Bridge of the Gods in Oregon which is the only bridge for miles so PCT hikers have to risk getting hit by a car or pay money to kayak across or get a ride. I could have sworn that you couldn't walk it but apparently you can despite zero shoulder. I do know for sure that there was at one point a bridge that you absolutely were not allowed to walk across though.
same here in my city. it would take about 15 minutes for me to walk to work, but because of the absence of sidewalks and very narrow bridges with cars going 45-50 mph, it's a death trap. the only other way to walk there would take 40 minutes and is also quite dangerous. i wish we would prioritize pedestrians, as i see many people making these dangerous treks every day.
@@WVgrl59 In walkable countries when some way is without sidewalks people in cars are expected to look out for the safety of pedestrian or they will respond for it. So they have to slow their cars, wait to use the lane with heavy pedestrian traffic and things like that. For me it's super weird that americans act like any place that a car can pass through belongs to drivers. Here we learn that the order of importance when it comes to safety is Pedestrian > cyclists > motorcyclists > drivers
@@shoveIscale means nothing as Russia ,China have good public transport. Also 1900s USA had good public transportation dispite being 1/3 the population. Size has nothing to do with transportation within city limits or out to the satellite cities. Yes a bigger county would need a larger rail network but a bigger country would have more farmland than a smaller country and thus have more people and cities. If anything a big country is bad for car dependency because then you will need to spend trillions excessively paving this country.
@@TheAmericanCatholic Russia and China have good public transport? The average commute time in Moscow is 67 minutes and 48 minutes in Beijing. In Maryland it's 17 minutes. Not saying the US has good transportation. Just saying Russia doesn't and I don't want to waste an average of 100 extra minutes 5 days a week just traveling to and from work.
We NEED the Corporate Death Penalty. The Conspiracy to make this all happen... how did those companies survive? They have done more to damage Society than any Serial Killer.
Added parking lots increases the space between businesses, making them less walkable, increasing the need for cars,increasing the need for parking; it's a positive feedback loop.
Seems like if you analyze almost any bad problem you'll find a feedback loop somewhere causing it. From parking to alcoholism to badly behaved kids and countless other things.
As a retired architect and current designer, this points to some of the frustrations we face as people who have to design around all these rules. You don’t get enough of designers playing politics because they don’t think it’s their place and it’s not encouraged by the industry. BUT If you want to design the things you want like much better walkable cities, you def have to participate in changing the rules that are hindering your design. Just look at how the car industry and oil companies played a part in politics and caused the hideous disaster that is most North American cities. ☠️
I agree with you. It shouldn't be on the designers to have to play politics. Unfortunatley, nothing will change if nothing changes 😮💨 and the people who make the rules need to be educated on how they work in the real world 😑. It's up to architects and designers to say something. If you can explain it with dollar signs that's even better 😅
++++++ this is so true. The big industries spend so much money on the political system because they know it works. We need more regular people -- from designers to concerned citizens -- to speak up as a counterweight to their influence. Have you had a chance to contact city council using the playbook we developed in partnership with Climate Town for this video? It's linked in the description. I think your perspective as a designer/architect will give extra clout to your outreach.
And you don't fully realize the impact of cars until you are w/o one. Most cities make it impossible to enjoy & navigate regular life without one. Jobs, grocery shopping, access to parks for exercise & enjoyment of nature, access to churches & on & on. Taking public transportation generally takes a huge amount of time out of the day waiting for a bus, planning coordination of bus routes, Lack of access to working areas. Cities are built for cars & lacking ability to properly take care of vehicle hampers life financially, socially. Been w/o a car for 2 years & never felt so isolated.
I had a friend at Uni who kept a heartbreakingly long list, with pics, of beautiful old buildings (art deco, classical, Georgian etc) which had been demolished to put in a parking lot. Would make you cry.
That’s sad but also misplaced target. Uni have the worst parking. They over charge to discourage parking. Half the time are not readily accessible by good mass transit and they tend to house a ton of residences who will use parking for longer periods of time then someone who arrives there then leaves a couple hours later. Point being it’s a place of business that people come and go, but also residences for students who might need cars for traveling home or working their part time job further away. It’s a recipe for tons of cars to come and they don’t want to put money into underground parking. Simply stupid and wasteful. Most likely they charge 5-15$ and hour at that new parking lot and are making tons of money. Universities aren’t about teaching anymore, it’s about profit, prestige and growth like a business. Even the state sponsored ones. Let me ask you. Why do you think every school offers the same degrees when the school was started on more specialized degrees. If you can see through that you’ll realize what I’m saying. Point being your sympathy for your friend is commendable but your target is a joke. They don’t have enough parking nor will they ever. Go around a university and look for all the additional parking not on school grounds or cars everywhere on roads. It’s ridiculous at many of them. Edited because my grammar is atrocious and autocorrect likes to do it’s thing.
OK, but you can't keep every old building forever. Cities are not museums. Hell, even museums don't keep all the old stuff forever, because they only have so much storage & display space.
I work in hospitality development, basically buying or building hotels. The parking requirements in many areas are absolutely insane, and can go up to 1.5 spaces per guestroom plus employee spaces (aka 150% parking capture, nuts!) We tried to show them data from across every hotel we owned, surveyed, or managed the highest requirement for parking was 62% at most, and they still wouldn't budge. Cancelled the deal, and that lot has sat empty for the last 5 years since and counting...
Odd. Around here, the parking lots of hotels tends to get full before the hotel gets full. If there is a big event and every room is booked, parking is basically impossible unless you get there in the middle of the day while everyone is out.
The problem is that we have already done so much damage by parking minimums in the US that it seems unrepairable at this point. You just have to find an existing walkable town that works for you if you want to live without a car. For me, I ended up in a rural college town that has seen little growth over decades and remains cheap for students. So there is not much suburban sprawl and I can bike across town in 30 minutes. Stroads are in a balance with the busy main street here.
This video came out at the perfect time. My local neighborhood civic association just emailed asking me to reach out to my council member and state I'm against changes to parking minimums in fairfax county. Was going to try sabotaging their effort. This gave me some great ammunition.
@@readyforlolso the local strip mall has a proposal to be torn down and replaced with a mixed use area. Retail on the main level and apartments above. Instead of a massive parking lot they will have a parking structure for the tenants. The Civic association is fully against any changes to the strip mall. When I attended the meetings about it the main points of worry amounted to mixed use also bringing lower income people. They feel reductions to parking minimums will increase the likelihood the project moves forward. They also state in the email that "we need cars because our area isn't well served by public transit and biking is hazardous". Both statements are correct but their opposition to these changes are ultimately the cause of that issue. All in all it's frustrating.
@@happydogg312 I have always found it pretty easy to find parking, at least a sign or something to attach to. Although if I had a nice bike I would probably be left a little frustrated, that's for sure. Would always want to find a nice secure rack.
Yes, late, sorry. But this explains *so much* of why the US looks like it does, especially the very short, but IMO much underestimated point of "parking creates more parking". As a European, I'm used to walk - and happily so! - when I want to get somewhere, but will readily admit that in the US, walking between "points of interest" easily becomes a chore, often necessitating a car. And yes, at many places, the "way" from A to B is mostly parking lots. Funny if it weren't so disastrous on so many levels.
@@robertadams6606now, yeah. 20 years ago no. Malls were actually really smart before the internet got safe. You wouldn't want to put your personal info on the internet in the 90s and early 2000s so shopping online use up come with so much risk. The internet was so bad there was a saying "dont trust anything you see on the internet".
This is absolutely insane. I love how the more videos I watch of yours and Not Just Bikes I learn that every transportation "law" is built on a pile of shit.
No, the people who wrote these laws are all dead. Former greed motivated them, foolish inertia keeps them. Look for stupidity, then greed both are abundant.
As a truck driver I want to make you aware that there is a severe shortage of safe truck parking. Every city wants us to deliver their freight but very few want us to be allowed to legally park for our Federally required rest breaks. If some of the excess parking for regular passenger vehicles were to be re-zoned for semi truck parking it would really help.
Unfortunately, I think that people who watch this channel unmotivated want to get rid of all cars and trucks. They want us to live in pods in overcrowded cities and eat bugs, and reduce our consumption by like 98%, so really Mr. Truck driver, they want you not not have a job at all.
Another reason for Park & Rides. They can have flexible spaces designated for different type of vehicles safely out of the way of public transit. Making some Semi-truck accessible would likewise encourage development / use of rail connections for freight.
I live in Buffalo, and we eliminated the minimum parking requirements for the city in 2017. It has put new energy into the city and attracted developers who otherwise wouldn't have given Buffalo a chance. Edit: Thanks for the shoutout! Wings are on me if you ever come to town!
Can you point to some specific projects? I find that rolling back regulation rarely has immediate impacts. It usually takes a while and multiple other factors come into play.
@@VanOriin terms of cities that is very fast, but I also agree it’s hard to say that most policies have that immediate of an impact in that sense. The more likely scenario is that projects that would otherwise be unviable (small shops, rowhomes, affordable housing developments) start to become more viable and they get implemented. But that takes time
"I'm aware you didn't have watch a punishingly long parking video on your agenda today." Like most Climate Town videos, I really enjoyed it and more importantly found it informative and motivating. The only problem is the wait for the next video.
And here I am, parking a little further away where not many people are, only for someone to park right next to me instead of leaving an empty space between us
My dad and I specifically dont do that. We both take the first spot we find, sometimes even if we can see closer spots. Sometimes we joke that we'll wait for the shuttle to the door.
I've always firmly held a belief that the more able bodied you are, the farther back you should park so you can leave the closer spots for people who aren't able to walk as far, but are not able to use disabled parking spaces. But people brainwashed by car culture are allergic to walking anywhere outdoors for any length of time. If I can bike all the way to a business & still chain up in the back of the lot & walk all the way up just fine, these car drivers should be able to do the same
Thanks for tackling this huge but obscure problem! As someone involved with construction and development in DFW for over 20 years - there are a whole slew of additional problems you didn't even touch on this video. One time a developer was forced to pave then install curb and gutter on the portion of road in front of their business, on their dime - despite it being a rural road with bar ditches with the nearest connecting curb over 1 mile away. To this day there is a random 150' single-sided length of curb all by it's lonesome. :-/ You would be *AMAZED* how much of the development guidelines are simply "that's what someone said it should be" or "because that's what it's always been".
An urban heat island video would be a great topic for another video. The Phoenix area hitting above 110˚F every day for three weeks (so far) this year is insane.
@@kittimcconnell2633 That's a really bad idea. Too many practical issues - low friction, surface wear, shading from parked vehicles. You'd be better off taking those same solar cells and putting them on the roof of a building. Making the lots white would actually be a good idea though. You'd probably need to get the city or state to change their regulations to allow for non-standard markings, doing black lines on white rather than white lines on black. It'd probably be easiest to do as part of routine resurfacing and in new construction.
Went to my first Townhall a few months ago and got to speak about the fact that my city is not walkable after learning information from this video I cannot wait to bring it up. Next time I get a chance to speak!! I’m 22 and I love that I finally know what’s going on and what we can do about it. Love both of your channels!!
I wish you luck in changing the minds of the boomer fossils controlling most decisions in the USA.... As for myself I have the scars from battle and have retired from the field.
@@luvshak3095 Those aren't, and shouldn't be exclusive: - you CAN have a car to get some big shopping, get to a nice cinema, aquapark etc - stuff that just can't physically be available nearby everywhere - but at the same time you shouldn't need a car to do some small shopping, grab a beer, go with the kids to a playground, get kids to school etc. For that to work you need a reasonable population density in the area - and with what Rolly shows - it's impossible in the USA and it is a self propelling disaster. Important thing to note is that it doesn't automatically require to everyone loosing their transportation freedom etc - not at all - it's just that if you want a cost effective city, good maintained infrastructure, decent access to services and businesses, and lot's of green areas in the cities, then you can't have the population density lower than in an average rural village in Europe. Economics of all of those things scales with population density, and you just can't get around it without having population centers consisting of dense yet quite affordable to build - 5-15 stories high buildings (with best walking and cycling access to schools, healthcare, shops, restaurants, services etc) surrounded by 2-4 stories high less dense buildings areas with lesser, but still good access to the above usually with the use of a variety of public transport and private transport sharing (bikes, cars, scooters etc) and normal private transport (with the normal assumption that only desperate people take a car into the city). And only around that area, can you have a suburbs "donut" of low density single family homes - but to make that area economically viable, city should only provide electricity, water, and main roads - side connecting end roads should be the homeowners problem (like in Europe), and a full blown sewage system could only be available within few miles of higher density city areas, as to not need additional pumping stations - or if the single family homes residential areas were located at a reasonably higher elevation than the densely populated city areas (and thus, not needing additional pumping stations for sewage systems - without that, maintenance and operation costs of those would be way too high to be economical - Rolly made a video on this subject quite some time ago already).
As an European I always wondered why US Americans are getting upset about socialised health care, not noticing that they have socialised parking, socialised refill of beverage, etc.
The “Red Scare” really did a number on us. For a lot of people here the thinking goes: 1. Communism will destroy the world 2. Socialism is just Communism with a modern twist Therefore socialized anything is viewed as a policy that will topple the economy and bring the united states to it’s knees. Bonus points for crazy religious people who believe that Communism is of Satan and so affordable healthcare for the middle class = satan infiltrating the halls of government.
I'm a retired nature center director. We had a grass-topped overflow parking area. It was the best location for me to install a solar array. So I installed an elevated solar array high enough to accommodate a school bus. The shaded parking became very popular for everyone to park beneath. Yes, it cost more to install an elevated array, but it also eliminated a need for a safety fence to keep people away from the direct current coming off the array. In addition, putting the array over a parking area kept us from shrinking the green footprint of the nature center land. This topic is worth covering in a future video. I've seen people greatly exaggerate the cost of elevated arrays above parking. At least part of the cost can be justified as a visitor amenity.
I took the initiative of emailing every member of my hometown’s city council (a Dallas suburb) about this video, and one of them responded to say he fully agrees and is already looking into the issue. Progress!
as a swiss i think you guys are praised with huge parking lots. in switzerland you pay 12 dollars per hour for parking in the city. and the parking spaces are barely wide enough to squeeze trough the door when getting out of the car. but you need to be early, after 11.00am you are too late and cannot park at all because there are way less parking spots than actually needed. and there are only centralized parking spots. you cannot park in front of the store. i would love to have actually space for cheap parking. or you park in the blue parking spots. but this is only allowed for 1 hour. then you must repark the car(police and security patrols trough from time to time and mark the tires with chalk... and as a construction worker you are able to get a special very expensive parking card that allows you to park in forbidden parking spots(yellow parking space with an x on it) but they are rare and if you are not early in the morning you dont get one. and you need to walk a lot because they are never at the place you actually need to work on. and you have a lot of parking traffic(people roaming trogh the city searching for a spot) i will never understand why you want less parking space. having not enough is a million times worst. please dont give up your freedom to be able to park your car.
My understanding is we aren’t aiming to rely on cars anyway. We shouldn’t have to deal with large sprawling parking lots or small hard to get spots. The goal is to have a walkable city that doesn’t rely on personal use transit to get groceries. Eliminating large scale parking is merely a stepping stone in the direction of a less car based society. Alongside the negative effects climate wise. Living in arizona in the us is pretty tough with massive parking lots as these square mile black squares provide an immense amount of excess heat that IS NOT needed when it’s already 120 degrees out.
Well I'll email my members (Dallas suburb) and not recommend this video because there is absolutely no parking. It's to the point that on weekends people are parking on the street to go to the grocery store or they drop someone off and then drive around the block over and over and over and over until they need to pick up the person they dropped off. Goto Walmart on a weekend parking lot is 100% full, go inside and there aren't even leaves lines at the self checkout because the parking lot is too small.
@@mrdonetxthis feels like such a privileged gripe. At least you have the option of driving around until that person is done shopping, whereas some of us walk to and from the grocery store 🤷 and it’s crazy cuz even tho the time spent to get places is cut in half BECAUSE you have a car, you people are STILL always in a rush. What else do you want?
I’ve been saying for years that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of our finest documentaries on the destruction of the LA transit system. I can’t believe we picked freeways over toon town. 😢
As a Canadian that occasionally visits the U.S. out of necessity, and maybe this is hard to hear, but I fully believe that Americans would just pave over Toon Town for a few bucks. You guys run a dirty, cruelty-oriented, angry and mean-spirited nation. There is litter everywhere, constant horn honking for no reason and just severe attitude problems all over the place. Even the most basic appeal for empathy or even just basic professionalism is too often met with, 'PFFT, STOP BEING WOKE. MY GENDER IS A LIFT KIT FOR MY DODGE RAM, LOL!' Rather embarassing, IMHO, and just zero excuse for it when countries with a fraction of a fraction of the U.S.'s wealth or standard of living index have a more positive culture, more constructive approaches to environmental stewardship, etc.
@@ItWasSaucerShaped I would ask what part of US/Canada are you spending this time in, but that is a bit unfair to ask of random internet person. For a while I lived in Northern North Dakota and visited Winnipeg on a regular basis. It was the closest major city. Also lived in many other US states and cities, and visited other Canadian cities and don't see what you are largely talking about. Litter varies wildly in the US. Cities tend to be worse than country. High density subs seem to be the worst. Otherwise, some cities are awful, but many it is a minor issue. I was in Chicago a few weeks ago. I didn't think of it at the time but surprisingly little litter. If you think it is bad you should have seen it 30, 40, 50+ years ago. Yes, US cities are full of assholes, but Canadian cities aren't absent of them either, it only takes a few. Some US cities (NY, sorry) are worse than Canada, but most seem to be on par. In rural areas, I see little to no difference. People can be standoffish to outsiders, but the disgust and cheapness toward human life that is normal in cities is gone. The gender lift kit, is a bit; funny, offensive, and a perfectly reasonable response to people that take cake gender seriously. Also, horn honking is rare in most of the US. I would guess I hear one less than once a month. As for professionalism, I find Canadian lack of forthcoming bluntness and urgency to be detrimental to business, and I can see the reverse being seen as offensive. Eh, different values/sensitivities.
The one thing about parking & the lack of public transport in the US that's always confused me is stadiums. In Melbourne, Australia you can drive to the stadiums but there's limited parking (costs a fair bit as well) and there's major train stations only a few minute walk from the 2 major stadiums. Getting home can be a bit annoying since you may not get a seat on the train but they run frequent enough to where you can just catch the next one. It's a much better experience than just being stuck in a car
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This sort of reminds me of a weird problem there in in Wrocław in Poland. There is a stadium with fairly large parking lot. The problem is that infrastructure is not made for this. You can get there by train and there is train station nearby but barely anything actually gets there and if you'd want to park somewhere further away and get there by train, good luck. There's no special service during events, those trains will not move even a 5% of guests. So most people drive there by car but the traffic is so bad, that it is literally clogging the whole highway going around the city with causes gigantic traffic jam in the whole region. But they are smart! They figured out that they can just close the exit from highway to the stadium so that the traffic is offloaded through two exits and through the city. You can imagine what a mess that is every time there's a big event. I was unlucky enough that I lived fairly close to the stadium. Even though normal commuting was 20 minutes in one direction, when there was an even on the stadium it could easily get to 2 hour commute just to get back home. I often just gave out and went on a beer with someone to wait through the traffic and get back home at night. Probably the ideal solution to places like that is having park'n'ride hub. Even better if you have multiple facilities like this. Let's say an airport, a few different stadiums and even a direct connection from park'n'ride to the city center. One gigantic, well organized parking lot that connects all most frequently visited places so that people can quickly leave the car there and take a public transportation.
Same in Brisbane: our main two stadiums have almost zero parking but are super close to train and bus stations. Events generally have included public transport and usually extra services. I survived without a car for years, I got one because of the pandemic and it's a pita. It's great to just leave it at home, I'm lucky enough to have a bus stop less than 100m and an express train station less than 3km away.
The population argument makes no sense my man, it's always the same thing 'america is bigger so we need cars'. There are several well made videos online like this one that explain that all americans do is find excuses (98%) and make alot of money. (top 2%)@@wobblysauce
Same here in Sydney. There’s a train station directly across from the stadium, and they come every few minutes. It’s actually a very fun part of the experience being on the train with hundreds of happy fans.
You could literally make a 20 hour long video on all the issues we face and corruption and root causes, and all the stupidity we still deal with on a day to day. I've been reading and researching so much about what you and many other people are saying about how the country is run, how to even fix some of these issues. It's astounding how far down the rabbit hole you end up once you start connecting the dots between everything. We need people like you in politics, not just making youtube videos. We need people knowledgeable and ready to make changes, not old people set in their ways and unwilling to budge. I'd do the job of a politician for free if given the chance, simply because I want to see people happier and not suffering. I'd prefer not to.. as would most people, but if that's what it took. Sacrifice like that, to do a job like this. I'd do it without hesitation. I advise anyone reading this comment to start spreading the word about youtube channels, articles that people should read. Strong towns, Not Just Bikes, USA Mom in Germany. (probably some others I can't remember right now) The more people that know this stuff, the sooner and easier change can start happening, because people will ask for it. SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE. This is serious stuff that impacts our day to day, and our countries can all improve for the better. I'm tired of seeing seas of asphalt that only serve to be an empty eyesore, and the cause of higher local temperatures. The walmart in my small 4000 person town has enough parking spots to probably fit half the vehicles in this place. I'm not even joking either. And at night, there is so much light from the parking lot lights, that we get skyglow from it. A town of 4000 people can't even see the night sky. This shit has got to end.
We already have too many of idealistic fools like this guy in politics. Which is hy e have clogged up commuter roads ith bike lanes, 40 kmh speed limits, and other ''road calming" ideas that just slo traffic and p2ss off drivers.
On a hot day, the difference in air temp between a parking lot surface vs a large patch of grass and woods can be easily demonstrated with a regular thermometer-- the difference can easily be 5 - 8 Fahrenheit degrees.
@@nickthompson1812 these temperature readings are always done in the shade. The thing is, there's rarely much shade for anyone in a parking lot so you're just exposed to direct sunlight which will make it feel hotter.
@@jonasnisse4257not asphalt is insanely hot in the summer. Like burn your fucking feet hot. Grass is evaporating moisture out so it’s like 90F. 5-8? Lol
I did a research paper on urban heat islands! We need more trees and natural canopy, fewer impermeable/non-reflective surfaces, more air-to-ground heat pumps, and even aerodynamic buildings that allow air to properly pass thru cities. I hope you make a video on it soon!
Oh, and the impacts of urban heat often impact those most disadvantaged economicly and kids have the worst access to green spaces to cool off. Curiously, the heat impact on the elderly largely depends on the city and is likely dependent on wealth.
I raised the issue of arbitrariness of parking minimums and asked where they got the when our city redid its comp plan and zoning laws a couple years ago. When I asked the consultant where they got the numbers, they essentially conceded the point but said "This is the best we've got." So we've got urban planning professionals (who, by the way, used all the right words about walkable communities) knowingly using unfounded recommendations only because there's nothing else. Depressing.
You don't need a complex formula to work out the right level of parking minimum. The obvious and simple answer is 0. Let businesses decide how many they need. The only reason to require parking is to avoid customers parking in the street. The best way to avoid that is to provide park and ride for out of towners and transit inside. The alternative is to charge high prices for street parking.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 "Let them self regulate" leads to all manner of exploits. Off the top of my head, I imagine that crafty businesses would build their business near to a completely non-related business, that has lots of parking and rely on this already existing car park to service their customers too, rather than building a car park of their own. That's great from a utilitarian point of view, but it's likely to cause various friction and strife between these two businesses. Likely also, to result in any number of legal challenges and court appearances in relation to the use of that car park. On top of that, other exploits are likely to result in their own unique forms of strife. After a decade of self-regulation, parking is likely to be optimal, from the perspective of the consumer, but is also likely to be the final nail in the coffin of small and medium businesses.
@BluePieNinjaTV Do you have any reason why we should believe that? Do you have any supporting evidence for your assertion? Or are you using the time honoured source of "Trust me, bro!" to legitimise your claim?
@@Raz.C What a self-inflicted problem. It would only cause 'strife and friction' if the business owner had some weird fixation about where the owners of a car go after parking in their carpark. Imagine being that possessive of a piece of tarmac? Of course, it's a failing of most Americans that, whenever they see their property might be shared with others, they rush to a court to file a lawsuit. The inability to share in a commonwealth is a deeper issue influencing nearly all of America's ills. If it bothers someone that much, why not just sell the carpark to the local council, or not build them and allow the council to build public parking - or even better, a functioning bus service, like civilised countries?
I write zoning regulations, but have to put LIMITS on parking lots because many developers and major retailers want to build 50% more spaces than necessary so that on the busiest shopping day of the year (black Friday), shoppers will see available spaces and still come to shop. I don’t require minimum parking in downtowns or urban areas. Many urban planners are trying to undo the seas of parking.
We had an issue recently with this where my church was looking at buying some land so we could expand. But the city was going to require and astronomical amount of parking to the point where half the land was going to be parking! We were not going to be able to go forward with the land purchase. Luckily the city has recently indicated they will be doing away with parking minimums!
Love that, Kelsey!! Have you checked out our action playbook in the description yet? I think your elected representatives at the state level should hear your anecdote -- it'd really resonate and help build up the case for doing away with parking minimums state-wide.
No stronger indicator you took the orange pill than being very excited to watch a 30 min Climate Town video on parking. Been waiting for this my whole life.
"I'm aware you didn't have 'watch a punishingly long parking video' on your agenda today." Actually I've seen enough NJB and strongtowns that this is the top of my agenda today.
I kind of had the reverse experience. Spent several months in Europe for work and the first couple days I was constantly thinking, “wait where’s all the parking?!?” Didn’t know it at the time, but a huge part of what I liked about my time there was how large sections of the city weren’t deserts for parking.
Same crap in Canada. Carcentric as heck, super complicated and lengthy to go anywhere even within the city (I mostly try to walk, as streetcars often don’t show up) It’s unbelievable that is aspect of their lifestyle is unknown abroad.
Great video. I live in Nuevo León, a big industrial state in Mexico, and being a 3rd world country neighboring a 1st world country, almost everyone thinks copying everything from the US is a good thing. Everyone complains about car traffic but we just keep building more 6 or 8 lane roads and giant parking lots (even our governor said his goal is making our city look like Texas), but I barely hear anyone talking about how that just makes our problems worse. Definitively, we need more content like this and educate people about how car dependency is destroying our cities and doesn't improve life quality.
@@coastaku1954 Lots don't in Canada either - there's some dumbass concrete barrier or a chainlink fence, or a drainage ditch between parking lots, and you have to drive in a big stupid backwards and circuitous way to get from one parking lot to another
Housing/planning always breaks people's brains. People who are normally against the government interfering in private business become so pro government the second you propose getting rid of parking minimums or single family zoning.
that's because conservatives really aren't conservative, just selfish. they want no rules when it's a rule they don't like, but they're always ready to force you to do what they want.
It shouldn't matter if you're anti-government (like me). We should face the repercussions of not being able to control people's lives arbitrarily and actually live freely. Stop putting people in charge of societal wide decisions who don't have any actual financial stake in the result of those decisions. Do you think private businesses would have overbuilt these parking lots on their own? Nope. It comes down to the phrase used in the video: unintended consequences, which is what happens when you let government bureaucrats let private businesses offload business costs onto taxpayers.
I am constantly thinking of the millions of miles of nature that was destroyed in order to make a big flat patch of rock for no one to use more than 10 minutes. It's disgusting and frustrating.
Minimum parking laws are preventing a friend of mine from building a new store for the buisness they own. They live and work in a pretty small town, and that town, on top of the nensense parking laws, says they need to put 15 trees on the lot they bought because 50 years ago, a gas station was there. There isn't enough space for that, so the lot just sits empty while their current location continues to be too small for their expanding business.
As someone who comes from a city that is now mostly wall to wall parking lots with a few buildings here and there, this content needs to spread far and wide. How did we think this was ok?
Because Americans are taught to hate mass transit in our own cities and towns. It’s in our DNA. However, we love going to parts of Europe and Asia and marvel at their mass transit systems but we are programmed to think it can’t work here because our country is too big. It’s diabolical.
Because there wasn't a conscious choice being made. We were far more interested in "me me me" and getting from point a to point b without thinking about it. It's a shame the auto-lobby won
there is a certain creature that walks on two legs and goes among humans, they certainly aren't human, but they fool fools and fit into places of power to ruin the world for all people.
Australian here, 20 odd years ago, there was a small grocery store with so much parking that even during the busy Xmas period, the parking was only one third filled, thankfully the store was made bigger and four extra shops were added by using up some of that parking space, now the remaining parking spaces gets full half of the time and it isn't too hard to walk to either.
2/3rds of landspace is absolutely insane. Just thinking about the difference a few trains could do is making my head spin. Gotta say, I never realized things were close to this bad in the US.
When you start looking for all the car-centric policies in the US you start to see them EVERYWHERE. It's pretty mind boggling how fixated US culture was(and still is) on the automobile. Outside of urban areas you'll rarely see electric vehicles or anything other than a truck or massive SUV. No joke, in 2022 over 70% of all vehicles sold in the US were trucks or SUVs.
Something this video doesn't touch on either is the car culture here in the US is also a class and wealth statement. I traveled in Europe when I was younger and was shocked that everyone drove what we would call a 'beater' car here in the US and everyone's bumpers have traded paint from smushing their cars in while parallel parking. Here in the US if you just touch another person's car with your car and they're going to scream at you and call their insurance company to fix the damage. It's more than just transportation here; it's also a statement about 'who you are' if that means anything.
@@RossGoneRogueDepends what country you're in. What you're saying may be true in France and Spain, but it's not at all true in Germany, Switzerland, Romania, etc. Go to Munich and you'll see high end cars in pristine condition.
@@razorwireclouds5708 not arguing that doesn't exist, but I noticed it skews much more toward budget cars. To be fair I mostly saw this in France and Germany in Cologne. It's a different perspective. Maybe people just say "well it's a Renault so who cares" lol
@@CRneu Even in Urban areas, you might see mostly truck or a massive SUVs if you live in the south like I do. People love living out their "country" lifestyle in the city for some reasons.. It would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating seeing those trucks take up two parking spots because of how ridiculously wide and long they are without a bed that would actually justify it.
The only place I’ve ever been that could possibly have benefited from more parking was the local auto shop I worked at. Luckily, the CVS next-door had enough. And as always, every Walmart, I go to has at most a half full parking lot, and is usually about 80% empty
@@druxpack8531The reason why it's like that is because of what OP mentioned. Not just owners, I'd like to add, but pro-car and anti-public transit lobbyists as well. What you've mentioned is rolled into the considerations of channels like this one. I urge you to not take what OP said as a knock against you, and more as one against the system.
Because thankfully enough people still have the intelligence not to join the insanely stupid "anti-car movement". Most of us don't want to live in actual ghettos masquerading as "15 minute cities". People are not meant to live on top of one another like animals. Urbanization and centralization of population cause severe psychological issues in humans, which is why major cities are turning into abject hell holes. That is the goal with channels like this. Propagandize the gullible into thinking being packed into a ghetto and taking mass transit has something to do with protecting the environment, when it's really about population control. If you want to protect the environment, move out of your big cities and suburbs and live on a small self sustaining farm.
@@Simplicimus1945 ewe you give me the Ick. You seem like someone who sucks to be around. I've watched every video and never once felt they pushed the Canadian thing or that they were whiny. You understand these are all discussing issues right? Gonna guess you're a man since you think talking about important issues is whiny. It's informative 🥱 EDIT: Self righteous? There is an issue, it's explained in detail and made consumable without lies or omission so that anyone from any background can understand it and then a solution is proposed? I don't think you know what being self righteous means.
@@CodyWBrownpublic transportation is trash. It does nothing but bring filth out of the city and into the county's. Take the light rail to a ravens game or to any event really. It'll make you hate it with all the trash that rides it.
I’m having a really sad day, and honestly hearing you say “William nilliam” made me smile and laugh when I really do not feel like it Thanks for being you and bringing your sense of humor into these educational videos
I continue to be blown away by his sarcasm value - it's off the f'in charts and I love it. The only YT videos that consistently *literally* make me laugh out loud as I watch them.
I highly recommend anyone out there watching this reach out to their local city council members with the link in the description. The prompt given is pretty easy to follow, as is finding your local representatives. I reached out to my local city council (something I've never done, didn't even know who they were before), and actually received a response back and an acknowledgement that this would be brought up during the city's next Comprehensive Plan meeting. Something small, but enough pushing like this really can effect change.
Beyond the incredibly relevant subject matter and immaculate writing, just the sheer consciousness with which you create content is staggering. The team or individuals behind this project are incredibly talented! Please keep making the world a better place!
For those interested: The Soviet music playing at 20:33 is the song "Путь далек у нас с тобою" - "The road is long for you and for me", often also translated as just "On the road" or "En route".
@@user-hm5zb1qn6g If you are referencing the fact that climate change is mostly taken serious by the political left, and often denied by the political right, and the USSR being often perceived as a politically left leaning state, then... Well it's complicated. While it is true that the political left is on the side of climate science, equating that left with the politics of the USSR is very problematic. Large swaths of the (far) left are very critical of the Soviet Union and it's legacy. Stemming from the fact that the Soviet state was socially very conservative, even reactionary on many social issues. Soviet society was rife with xenophobia and racism towards non-Russian minorities, and on climate issues in particular the Soviet Union did not have the best track record to say the least. Furthermore, it's authoritarian and undemocratic political system is very contrary to the liberatory goals the (far) left has at it's core. Yes, there are some on the left who defend the USSR, but one should not make the simple equation of "left leaning politics=a love for the Soviet state". As indeed large parts of the political left are critical, even hostile to the USSR and it's politics. Both back then and now.
I love that you have to get rid of the customers living next to your business to actually open a business which then people will only be able to come to mostly from afar by car.
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It may sound funny but it makes perfect sense. If you have 20 families living next door and each goes to your restaurant once a week, you have 20 customers a week. Let's add bunch of other housing withing walking distance and you will get maybe 100-200 customers a week. That's assuming that they all will be dining out each week and always go to your restaurant which is not the case. Probably less than half will actually be dining out and most of them will not visit you more than once a month. So more realistically you will have 10 customers a month from that apartment building and another 50-100 customers from walking distance. A month. Make a parking spot and now your guests can come even from another state knowing that they can park in front of your restaurant. Although the parking does not necessarily have to be in front of your restaurant and this law is sort of stupid, there should be a way of getting customers to your establishment without clogging the area. This means that any arbitrary type of consumer should be able to get there somehow in reasonable manner. For example park on a public parking lot that has certain amount of spaces assigned to you or maybe to use park'n'ride in the city that will get them to your establishment in 5 minutes from the parking lot. It can be done better, the parking does not have to be next door but it surely has to be somewhere.
From within the city they should be getting there by bus tram or metro. From another city by train to this city then one of the above to the restaurant. Only people from rural areas need to drive and they should be driving to a park and ride on the edge of the city. The only exception to this should be people who can't walk well enough to use public transport, and even then most of it is wheelchair accessible. Taxis are always an option and they don't need parking.
@ This is conventional wisdom, but I find it to be bs. There are already so many parking spots that I seriously doubt that building additional ones induce any demand. For example many customers, businesses, and cities have loved the switch from street parking to outdoor dining due to coronavirus, and have kept it indefinitely. Under car propaganda logic, those lost parking spots should have cost the businesses customers rather than attract more!
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@@adrianthoroughgood1191 This is quite common misconception, I'll probably repeat what I've wrote in a few other places. Public transportation is not really about distance, it's about density. You need certain amount of people in the area to justify the expense. Otherwise it is simply too expensive to run. People from rural villages often have better connection that people on far suburbs. In rural areas you will often find small village where quite a lot of people are within walking distance to the bus stop. In suburbs you have lots of people spread so far apart, each stop would barely serve someone. It's not maintainable. The whole point of having individual car is to be able to drive on rarely used routes. If you can drive your car to some gathering point and then switch to public transport - that's great. But it has to be designed this way. Taxis are not a solution neither. They provide better "on demand" transportation that does not have to be maintained when not used but they still have to cover additional distance to get somewhere and the lower density you have, the more distance you have to travel between customers. This means that you will often have to drive twice the distance which is not better than building underground garage.
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@@imacds Whatever you say has no value if you don't refer to particular place. The same way I can say that there is so little parking space, I often had to walk 10-15 minutes from parking to a restaurant, barber or other place simply because they did not have enough parking spots for their customers. We can just throw examples at each other, it's a futile discussion. If everyone thinks "hey, I'll just use parking spots from others", then there will be no parking spot at all.
Its striking how many friends and family from the countryside both simultaneously love and hate urban areas because of parking lots and similar things. Their vision of America is one where they can drive into town on well-maintained roads and then quickly find adequate parking. They love the convenience while also recognizing that it just makes towns so unlovable and ugly. Unfortunately they often just dismiss the issue by saying "I couldn't live in a place like this. How could anyone?"
Yea when we create assumptions about what society needs we often do it in a selfish way by wanting what makes our specific situation the easiest. But then we suck at realizing that everyone else is doing the same exact thing. So when you stack all those selfish decisions on top of each other you get these horribly car centric cities.
there is still this ridiculous stigma in america that if your using public transport your poor and you've failed, it's extremely prevalent inn the suburbs and it's toxic as all hell.
As someone that grew up in the suburban sprawl of Southern California and now lives in rural ass, middle of nowhere Maine, I 100% do not miss urban areas. Having been lucky enough to travel outside the continent has furthered my urge to leave the US for better shores. (Along with countless other reasons like political divides, occurrence of mass shootings, lobbyists and such)
*AS A EUROPEAN* I am often struck by the thought that America literally built the worst of al possible futures for its self - literally AND metaphorically
They somehow managed to do city planning even worse than it was done in soviet union and other commie states. Which is impressive achievement, actually. There's not a lot things which you can screw up more than commies did.
There's a failed Mormon church in my town with a vast sea of empty asphalt around it. My friend wanted to build a small law office and was told that he needed 15 parking spaces ... when his business rarely uses more than 2!
I hate car-based cities. And sadly more cities in the world are becoming more and more car-dependent. Thanks for this vid, really shows how scary and dystopian our lives already are
Fun fact: back in the 20’s, it was illegal to own a private motor vehicle in nyc unless you paid for a private garage to park it in, off the street. There are still examples of these garages in the outer boroughs. There’s one on ovington ave in bay ridge, if it hasn’t been redeveloped yet.
15:25 Actually this makes sense. The more employees you have at the store, the less space there is for customers. At some point, there is no space for customers at all anymore, so you won't need any parking space 👍
I think there’s also honestly a point at which effective service in a store reduced the amount of time a customer needs to spend there. If everything is clean, well stocked, organized, with available help for finding what you need and cashiers to keep people from waiting…well yeah I can see why parking wouldn’t really build up. It’s not like people NEED To spend a long time in a retail environment, most of the time.
One thing I worry about is the implications of less parking. I know in San Diego they took some parking out and built bike lanes but they are hardly used. The other unintended consequence is that when parking is too expensive. The side effect is that parking fees are going through the roof because they are letting companies like Ace Parking, Central Parking, ParkMobile, and others take over and they jack up the parking prices anytime there is an event to levels that are rediciolous. As to building housing with less parking, the problem is that there is not enough public transit infastructure. There are many areas of town including those in high income neighborhoods, suburban areas, and rural areas that have no public transit. I think before raising parking prices and tearing up the parking, they need to start by building electric trolley lines with a stop in every neighborhood where no one has to walk more than a mile to gain access to a trolley line. They should also add bus stops to more rural areas. I think we are putting the parking bulldozers before the trolleys here. In my opinion, I would wait till the trolley lines are built and the bus systems are built up enough that people can get to most areas of a city before bulldozing the parking. train and trolley stops need to be located: * At least one trolley stop In each residential neighborhood or within one mile of a residential subdivision. * In each major shopping district or shopping mall * In each business park district, tech center, or other high-rise or corporate office-type areas * Near All Colleges and Universities * Near Hospitals and Health Care Facilities * Near Nursing homes and elder care facilities * Near Stadiums, Concert Halls, Entertainment districts, performing arts venues, dining districts, convention centers, amusement parks, tourist attractions, conference centers, hotels, or other facilities that involve large group crowds. We need to build in residential neighborhoods shuttle buses that transport people to and from the trolley station to stops in the neighborhood (such as by your nearest park, nearest K-12 school, nearest church, or other community places within walking distance from suburban housing. * Some people may need free un-metered parking. These should include those with disabilities who are unable to walk long distances, in wheelchairs, those with caregivers, ambulances, police, fire, and others. * Free or low cost Unlimited time parking may be needed in some areas such as for those commuting from rural areas and those areas with very limited or no public transit infrastructure and that bike, trolley, scooter, and bus are not viable options.
As a low income person who cannot afford a car, I look forward to better city transit with buses that accommodate people who cannot easily hop up the bus stairs.
I know you made this comment a while back, its got a lot of good ideas! It hits the chicken and egg problem though. Why build transit if we don't have the density? And, we can't build density if we don't have the transit. So TOD is a big part of correcting that, build them together where you can. But Infill developments can be a win too. A lot of these big struggling Malls are converting to Lifestyle centers. Well those extra parking areas can become low rise apartments.
Building tram lines require land. The more logical approach would be to use some of the parking lot area for that - wherever possible, hence this has to be a planned and coordinated process. Trams, subways, local trains. Which concept is chosen or whatever it's called is not important, but building public transportation is key to solve a lot of these issues. Many places, using feeder buses that bring you to the main train line is also a feasible solution. Whether the dwellers will be able to change their mindset from using a car for everything into using public transportation is a different matter.
In Czechia we're also getting lots of parking lots like this in cities. A huge difference is that we don't actually build parking lots, but rather just repurpose pavements that aren't strong enough to support the weight of the cars so our city streets are slowly falling apart.
Another good song about parking lots taking over cities is My City Was Gone by The Pretenders. It’s an Ohio native telling how when they returned to their hometown buildings were destroyed and replaced by parking leaving their childhood memories unrecognizable.
Malaysian here, we are car centric too, most of our parkings, apart from on street parking owned by the government, are multistorey parking complexes. Why does American business dont build those, instead they use such a large plot of land inefficiently
Don’t forget how stressful parking lots can be! I’ve been replacing a lot of my car travel with my e bike recently which includes my grocery trips. This has allowed me to avoid the absolutely clusterf**k that is the Trader Joe’s parking lot. It’s amazing how stress free grocery shopping can be when it doesn’t start and end with you wondering if you’re about to run over a small child!
That's my problem too. Evehicle Parking for bikes, onewheels, eucs is sketchy enough a lot of people just end up taking their car or taking their device inside with them
@@abandoninplace2751 I’m actually planning to eventually make a video on bike parking in the future! What I’ve found with this particular store is that it’s not an issue because they have several “U racks” by the grocery cart storage and the front entrance. So they’re both high traffic enough areas that I feel safe locking my bike there for the 20-30 minutes that I’m gone. I don’t have a cargo bike yet so I’m unsure how much that will change things when I ultimately get one. Currently, panniers which are special built for groceries have been letting me carry two full bags which covers about half a week’s worth of groceries. In the event that we want to get a whole week’s worth then my wife brings her bike and we bring another set of panniers. So yea, my situation works super well for me but obviously your mileage may vary depending on your own factors. Luckily, my city is actively pushing businesses to reduce the amount of car parking that they offer while increasing the amount of bike parking so maybe I’ll avoid this ever becoming an issue!
100%!! I replaced my car this year with an ebike. I'm saving my money, my time, and my sanity by biking instead of driving everywhere. Its amazing how stress free it is to pull right up next to the entrance, whip out my bike lock and waltz right into any store. BTW my commute is 11 miles, and none of that is bike lanes.
I don't know who you are, why this was in my feed, or really why I even clicked it and sat through it all. But I am glad I did. You made what would otherwise be an incredibly boring subject interesting and informative. I'll give you a thumbs up for keeping me engaged for 30 minutes.
I was surprised to learn that parking rules factor in employees. At my old work we were actually required to park essentially as far away as possible in the very back of the parking lot. We would then have to walk across the large, empty parking lot to the side door (unless security happened to be doing their rounds, then we could hitch a ride on the golf cart).
Why didn't you band together with colleagues and say "no"? Just make sure you also band together with other similar companies so they cannot fire you least they run out of personel. Just combine your forces together and say that you now run the company until they fulfill your demand.
@@pulli23 Lack of class consciousness on the part of us and union busing on the part of ABM. Best we could do was take home small amounts of toilet paper.
it seems insane that at the very least they wouldn't have let buisnesses pool their parking spots- like even if you think it's neccessary for parking lots to be required surely you'd recognise that a bakery and a bar have very different hours?!
The minimum requirements are certainly off for the big box stores. My local Walmart lot is at most half full 364 days a year, only reaching "full" once a year. Even that didn't happen last year (and might not in the future as black Friday dies). Bed, Bath, and Beyond was the worst culprit in my area. Never had more that 10% of their lot occupied at any given time.
It's even more ridiculous now that most stores stretch out stuff like black friday and boxing day sales to a whole week to avoid the gong show of having crazy sales for just one day. But you'll still hear people bitch about 'not finding a good parking spot' when half the lot is empty, because they don't want to walk through the very thing they are asking for more of.
@@DomenBremecXCVIBlack Friday also makes businesses lose money. Giving discounts should be done after Christmas, not before. However businesses are forced to give discounts because otherwise the customer will simply shop at another store that gives them
I'm surprised that business owners in the US haven't complained more about these crazy minimum parking requirements because it's a major business cost for them. And a giant parking lot that is only 20% full doesn't send a good signal either.
But if there wasn't all that empty space in the parking lot, where would the RV's and travel trailers park? Where would walmart store their collection of 20 sea cans of seasonal crap that sits out there for months before they bring it inside? Where would all the homeless people coalesce??
There’s another relevant Michael Caine quote, from “The Holcroft Covenant.” I can’t remember the exact line, but it goes something like: “These homes are being advertised as being only 90 minutes from 42nd Street. This is a lie. The only thing that’s 90 minutes from 42nd Street is 43rd Street.”
This is genius. Have you contacted your city yet with our playbook linked in the description? If not, you have to include this idea! It's funny, attention-grabbing, and so true.
Grew up in rural areas and ever since moving to the city I've felt like a park withing walking distance should be mandatory for all residences in a city for people's mental health.
we have this in ireland, for housing developments above a certain amount are required to have public green spaces, pedestrian access and paths, and lighting etc, and a similar requirement with shopping developments
Constantly ruining charm & livability of city for profit with the blessing of greedy politicians who want more tax $ rather than maintain quality of life in city.
Those giant mall parking lots are also really scary to navigate if you have a visual impairment. I spent a while with only useable eye, and trying to keep that one eye on 360 degrees around me from which cars could be coming was both very difficult and super stressful. Worse than any other situation I faced when it came to getting around. Streets, bike lanes, transit? All way easier.
I think big parking lots (in the U.S.) are one of the many reasons why there is a housing crisis. In lots of cities, there just isn’t enough space to fit more housing due to huge parking lots taking up space.
Definitely. My city is actually building some dense housing right across the street from a train station right now which won’t have parking since Los Angeles recently changed this requirement. The NIMBY’s are immediately coming out and saying “but where will the people park?” Luckily I’m not the only citizens who’s very sarcastically replying, “lucky that they’re so close to the train station isn’t it?”
Imagine all that parking space converted for housing. Yet just like wider freeways don't solve congestion, more housing will not help. At some point we will see that population control was needed.
Or the parking lots causing sprawl. Imagine if all the shops were the size of Walmart Neighborhood stores. Built so the stores were touching side walls. The shopping district would be so much more compact and walkable. You could plop a dozen stores near neighborhoods and with proper walking and biking infrastructure, people could go shopping without their car. Of course the folks that buy a year's worth of paper towels at a time wouldn't be happy but I don't care. This country has catered to them long enough.
Just wait. When my city did that, it added over million dollars in revenue from all the tickets and cars towed and from forcing people get permits to park in certain neighborhoods. People paying more then double for those permits from what they were paying. Just wait until you park in a towaway zone where there is no signs. That's a really big issue in my city. That's why I find you people so funny.
@@Michael-uj2fb I still drive a 1995 GM 1500 diesel - but on average less than once a week, so it's probably more environmentally friendly than the carbon footprint of producing a new car
@@Dante02000 Cool, help me role play "Honey, I know we have a newborn and 3 kids, and you're a stay at home mom, but I'm going to quit my job, go back to school putting us in more debt to be a youtuber climatologist."
The aerial views of those parking acres is horrific. Think of the trees and farms that were replaced by flat asphalt. Think of the heat, of the massive water run off. Joni Mitchell got it years ago.
@@TheSkystrider y'all have a lot of forest to work with. We send our toxic culture up there, it's only fair you fuck us up for a bit. No worries my friend. I hope everyone effected is doing well
People thinking "why would I go there on foot and walk 20m when I could be there in 5m in my car" miss the entire point. I used to walk to therapy because I was depressed after a break up, and the office was a 45m walk away. I walked 1h30m every week to therapy and back. I started feeling better and assumed the therapy was working, until someone asked me what I did there and made me realise my therapist happened to be full of shit and gave garbage advice. It was the walking doing all the work. I stopped therapy and started walking everywhere instead. It really does improve your mood as well as your health. Even if walking doesn't solve all your problems and I should probably look for a better therapist, I picked up a good habit from this.
Therapy, much like the auto industry, is a positive feedback loop of bullshit designed to perpetuate itself for money. Like everything else in capitalism, it is not interested in actually improving your life, only making money. You were correct to escape.
When I have overwhelming feelings I made it a habit, to walk through the woods and shit, until I feel better or like my feet are dying. It always helps a little at least and has stopped me from stupid conversations and mistakes.
@@shoveI It's not about banning cars everywhere, it's about giving people options to reduce car traffic. Walking is impossible in areas with massive parking lots due to extreme distances or areas that have zero sidewalks. As you make parking lots more sensibly sized and have stuff closer together, fewer people will drive and more will walk or bike. Currently almost everywhere in the US is accessible by car, but many areas are absolutely unsuitable for walking or biking. Cars should not be the top priority because when it's not walkable and public transit gets stuck in traffic, each individual is better off driving which makes things worse for everyone else (traffic and pollution). The goal is to get the situation to flip so it's a better choice to take transit, walk, or bike so that there's less traffic which also improves the situation for drivers (but not as much as for other modes of transit). Claiming that giving people better options is ableist is nonsense because there's a large number of people in the US who are unable to get anywhere because they are unable to drive or unable to afford to drive. Do you not care about them? Barely any sidewalks or them being poorly maintained is an argument for better infrastructure, not against walking. If roads were not plowed, that wouldn't be an argument that cars are useless. Your local government needs to do a better job of providing services for pedestrians. Also if you could function without a car on the 364 days you don't need to bring home a water heater, that would significantly reduce traffic. It's about choosing the right tool for the job not about coming up with some insane once a year scenario to discredit every other option. My car could break down, I should never use it! My house could burn down so I should just not stay indoors ever. I walk, bike, take public transit, and drive when appropriate. More than 90% of trips I can make without driving and I prefer to do so.
As a Fayetteville resident I am super stoked to get a shout-out for the elimination of minimum parking. Our pride parade this year also had record-breaking attendance. Arkansas isn't all bad. Just mostly bad
In cities in most other places than North America, it's quite usual to be able to walk from your apartment to the next grocery store within 2 minutes. Just thinking about how long it takes to cross those huge parking spaces in front of a Walmart.
Great video. What I find pathetic is that the malls in my area have HUGE parking lots but are only one-quarter full at any given time. The only time they are packed is right before Christmas. It is such a waste of space.
It’s the same dumb reasoning people have on HGTV when they’re buying a house. They always go, “this house is great and all, but I don’t think I’ll be able to host thanksgiving dinner in it so I need something bigger.” These comments always make me want to throw something at my TV. These people are seriously willing to pay significantly more every month of the year just because of a dinner one day a year that they want to host! It’s such a waste of space and money.
the economy has changed a lot in the past decade, which partly explains why so many malls (many of which are dying) have excess parking. Our failure to predict how much parking we need at the cost of everything else, is exactly why we need to do away with parking minimum requirements, and allow developers to choose how much to build
Coming from the Fayetteville area I always wondered why it seemed like our little town became a gem of the ozarks in these last couple years it’s good to know it’s not because Walmart was created there but for actually helpful laws
There must be something wrong with me - RUclips suggested this video (which I've already watched) so I watched it again. Still worth the time, thanks for making it!
Like my Dad used to tell me, “If something is stupid and doesn’t make any sense, somebody is getting rich somewhere.”
Excellently said!
Here’s a hint, your friendly neighborhood realtor runs local government
I hope you’re getting rich from this comment.
Or the goverment decided to flex its power
That's just the thing though, this is like the one dumb thing that's unique to America that is genuinely not making anyone rich. It isn't good for the property owners. It isn't good for the city. It's not good for the general public and I think it's a bit of a wash for the paving companies because they probably don't have very high margins. It's not even making the car owners rich. It's just making them go broke more slowly.
Thank you so much for the shoutout! Our mini-doc on Fayetteville is still probably the video I'm most proud of so far.
-Mike
Thank YOU! Link for the curious: ruclips.net/video/vUhOFUQDLQk/видео.html
That was pretty wild to learn the random city that I did my internship was the first to remove parking mins. The portion of town between the UArk campus, Dickson St, and downtown is definitely walkable and vibrant for a southern city. Definitely still too much parking in downtown though.
If you're a friend of @ClimateTown, then you're a friend of mine!
I love your website on Kansas City parking lots. I used it in a presentation in my Environmental Studies Class
I love that we have paved over every public space with these parking lots, but if you try to hang out in them and have a conversation the police will come and tell you that you can't be there.
That reminds me of the time when I was on a lunch break at my job at a startup in Vegas. I'd driven to a pretty neighborhood park that had a ridiculously large and, on that day, empty parking lot. I sat there for a while enjoying the view when a cop rapped on my window. He informed me that I was parked a foot over the line of the space and told me I had to move! I burst out laughing which pissed him off and he got mean, lol. I said, "really, though? There's no one here!" He wouldn't let it go so I just drove back to work. And people think Vegas is so easy-going!🙄
what kind of person wants to go hangout at parking lot lmaooo. Loser activity
Cops suck
Literally I was hanging out with my girlfriend, IN MY CAR, in a parking lot once and this happened to me. Cop pulled up on us and asked us why we were there. Complete bullshit
I get where you are coming from but they are probably trying to stop drug dealers. We have that issue in our town so the police have to keep an eye on anything suspicious or possibly suspicious.
I live in Amsterdam in the The Netherlands. And (as shown also in Just Now Bikes) the Dutch nearly turned the city into an automobile centric wasteland by hiring an American planner. Fortunately that idiotic idea got blocked and he went home. Thank heavens.
He went home?! 😂 the shame he must’ve felt going back with his tail between his legs after an ENTIRE CITY told him to kick rocks. Awesome
it makes me so sad that america wasnt even always this way. seeing past footage of hundreds of people walking around and taking public transit just for all that to be bulldozed for the car, in modern day. just a complete regression
I was surprised to see that even Fort Worth in Texas had a small team going through its downtown back in the day. I do remember in the 90’s there was a huge parking area on the edge of downtown that would pick you up and rip you off into an underground mall that could take you up to the center of the city. The city blocks are actually walkable but many of them are empty lots for parking. ☠️
Every twitter argument is like "AmErIcA wAs BuiLt fOr ThE cAr"
It's like anything that happened before 1950 doesn't exist
If you go to towns in Rural Midwest, like where I'm from, there's still a lot of historic downtowns still intact. Our South Main St still has wall-to-wall businesses for whole blocks, a lot of small business, family restaurants. There's even brick roads remaining in parts of the town, although back in 2018 another one was paved over, maintaining the brick roads isn't seen as desirable, even though people do love them, and it draws some tourists. We're connected to the interstate on one end of the town, and have 100+yr old buildings on the other side of town, less than 10k pop. I really like the towns like mine in America, and I can't stand the big cities. I'd say possibly 60-75% of the town is walkable, which is nice compared to big cities. Also where you can't walk, you can still bike fairly easily. I biked to work as a teen, I didn't want to spend money on driving when I only went to work after school. I just wanted to say that some smaller towns like mine are much more livable than the most popular places in America. You don't see our towns much cause we're small and quiet, we just keep to ourselves for the most part.
I have a weekly basketball league and know at least 4 people who live less than a mile away yet drive every time. If it saves 15 minutes then I guess it's worth :shrug:
@@tehdusto at this point, it's almost like anything that happened before 2010 doesn't exist...
favorite part is when the huge megastore is 'right across the street' from the other huge megastore but you HAVE to drive to the other huge megastore because of the massive parking lot separating the two of them
or the massive stroad between them
It wouldn’t be that bad in older parking lots where they have large trees to shade you and a dedicated sidewalk but all the new parking lots have gotten rid of dedicated pedestrian paths and trees for shade. ☠️
Do you not have overpasses in the US? Usually in the UK if there's more than two lanes of traffic between stuff like retail parks, there's a footbridge or pedestrian tunnel interconnecting them.
@@Rr0gu3_5uture I think it's less about the road and more about both megastores having massive packing lots between them, making for a lengthy walk.
@@Rr0gu3_5uturewe do not cater to pedestrian safety here.
As someone with a bachelors in mathematics and pursuing a masters in urban planning, the methodology of how they came up with how many parking spots to assign to a business absolutely blew my mind. Thanks for the new project idea.
Urban planners are part of the problem. You contribute, rather than alleviate, the chaos.
@@TheZooBrooksABIsn’t the point, then, to have better urban planners (such as OP) to fix the problem?
@@jdsmedley no. Because they won't fix the problem. As I've said, they'll only contribute to the problem. It's demonstrably so, both historically and foundationally.
@@TheZooBrooksABhow do we improve city design without urban planners?
@@querk3810 you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking the right questions.
One of which is.....why do think it's logical to appeal to the entity that caused the entire problem in the first place and then allowed all the chaos afterwards to continue? Another one would be......why would urban planners, in all their infinite wisdom, abide by rules that created the mess we're in now?
I am a very aged woman and find your videos easy to watch and informative. I appreciate your research and collaboration with Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns. Your creativity and humor is fun and funny! I will find the podcast. Thank you for all that you do.
@BeachLookingGuy what 💀
@BeachLookingGuy
It’s not 1996, the internet isn’t solely made up of basement dwelling men aged 20-40 anymore.
@@BeachLookingGuy🤡
@@JL3WindYep, it wasn’t even back then.
@@BeachLookingGuywtf is that even supposed to mean
Parking lots have gotten so big that people living in a 15 minute city probably walk less than those walking from their cars to the entrance of Walmart.
Definitely possible. I live closer to 4 grocery stores than the furthest spots from the big box grocery store where I used to live in the American suburbs.
No way. It's the god given right of Americans to park near the entrance even if they have to drive around 10 mins for it, instead of parking a little further and walk 2 mins more.
I live in a 15 minute city [its amazing] I walk 9,500 to 13,000 steps on a normal day
@@apapods🇺🇸
But the "15 minutes city" is often taken by politicians not as "Make the regulations so businesses could be built so people have nearly everything in 15 minutes walking distance so they chose to walk instead of driving", but what they use to do is "Ban people from driving and hope the people will adopt"...
Just studied abroad in Vienna, Austria coming from growing up in Chicago and I was blown away by how compact and convenient walkable cities could be, a large part of that was because cars were actually more of a hassle than public transportation! Finding a parking spot, buying a license, having the space for a car all disincentivized car ownership and rather than bend to accommodate the car’s needs, the city is too old and unwilling to knock down historic buildings and thus, they have to invest heavily in excellent public transportation, which was mind bogglingly convenient.
Great video as always!
Greetings from Vienna! Glad you liked it here! Dont forget also the role of Public housing and social democracy/ communism in bringing about walkable cities and good public transport in Eastern and Western Europe.
Having been growing up in Ireland, one of the most car-centric countries in Europe, I recently visited Barcelona and was astonished how compact the city is.
But not only that. Public transport also sucks in Ireland, with buses often being 15 minutes late or more and sometimes even bypassing your stop entirely, and completely dysfunctional trains, I was blown away by the regional train service and the metro in the city.
It will never not sound weird to me when I hear (Americans) speak of "walkable cities", as if it's a neat special feature. Some sort of luxury. It's mind blowing to my little European mind that there are cities you literally CAN'T walk around in.
Don't forget that European cities also heavily accommodated cars, especially in the post-war decades. Great walkable European cities aren't like that magically, it took work and policy to get them to turn away from car-centric design (and some aren't quite there yet).
I lived in Japan for 1.5 years.....I wish everyone could experience what it's like to not have to have a car. It's amazing.
As a child in the Netherlands I always wondered why they only ever showed the industrial areas of Los Angeles in tv shows and movies, because that is what I associated the low boxy buildings with parking spaces all around with.
solid concrete everywhere, devoid of nature anywhere
nnnope, you fell for the the ol' "america can't seriously be that bad" trick. it's just like that everywhere.
As a grown up from the netherlands I wonder why I'm still wondering this
@@alligatorscrublord That's just true and it's a lie they want you to believe so we don't fight back. There are tons and tons of areas and cities that aren't like that and they are doing great.
@@alligatorscrublord and you fell for the "you just outed yourself as a liar or somebody that has never left the center of the city they were born in" trick. Stop being that guy.
One of my biggest car-centric complaints is the town I live in has 4 bridges that go over the main river that bisects the town. Two of them have no shoulder or side walk AT ALL. So depending where you are in town you are either looking at literally 4 mile detour to cross the river safely, or you're walking in traffic on one of the busiest roads in town
You also have the Bridge of the Gods in Oregon which is the only bridge for miles so PCT hikers have to risk getting hit by a car or pay money to kayak across or get a ride. I could have sworn that you couldn't walk it but apparently you can despite zero shoulder. I do know for sure that there was at one point a bridge that you absolutely were not allowed to walk across though.
PoorTax. Don't be poor inCorporated America, thanks Citizens United!
same here in my city. it would take about 15 minutes for me to walk to work, but because of the absence of sidewalks and very narrow bridges with cars going 45-50 mph, it's a death trap. the only other way to walk there would take 40 minutes and is also quite dangerous. i wish we would prioritize pedestrians, as i see many people making these dangerous treks every day.
When they first built these Bridges they often didn't put in a sidewalk. Or they had to expand the roadway and removed the sidewalks.
@@WVgrl59 In walkable countries when some way is without sidewalks people in cars are expected to look out for the safety of pedestrian or they will respond for it. So they have to slow their cars, wait to use the lane with heavy pedestrian traffic and things like that. For me it's super weird that americans act like any place that a car can pass through belongs to drivers. Here we learn that the order of importance when it comes to safety is Pedestrian > cyclists > motorcyclists > drivers
As a Greek, I think I finally understand why parking lots are mentioned so often in American anecdotes, insults, headlines, Reddit posts, etc.
To be fair, we have the opposite problem (but that's probably because our public transportation isn't very good)
@@shoveIscale means nothing as Russia ,China have good public transport. Also 1900s USA had good public transportation dispite being 1/3 the population. Size has nothing to do with transportation within city limits or out to the satellite cities. Yes a bigger county would need a larger rail network but a bigger country would have more farmland than a smaller country and thus have more people and cities. If anything a big country is bad for car dependency because then you will need to spend trillions excessively paving this country.
@@shoveI that is like saying we need to take a buildings square footage into account for figuring out how many parking spaces they need
@@shoveIno one is going to commute from New York to San Francisco. People travel inside their own city.
@@TheAmericanCatholic Russia and China have good public transport? The average commute time in Moscow is 67 minutes and 48 minutes in Beijing. In Maryland it's 17 minutes. Not saying the US has good transportation. Just saying Russia doesn't and I don't want to waste an average of 100 extra minutes 5 days a week just traveling to and from work.
Every American citizen and policymaker should watch this video 3 times over. Stellar journalism!
still wouldn't change the opinion of most people
We couldn't agree more! Developing the playbook with Rollie was a ton of fun. Have you had a chance to take action yet?
Become a policymaker
Parking spaces are a blessing. skate on them
We NEED the Corporate Death Penalty. The Conspiracy to make this all happen... how did those companies survive? They have done more to damage Society than any Serial Killer.
Added parking lots increases the space between businesses, making them less walkable, increasing the need for cars,increasing the need for parking; it's a positive feedback loop.
Just what they want
"Sounds perfect to me!" -signed, people who sell cars
Seems like if you analyze almost any bad problem you'll find a feedback loop somewhere causing it. From parking to alcoholism to badly behaved kids and countless other things.
Basically, car dependency is a cancer that is slowly killing America, and by extension the planet through global heating.
Driving is awesome!
Looking at aerial photos of downtowns from the 40s and then the 70s just makes me want to cry.
As a retired architect and current designer, this points to some of the frustrations we face as people who have to design around all these rules. You don’t get enough of designers playing politics because they don’t think it’s their place and it’s not encouraged by the industry. BUT If you want to design the things you want like much better walkable cities, you def have to participate in changing the rules that are hindering your design. Just look at how the car industry and oil companies played a part in politics and caused the hideous disaster that is most North American cities. ☠️
I agree with you. It shouldn't be on the designers to have to play politics. Unfortunatley, nothing will change if nothing changes 😮💨 and the people who make the rules need to be educated on how they work in the real world 😑. It's up to architects and designers to say something. If you can explain it with dollar signs that's even better 😅
It is mostly the designers who know enough pieces of the problem to see what needs to be fixed.
++++++ this is so true. The big industries spend so much money on the political system because they know it works. We need more regular people -- from designers to concerned citizens -- to speak up as a counterweight to their influence.
Have you had a chance to contact city council using the playbook we developed in partnership with Climate Town for this video? It's linked in the description. I think your perspective as a designer/architect will give extra clout to your outreach.
It's fucking weird that lawyers run politics, instead of engineers or other professionals. And by fucking weird, I mean it's a sociopathic conspiracy.
And you don't fully realize the impact of cars until you are w/o one. Most cities make it impossible to enjoy & navigate regular life without one. Jobs, grocery shopping, access to parks for exercise & enjoyment of nature, access to churches & on & on. Taking public transportation generally takes a huge amount of time out of the day waiting for a bus, planning coordination of bus routes, Lack of access to working areas. Cities are built for cars & lacking ability to properly take care of vehicle hampers life financially, socially. Been w/o a car for 2 years & never felt so isolated.
About time! I guess I need to edit my parking video to cut out your excuses.
How is this not higher? You are a central part of the video?
I had a friend at Uni who kept a heartbreakingly long list, with pics, of beautiful old buildings (art deco, classical, Georgian etc) which had been demolished to put in a parking lot. Would make you cry.
That sucks
That’s sad but also misplaced target. Uni have the worst parking. They over charge to discourage parking. Half the time are not readily accessible by good mass transit and they tend to house a ton of residences who will use parking for longer periods of time then someone who arrives there then leaves a couple hours later. Point being it’s a place of business that people come and go, but also residences for students who might need cars for traveling home or working their part time job further away. It’s a recipe for tons of cars to come and they don’t want to put money into underground parking. Simply stupid and wasteful. Most likely they charge 5-15$ and hour at that new parking lot and are making tons of money. Universities aren’t about teaching anymore, it’s about profit, prestige and growth like a business. Even the state sponsored ones. Let me ask you. Why do you think every school offers the same degrees when the school was started on more specialized degrees. If you can see through that you’ll realize what I’m saying. Point being your sympathy for your friend is commendable but your target is a joke. They don’t have enough parking nor will they ever. Go around a university and look for all the additional parking not on school grounds or cars everywhere on roads. It’s ridiculous at many of them.
Edited because my grammar is atrocious and autocorrect likes to do it’s thing.
@@egondro9157 To clarify, my roommate's list was of various lost buildings throughout the country, not buildings on campus.
OK, but you can't keep every old building forever. Cities are not museums. Hell, even museums don't keep all the old stuff forever, because they only have so much storage & display space.
@@jursamaj A city without historic building has no soul imo. We should treasure our old stuff as much as we can.
I work in hospitality development, basically buying or building hotels. The parking requirements in many areas are absolutely insane, and can go up to 1.5 spaces per guestroom plus employee spaces (aka 150% parking capture, nuts!) We tried to show them data from across every hotel we owned, surveyed, or managed the highest requirement for parking was 62% at most, and they still wouldn't budge. Cancelled the deal, and that lot has sat empty for the last 5 years since and counting...
Odd. Around here, the parking lots of hotels tends to get full before the hotel gets full. If there is a big event and every room is booked, parking is basically impossible unless you get there in the middle of the day while everyone is out.
It is what it is, idiot if you don't like it and don't build there.
@@gscurd75Depends on whether the hotel hosts “events” or not.
I wrote my masters thesis on parking policy a few years ago and I’m so glad the issue is gaining prominence ❤
The problem is that we have already done so much damage by parking minimums in the US that it seems unrepairable at this point. You just have to find an existing walkable town that works for you if you want to live without a car. For me, I ended up in a rural college town that has seen little growth over decades and remains cheap for students. So there is not much suburban sprawl and I can bike across town in 30 minutes. Stroads are in a balance with the busy main street here.
@@druxpack8531majority of the usa by area, not amount of people, also these sorts of parking requirements are city based, not rural areas
What degree path leads to writing a thesis on parking policy?
@@flyguy1237civil engineer?
@@flyguy1237 Public affairs or public policy.
This video came out at the perfect time. My local neighborhood civic association just emailed asking me to reach out to my council member and state I'm against changes to parking minimums in fairfax county. Was going to try sabotaging their effort. This gave me some great ammunition.
Godspeed, brother!
But... why ?
What are their arguments ?
@@readyforloleverything stays like it is!
@@readyforlolso the local strip mall has a proposal to be torn down and replaced with a mixed use area. Retail on the main level and apartments above. Instead of a massive parking lot they will have a parking structure for the tenants.
The Civic association is fully against any changes to the strip mall. When I attended the meetings about it the main points of worry amounted to mixed use also bringing lower income people. They feel reductions to parking minimums will increase the likelihood the project moves forward.
They also state in the email that "we need cars because our area isn't well served by public transit and biking is hazardous". Both statements are correct but their opposition to these changes are ultimately the cause of that issue.
All in all it's frustrating.
In Virginia? If so, where/what is the proposed development?
I listen to this entire episode on a bike ride. You guys are great, Jason is so nice. Thanks for all the great videos.
Heyyy kenji
@@happydogg312 I have always found it pretty easy to find parking, at least a sign or something to attach to. Although if I had a nice bike I would probably be left a little frustrated, that's for sure. Would always want to find a nice secure rack.
I love your food videos! Happy that you like to bike
Kenji Chad
@@happydogg312any pole’s a goal ;)
Yes, late, sorry. But this explains *so much* of why the US looks like it does, especially the very short, but IMO much underestimated point of "parking creates more parking". As a European, I'm used to walk - and happily so! - when I want to get somewhere, but will readily admit that in the US, walking between "points of interest" easily becomes a chore, often necessitating a car. And yes, at many places, the "way" from A to B is mostly parking lots. Funny if it weren't so disastrous on so many levels.
The fact that these miserable parking requirements were invented by an organization that wanted to _mitigate_ damage by cars is honestly frustrating.
Unintended consequences are disheartening.
@@42KrewePhotography Then came the Malls! They are failing miserably to keep them open.
They were most likely funded by motor companies
@@robertadams6606now, yeah. 20 years ago no. Malls were actually really smart before the internet got safe. You wouldn't want to put your personal info on the internet in the 90s and early 2000s so shopping online use up come with so much risk.
The internet was so bad there was a saying "dont trust anything you see on the internet".
would make a good item for reasontv's "great moments in unintended consequences"
Co-op between you and NJB is definitely the kind of story we need right now.
NJB even worked in a few stroads.
This is absolutely insane. I love how the more videos I watch of yours and Not Just Bikes I learn that every transportation "law" is built on a pile of shit.
Yea it’s really insane how thoroughly we’ve convinced ourselves that we need to build our whole cities around cars with absolutely zero data.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanetAnd with examples to the contrary.
Right. Who writes laws, and whose pockets are they in when they write those laws? Corruption is a constant enemy
No, the people who wrote these laws are all dead. Former greed motivated them, foolish inertia keeps them. Look for stupidity, then greed both are abundant.
As a truck driver I want to make you aware that there is a severe shortage of safe truck parking. Every city wants us to deliver their freight but very few want us to be allowed to legally park for our Federally required rest breaks.
If some of the excess parking for regular passenger vehicles were to be re-zoned for semi truck parking it would really help.
Good point!
Unfortunately, I think that people who watch this channel unmotivated want to get rid of all cars and trucks. They want us to live in pods in overcrowded cities and eat bugs, and reduce our consumption by like 98%, so really Mr. Truck driver, they want you not not have a job at all.
Another reason for Park & Rides. They can have flexible spaces designated for different type of vehicles safely out of the way of public transit. Making some Semi-truck accessible would likewise encourage development / use of rail connections for freight.
I feel a greater awareness. Thank you, Irishtown!
@@agilemind6241
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
You completely missed the point!!
🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
I live in Buffalo, and we eliminated the minimum parking requirements for the city in 2017. It has put new energy into the city and attracted developers who otherwise wouldn't have given Buffalo a chance.
Edit: Thanks for the shoutout! Wings are on me if you ever come to town!
Obligatory “Go Bills” 🏈
Can you point to some specific projects? I find that rolling back regulation rarely has immediate impacts. It usually takes a while and multiple other factors come into play.
@@grantcivyt5 years, calls it "immediate impact" 😂
@@VanOriin terms of cities that is very fast, but I also agree it’s hard to say that most policies have that immediate of an impact in that sense.
The more likely scenario is that projects that would otherwise be unviable (small shops, rowhomes, affordable housing developments) start to become more viable and they get implemented. But that takes time
So, Buffalo buffalos buffalo Buffalo's minimum parking requirements?
"I'm aware you didn't have watch a punishingly long parking video on your agenda today."
Like most Climate Town videos, I really enjoyed it and more importantly found it informative and motivating. The only problem is the wait for the next video.
He really underestimates our thirst for informative videos. My agenda is always open for a good video.
I love that stores can have 300 parking spots but people circle the lot for 10 minutes trying to snag the closest spots.
And here I am, parking a little further away where not many people are, only for someone to park right next to me instead of leaving an empty space between us
My dad and I specifically dont do that. We both take the first spot we find, sometimes even if we can see closer spots. Sometimes we joke that we'll wait for the shuttle to the door.
i'll be taking the spot right infront of the door. the one you get a fine for when you park there. but i can park there because i have a special card
@@SquidofBaconator herd mentality I guess. Happens strangely often.
I've always firmly held a belief that the more able bodied you are, the farther back you should park so you can leave the closer spots for people who aren't able to walk as far, but are not able to use disabled parking spaces.
But people brainwashed by car culture are allergic to walking anywhere outdoors for any length of time. If I can bike all the way to a business & still chain up in the back of the lot & walk all the way up just fine, these car drivers should be able to do the same
Thanks for tackling this huge but obscure problem! As someone involved with construction and development in DFW for over 20 years - there are a whole slew of additional problems you didn't even touch on this video. One time a developer was forced to pave then install curb and gutter on the portion of road in front of their business, on their dime - despite it being a rural road with bar ditches with the nearest connecting curb over 1 mile away. To this day there is a random 150' single-sided length of curb all by it's lonesome. :-/
You would be *AMAZED* how much of the development guidelines are simply "that's what someone said it should be" or "because that's what it's always been".
Is that why there's weird sidewalk and curb sections in front of random rural gated communities???
An urban heat island video would be a great topic for another video. The Phoenix area hitting above 110˚F every day for three weeks (so far) this year is insane.
Even if they just covered the damn parking lots... With maybe white tents and agaves?? It might make it less super hot.
@@Iquey cover the lots with solar arrays
How nice it would be if this city was smart enough to try good ideas to lower the heat. Summer is unbearable.
@@kittimcconnell2633 That's a really bad idea. Too many practical issues - low friction, surface wear, shading from parked vehicles. You'd be better off taking those same solar cells and putting them on the roof of a building.
Making the lots white would actually be a good idea though. You'd probably need to get the city or state to change their regulations to allow for non-standard markings, doing black lines on white rather than white lines on black. It'd probably be easiest to do as part of routine resurfacing and in new construction.
@@vylbird8014i think they meant as a replacement or a bigass structure over the lots
Went to my first Townhall a few months ago and got to speak about the fact that my city is not walkable after learning information from this video I cannot wait to bring it up. Next time I get a chance to speak!! I’m 22 and I love that I finally know what’s going on and what we can do about it. Love both of your channels!!
I wish you luck in changing the minds of the boomer fossils controlling most decisions in the USA.... As for myself I have the scars from battle and have retired from the field.
Hopefully you get to speak. Most of the meetings here in Dallas are about city planners talking at us instead of talking to us.
Zoomer activism hell yeah
Not our fault you only want to walk the 10 or so blocks around your house. Get a car. explore.
@@luvshak3095 Those aren't, and shouldn't be exclusive:
- you CAN have a car to get some big shopping, get to a nice cinema, aquapark etc - stuff that just can't physically be available nearby everywhere
- but at the same time you shouldn't need a car to do some small shopping, grab a beer, go with the kids to a playground, get kids to school etc.
For that to work you need a reasonable population density in the area - and with what Rolly shows - it's impossible in the USA and it is a self propelling disaster.
Important thing to note is that it doesn't automatically require to everyone loosing their transportation freedom etc - not at all - it's just that if you want a cost effective city, good maintained infrastructure, decent access to services and businesses, and lot's of green areas in the cities, then you can't have the population density lower than in an average rural village in Europe. Economics of all of those things scales with population density, and you just can't get around it without having population centers consisting of dense yet quite affordable to build - 5-15 stories high buildings (with best walking and cycling access to schools, healthcare, shops, restaurants, services etc) surrounded by 2-4 stories high less dense buildings areas with lesser, but still good access to the above usually with the use of a variety of public transport and private transport sharing (bikes, cars, scooters etc) and normal private transport (with the normal assumption that only desperate people take a car into the city). And only around that area, can you have a suburbs "donut" of low density single family homes - but to make that area economically viable, city should only provide electricity, water, and main roads - side connecting end roads should be the homeowners problem (like in Europe), and a full blown sewage system could only be available within few miles of higher density city areas, as to not need additional pumping stations - or if the single family homes residential areas were located at a reasonably higher elevation than the densely populated city areas (and thus, not needing additional pumping stations for sewage systems - without that, maintenance and operation costs of those would be way too high to be economical - Rolly made a video on this subject quite some time ago already).
As an European I always wondered why US Americans are getting upset about socialised health care, not noticing that they have socialised parking, socialised refill of beverage, etc.
The “Red Scare” really did a number on us. For a lot of people here the thinking goes:
1. Communism will destroy the world
2. Socialism is just Communism with a modern twist
Therefore socialized anything is viewed as a policy that will topple the economy and bring the united states to it’s knees. Bonus points for crazy religious people who believe that Communism is of Satan and so affordable healthcare for the middle class = satan infiltrating the halls of government.
Socialised defence, socialised bankruptcy protection for billion dollar businesses...
Etc
Paying for healthcare 😡
Paying for public transit 🤬
Paying for roads ❤
@@Nota-Skavenha you think that money goes to roads....
I wish it did.😓
@@Nota-Skaven just one more lane
I'm a retired nature center director. We had a grass-topped overflow parking area. It was the best location for me to install a solar array. So I installed an elevated solar array high enough to accommodate a school bus. The shaded parking became very popular for everyone to park beneath. Yes, it cost more to install an elevated array, but it also eliminated a need for a safety fence to keep people away from the direct current coming off the array. In addition, putting the array over a parking area kept us from shrinking the green footprint of the nature center land. This topic is worth covering in a future video. I've seen people greatly exaggerate the cost of elevated arrays above parking. At least part of the cost can be justified as a visitor amenity.
I took the initiative of emailing every member of my hometown’s city council (a Dallas suburb) about this video, and one of them responded to say he fully agrees and is already looking into the issue. Progress!
as a swiss i think you guys are praised with huge parking lots. in switzerland you pay 12 dollars per hour for parking in the city. and the parking spaces are barely wide enough to squeeze trough the door when getting out of the car. but you need to be early, after 11.00am you are too late and cannot park at all because there are way less parking spots than actually needed. and there are only centralized parking spots. you cannot park in front of the store.
i would love to have actually space for cheap parking.
or you park in the blue parking spots. but this is only allowed for 1 hour. then you must repark the car(police and security patrols trough from time to time and mark the tires with chalk...
and as a construction worker you are able to get a special very expensive parking card that allows you to park in forbidden parking spots(yellow parking space with an x on it) but they are rare and if you are not early in the morning you dont get one. and you need to walk a lot because they are never at the place you actually need to work on.
and you have a lot of parking traffic(people roaming trogh the city searching for a spot)
i will never understand why you want less parking space. having not enough is a million times worst. please dont give up your freedom to be able to park your car.
My understanding is we aren’t aiming to rely on cars anyway. We shouldn’t have to deal with large sprawling parking lots or small hard to get spots. The goal is to have a walkable city that doesn’t rely on personal use transit to get groceries. Eliminating large scale parking is merely a stepping stone in the direction of a less car based society. Alongside the negative effects climate wise. Living in arizona in the us is pretty tough with massive parking lots as these square mile black squares provide an immense amount of excess heat that IS NOT needed when it’s already 120 degrees out.
unfortunately, “i will look into it” is equivalent to “ok cool i dont care”
Well I'll email my members (Dallas suburb) and not recommend this video because there is absolutely no parking. It's to the point that on weekends people are parking on the street to go to the grocery store or they drop someone off and then drive around the block over and over and over and over until they need to pick up the person they dropped off. Goto Walmart on a weekend parking lot is 100% full, go inside and there aren't even leaves lines at the self checkout because the parking lot is too small.
@@mrdonetxthis feels like such a privileged gripe. At least you have the option of driving around until that person is done shopping, whereas some of us walk to and from the grocery store 🤷 and it’s crazy cuz even tho the time spent to get places is cut in half BECAUSE you have a car, you people are STILL always in a rush. What else do you want?
I’ve been saying for years that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of our finest documentaries on the destruction of the LA transit system. I can’t believe we picked freeways over toon town. 😢
an oft overlooked masterpiece
RIP Toon Town
IIRC it was roughly based on a sequel to Chinatown. If you haven't seen it, also an American classic.
As a Canadian that occasionally visits the U.S. out of necessity, and maybe this is hard to hear, but I fully believe that Americans would just pave over Toon Town for a few bucks. You guys run a dirty, cruelty-oriented, angry and mean-spirited nation. There is litter everywhere, constant horn honking for no reason and just severe attitude problems all over the place.
Even the most basic appeal for empathy or even just basic professionalism is too often met with, 'PFFT, STOP BEING WOKE. MY GENDER IS A LIFT KIT FOR MY DODGE RAM, LOL!'
Rather embarassing, IMHO, and just zero excuse for it when countries with a fraction of a fraction of the U.S.'s wealth or standard of living index have a more positive culture, more constructive approaches to environmental stewardship, etc.
@@ItWasSaucerShaped I would ask what part of US/Canada are you spending this time in, but that is a bit unfair to ask of random internet person.
For a while I lived in Northern North Dakota and visited Winnipeg on a regular basis. It was the closest major city. Also lived in many other US states and cities, and visited other Canadian cities and don't see what you are largely talking about.
Litter varies wildly in the US. Cities tend to be worse than country. High density subs seem to be the worst. Otherwise, some cities are awful, but many it is a minor issue. I was in Chicago a few weeks ago. I didn't think of it at the time but surprisingly little litter. If you think it is bad you should have seen it 30, 40, 50+ years ago.
Yes, US cities are full of assholes, but Canadian cities aren't absent of them either, it only takes a few. Some US cities (NY, sorry) are worse than Canada, but most seem to be on par. In rural areas, I see little to no difference. People can be standoffish to outsiders, but the disgust and cheapness toward human life that is normal in cities is gone.
The gender lift kit, is a bit; funny, offensive, and a perfectly reasonable response to people that take cake gender seriously.
Also, horn honking is rare in most of the US. I would guess I hear one less than once a month.
As for professionalism, I find Canadian lack of forthcoming bluntness and urgency to be detrimental to business, and I can see the reverse being seen as offensive. Eh, different values/sensitivities.
The one thing about parking & the lack of public transport in the US that's always confused me is stadiums. In Melbourne, Australia you can drive to the stadiums but there's limited parking (costs a fair bit as well) and there's major train stations only a few minute walk from the 2 major stadiums. Getting home can be a bit annoying since you may not get a seat on the train but they run frequent enough to where you can just catch the next one. It's a much better experience than just being stuck in a car
This sort of reminds me of a weird problem there in in Wrocław in Poland. There is a stadium with fairly large parking lot. The problem is that infrastructure is not made for this. You can get there by train and there is train station nearby but barely anything actually gets there and if you'd want to park somewhere further away and get there by train, good luck. There's no special service during events, those trains will not move even a 5% of guests. So most people drive there by car but the traffic is so bad, that it is literally clogging the whole highway going around the city with causes gigantic traffic jam in the whole region. But they are smart! They figured out that they can just close the exit from highway to the stadium so that the traffic is offloaded through two exits and through the city. You can imagine what a mess that is every time there's a big event. I was unlucky enough that I lived fairly close to the stadium. Even though normal commuting was 20 minutes in one direction, when there was an even on the stadium it could easily get to 2 hour commute just to get back home. I often just gave out and went on a beer with someone to wait through the traffic and get back home at night.
Probably the ideal solution to places like that is having park'n'ride hub. Even better if you have multiple facilities like this. Let's say an airport, a few different stadiums and even a direct connection from park'n'ride to the city center. One gigantic, well organized parking lot that connects all most frequently visited places so that people can quickly leave the car there and take a public transportation.
Same in Brisbane: our main two stadiums have almost zero parking but are super close to train and bus stations. Events generally have included public transport and usually extra services. I survived without a car for years, I got one because of the pandemic and it's a pita. It's great to just leave it at home, I'm lucky enough to have a bus stop less than 100m and an express train station less than 3km away.
Better public transport with less population adds to the effect
The population argument makes no sense my man, it's always the same thing 'america is bigger so we need cars'. There are several well made videos online like this one that explain that all americans do is find excuses (98%) and make alot of money. (top 2%)@@wobblysauce
Same here in Sydney. There’s a train station directly across from the stadium, and they come every few minutes. It’s actually a very fun part of the experience being on the train with hundreds of happy fans.
You could literally make a 20 hour long video on all the issues we face and corruption and root causes, and all the stupidity we still deal with on a day to day.
I've been reading and researching so much about what you and many other people are saying about how the country is run, how to even fix some of these issues. It's astounding how far down the rabbit hole you end up once you start connecting the dots between everything.
We need people like you in politics, not just making youtube videos. We need people knowledgeable and ready to make changes, not old people set in their ways and unwilling to budge. I'd do the job of a politician for free if given the chance, simply because I want to see people happier and not suffering. I'd prefer not to.. as would most people, but if that's what it took. Sacrifice like that, to do a job like this. I'd do it without hesitation.
I advise anyone reading this comment to start spreading the word about youtube channels, articles that people should read. Strong towns, Not Just Bikes, USA Mom in Germany. (probably some others I can't remember right now) The more people that know this stuff, the sooner and easier change can start happening, because people will ask for it. SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE. This is serious stuff that impacts our day to day, and our countries can all improve for the better.
I'm tired of seeing seas of asphalt that only serve to be an empty eyesore, and the cause of higher local temperatures. The walmart in my small 4000 person town has enough parking spots to probably fit half the vehicles in this place. I'm not even joking either. And at night, there is so much light from the parking lot lights, that we get skyglow from it. A town of 4000 people can't even see the night sky. This shit has got to end.
We already have too many of idealistic fools like this guy in politics. Which is hy e have clogged up commuter roads ith bike lanes, 40 kmh speed limits, and other ''road calming" ideas that just slo traffic and p2ss off drivers.
On a hot day, the difference in air temp between a parking lot surface vs a large patch of grass and woods can be easily demonstrated with a regular thermometer-- the difference can easily be 5 - 8 Fahrenheit degrees.
Only 5-8°F? I challenge that claim! I would imagine it’s around 20°F hotter.
@@nickthompson1812 these temperature readings are always done in the shade. The thing is, there's rarely much shade for anyone in a parking lot so you're just exposed to direct sunlight which will make it feel hotter.
@@jonasnisse4257not asphalt is insanely hot in the summer. Like burn your fucking feet hot.
Grass is evaporating moisture out so it’s like 90F.
5-8? Lol
I did a research paper on urban heat islands! We need more trees and natural canopy, fewer impermeable/non-reflective surfaces, more air-to-ground heat pumps, and even aerodynamic buildings that allow air to properly pass thru cities. I hope you make a video on it soon!
Oh, and the impacts of urban heat often impact those most disadvantaged economicly and kids have the worst access to green spaces to cool off. Curiously, the heat impact on the elderly largely depends on the city and is likely dependent on wealth.
I raised the issue of arbitrariness of parking minimums and asked where they got the when our city redid its comp plan and zoning laws a couple years ago. When I asked the consultant where they got the numbers, they essentially conceded the point but said "This is the best we've got." So we've got urban planning professionals (who, by the way, used all the right words about walkable communities) knowingly using unfounded recommendations only because there's nothing else. Depressing.
You don't need a complex formula to work out the right level of parking minimum. The obvious and simple answer is 0. Let businesses decide how many they need. The only reason to require parking is to avoid customers parking in the street. The best way to avoid that is to provide park and ride for out of towners and transit inside. The alternative is to charge high prices for street parking.
@@adrianthoroughgood1191
"Let them self regulate" leads to all manner of exploits. Off the top of my head, I imagine that crafty businesses would build their business near to a completely non-related business, that has lots of parking and rely on this already existing car park to service their customers too, rather than building a car park of their own. That's great from a utilitarian point of view, but it's likely to cause various friction and strife between these two businesses. Likely also, to result in any number of legal challenges and court appearances in relation to the use of that car park. On top of that, other exploits are likely to result in their own unique forms of strife. After a decade of self-regulation, parking is likely to be optimal, from the perspective of the consumer, but is also likely to be the final nail in the coffin of small and medium businesses.
@@Raz.C this is not how that works
@BluePieNinjaTV
Do you have any reason why we should believe that? Do you have any supporting evidence for your assertion? Or are you using the time honoured source of "Trust me, bro!" to legitimise your claim?
@@Raz.C What a self-inflicted problem. It would only cause 'strife and friction' if the business owner had some weird fixation about where the owners of a car go after parking in their carpark. Imagine being that possessive of a piece of tarmac? Of course, it's a failing of most Americans that, whenever they see their property might be shared with others, they rush to a court to file a lawsuit. The inability to share in a commonwealth is a deeper issue influencing nearly all of America's ills. If it bothers someone that much, why not just sell the carpark to the local council, or not build them and allow the council to build public parking - or even better, a functioning bus service, like civilised countries?
I write zoning regulations, but have to put LIMITS on parking lots because many developers and major retailers want to build 50% more spaces than necessary so that on the busiest shopping day of the year (black Friday), shoppers will see available spaces and still come to shop. I don’t require minimum parking in downtowns or urban areas. Many urban planners are trying to undo the seas of parking.
We had an issue recently with this where my church was looking at buying some land so we could expand. But the city was going to require and astronomical amount of parking to the point where half the land was going to be parking! We were not going to be able to go forward with the land purchase. Luckily the city has recently indicated they will be doing away with parking minimums!
Love that, Kelsey!! Have you checked out our action playbook in the description yet? I think your elected representatives at the state level should hear your anecdote -- it'd really resonate and help build up the case for doing away with parking minimums state-wide.
@@theclimatevote
No. Minimums are there for a reason.
@@jamesclint2279Yeah a reason that's no longer existent.
@@HTV-2_Hypersonic_Glide_Vehicle
Sure. I’m just going to stores to buy nothing.
@@jamesclint2279 What?
No stronger indicator you took the orange pill than being very excited to watch a 30 min Climate Town video on parking.
Been waiting for this my whole life.
"I'm aware you didn't have 'watch a punishingly long parking video' on your agenda today."
Actually I've seen enough NJB and strongtowns that this is the top of my agenda today.
@@will7873 Yes, I specifically set aside time in my day to watch this.
🍊 I'm back for more 😎
Everything is turning orange
Wtf is the "orange pill"? This is my first time seeing that term.
When I moved to the US from Europe this hellscape of parking lots was one of the first thing that stood out to me
I kind of had the reverse experience. Spent several months in Europe for work and the first couple days I was constantly thinking, “wait where’s all the parking?!?”
Didn’t know it at the time, but a huge part of what I liked about my time there was how large sections of the city weren’t deserts for parking.
Why would you ever move to the US from Europe tho?
@@razorwireclouds5708You realize that Bosnia is in Europe, right?
Same crap in Canada. Carcentric as heck, super complicated and lengthy to go anywhere even within the city (I mostly try to walk, as streetcars often don’t show up) It’s unbelievable that is aspect of their lifestyle is unknown abroad.
Great video. I live in Nuevo León, a big industrial state in Mexico, and being a 3rd world country neighboring a 1st world country, almost everyone thinks copying everything from the US is a good thing.
Everyone complains about car traffic but we just keep building more 6 or 8 lane roads and giant parking lots (even our governor said his goal is making our city look like Texas), but I barely hear anyone talking about how that just makes our problems worse.
Definitively, we need more content like this and educate people about how car dependency is destroying our cities and doesn't improve life quality.
Mexico is not a 3rd world country the usa is a 4th or 5th world country.
@@daedelus6602 I don´t think it works that way, but definitely we´re going backwards in North America when talking about urban engineering.
What makes parking lots even more asinine is the fact that they usually don't connect the parking lot that is adjacent to it!
Wough wough, that would be moving in on the responsibility of the street - couldn't do that
Buy a truck. Curbs are easy to jump
In Canada they do, it's honestly stupid they don't in the US
@@coastaku1954 Lots don't in Canada either - there's some dumbass concrete barrier or a chainlink fence, or a drainage ditch between parking lots, and you have to drive in a big stupid backwards and circuitous way to get from one parking lot to another
@@gorak9000 I just accept it for what it is, try it sometime. Status Quo is the best way to go
Housing/planning always breaks people's brains. People who are normally against the government interfering in private business become so pro government the second you propose getting rid of parking minimums or single family zoning.
As well as a bunch of other areas. People who are "anti government" are only anti government when it suits them.
that's because conservatives really aren't conservative, just selfish. they want no rules when it's a rule they don't like, but they're always ready to force you to do what they want.
It shouldn't matter if you're anti-government (like me). We should face the repercussions of not being able to control people's lives arbitrarily and actually live freely. Stop putting people in charge of societal wide decisions who don't have any actual financial stake in the result of those decisions. Do you think private businesses would have overbuilt these parking lots on their own? Nope. It comes down to the phrase used in the video: unintended consequences, which is what happens when you let government bureaucrats let private businesses offload business costs onto taxpayers.
How is backing govt removing laws they put in place "pro government" if there was no govt there would be no parking minimums or single family zoning.
Your argument is backwards and makes no sense. How is decentralizing and privatizing going to lead to more central planning and action? It’s nonsense
I was today years old when I learned that they really DID pave over paradise to put up a parking lot.
I am constantly thinking of the millions of miles of nature that was destroyed in order to make a big flat patch of rock for no one to use more than 10 minutes. It's disgusting and frustrating.
Pinhead Gunpowder?
Minimum parking laws are preventing a friend of mine from building a new store for the buisness they own. They live and work in a pretty small town, and that town, on top of the nensense parking laws, says they need to put 15 trees on the lot they bought because 50 years ago, a gas station was there. There isn't enough space for that, so the lot just sits empty while their current location continues to be too small for their expanding business.
As someone who comes from a city that is now mostly wall to wall parking lots with a few buildings here and there, this content needs to spread far and wide. How did we think this was ok?
Because Americans are taught to hate mass transit in our own cities and towns. It’s in our DNA. However, we love going to parts of Europe and Asia and marvel at their mass transit systems but we are programmed to think it can’t work here because our country is too big. It’s diabolical.
Because there wasn't a conscious choice being made. We were far more interested in "me me me" and getting from point a to point b without thinking about it. It's a shame the auto-lobby won
A lot of this is the unknown becoming known. A lot of why newer generations harp on the older ones, which I find interesting.
there is a certain creature that walks on two legs and goes among humans, they certainly aren't human, but they fool fools and fit into places of power to ruin the world for all people.
it doesn't have to stay that way forever
Australian here, 20 odd years ago, there was a small grocery store with so much parking that even during the busy Xmas period, the parking was only one third filled, thankfully the store was made bigger and four extra shops were added by using up some of that parking space, now the remaining parking spaces gets full half of the time and it isn't too hard to walk to either.
2/3rds of landspace is absolutely insane. Just thinking about the difference a few trains could do is making my head spin.
Gotta say, I never realized things were close to this bad in the US.
When you start looking for all the car-centric policies in the US you start to see them EVERYWHERE. It's pretty mind boggling how fixated US culture was(and still is) on the automobile. Outside of urban areas you'll rarely see electric vehicles or anything other than a truck or massive SUV. No joke, in 2022 over 70% of all vehicles sold in the US were trucks or SUVs.
Something this video doesn't touch on either is the car culture here in the US is also a class and wealth statement. I traveled in Europe when I was younger and was shocked that everyone drove what we would call a 'beater' car here in the US and everyone's bumpers have traded paint from smushing their cars in while parallel parking. Here in the US if you just touch another person's car with your car and they're going to scream at you and call their insurance company to fix the damage. It's more than just transportation here; it's also a statement about 'who you are' if that means anything.
@@RossGoneRogueDepends what country you're in. What you're saying may be true in France and Spain, but it's not at all true in Germany, Switzerland, Romania, etc. Go to Munich and you'll see high end cars in pristine condition.
@@razorwireclouds5708 not arguing that doesn't exist, but I noticed it skews much more toward budget cars. To be fair I mostly saw this in France and Germany in Cologne. It's a different perspective. Maybe people just say "well it's a Renault so who cares" lol
@@CRneu Even in Urban areas, you might see mostly truck or a massive SUVs if you live in the south like I do. People love living out their "country" lifestyle in the city for some reasons.. It would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating seeing those trucks take up two parking spots because of how ridiculously wide and long they are without a bed that would actually justify it.
The only place I’ve ever been that could possibly have benefited from more parking was the local auto shop I worked at.
Luckily, the CVS next-door had enough.
And as always, every Walmart, I go to has at most a half full parking lot, and is usually about 80% empty
This is another example of how politics pander to rich, who uses public transit? Who owned cars? Who makes up congress? Car owners.
Now even cars are for the poors, I exclusively travel small distances in a helicopter piloted by my butler to avoid the peasantman’s traffic squabbles
@@druxpack8531The reason why it's like that is because of what OP mentioned. Not just owners, I'd like to add, but pro-car and anti-public transit lobbyists as well. What you've mentioned is rolled into the considerations of channels like this one. I urge you to not take what OP said as a knock against you, and more as one against the system.
I literally don't understand why y'all don't have more viewers and subscribers. You're always funny, dependable and informative.
RUclips algorithm doesn't show off the channel very much.
Because thankfully enough people still have the intelligence not to join the insanely stupid "anti-car movement".
Most of us don't want to live in actual ghettos masquerading as "15 minute cities". People are not meant to live on top of one another like animals. Urbanization and centralization of population cause severe psychological issues in humans, which is why major cities are turning into abject hell holes.
That is the goal with channels like this. Propagandize the gullible into thinking being packed into a ghetto and taking mass transit has something to do with protecting the environment, when it's really about population control.
If you want to protect the environment, move out of your big cities and suburbs and live on a small self sustaining farm.
Probably because the whiny, self-righteous, Canadian expat format has been done to death..
@@Simplicimus1945 Hi big oil
@@Simplicimus1945 ewe you give me the Ick. You seem like someone who sucks to be around. I've watched every video and never once felt they pushed the Canadian thing or that they were whiny. You understand these are all discussing issues right? Gonna guess you're a man since you think talking about important issues is whiny. It's informative 🥱 EDIT: Self righteous? There is an issue, it's explained in detail and made consumable without lies or omission so that anyone from any background can understand it and then a solution is proposed? I don't think you know what being self righteous means.
So proud Burlington, VT eliminated parking minimums! Hopefully other Vermont cities (and cities nationwide) follow soon
Thank goodness there's a robust public transportation system there for people who come from out of town.
It sucks balls to not have parking minimums. In Baltimore trying to find a place to park is next to impossible .
@@CodyWBrownpublic transportation is trash. It does nothing but bring filth out of the city and into the county's. Take the light rail to a ravens game or to any event really. It'll make you hate it with all the trash that rides it.
Hell yea!
@@CodyWBrownEliminating legally mandated parking requirements entirely is not the same thing as eliminating parking itself entirely 🤡
I’m having a really sad day, and honestly hearing you say “William nilliam” made me smile and laugh when I really do not feel like it
Thanks for being you and bringing your sense of humor into these educational videos
Continue to be blown away with your production value.
I continue to be blown away by his sarcasm value - it's off the f'in charts and I love it. The only YT videos that consistently *literally* make me laugh out loud as I watch them.
I highly recommend anyone out there watching this reach out to their local city council members with the link in the description. The prompt given is pretty easy to follow, as is finding your local representatives. I reached out to my local city council (something I've never done, didn't even know who they were before), and actually received a response back and an acknowledgement that this would be brought up during the city's next Comprehensive Plan meeting. Something small, but enough pushing like this really can effect change.
Beyond the incredibly relevant subject matter and immaculate writing, just the sheer consciousness with which you create content is staggering. The team or individuals behind this project are incredibly talented! Please keep making the world a better place!
They're conscious as fuck! I would even rate them a 15 on the Glasgow Coma Scale! 😂
For those interested: The Soviet music playing at 20:33 is the song "Путь далек у нас с тобою" - "The road is long for you and for me", often also translated as just "On the road" or "En route".
Why am i not surprised this video includes a soviet-era song.
@@user-hm5zb1qn6g If you are referencing the fact that climate change is mostly taken serious by the political left, and often denied by the political right, and the USSR being often perceived as a politically left leaning state, then... Well it's complicated.
While it is true that the political left is on the side of climate science, equating that left with the politics of the USSR is very problematic. Large swaths of the (far) left are very critical of the Soviet Union and it's legacy. Stemming from the fact that the Soviet state was socially very conservative, even reactionary on many social issues. Soviet society was rife with xenophobia and racism towards non-Russian minorities, and on climate issues in particular the Soviet Union did not have the best track record to say the least. Furthermore, it's authoritarian and undemocratic political system is very contrary to the liberatory goals the (far) left has at it's core. Yes, there are some on the left who defend the USSR, but one should not make the simple equation of "left leaning politics=a love for the Soviet state". As indeed large parts of the political left are critical, even hostile to the USSR and it's politics. Both back then and now.
I love that you have to get rid of the customers living next to your business to actually open a business which then people will only be able to come to mostly from afar by car.
It may sound funny but it makes perfect sense. If you have 20 families living next door and each goes to your restaurant once a week, you have 20 customers a week. Let's add bunch of other housing withing walking distance and you will get maybe 100-200 customers a week. That's assuming that they all will be dining out each week and always go to your restaurant which is not the case. Probably less than half will actually be dining out and most of them will not visit you more than once a month. So more realistically you will have 10 customers a month from that apartment building and another 50-100 customers from walking distance. A month. Make a parking spot and now your guests can come even from another state knowing that they can park in front of your restaurant. Although the parking does not necessarily have to be in front of your restaurant and this law is sort of stupid, there should be a way of getting customers to your establishment without clogging the area. This means that any arbitrary type of consumer should be able to get there somehow in reasonable manner. For example park on a public parking lot that has certain amount of spaces assigned to you or maybe to use park'n'ride in the city that will get them to your establishment in 5 minutes from the parking lot. It can be done better, the parking does not have to be next door but it surely has to be somewhere.
From within the city they should be getting there by bus tram or metro. From another city by train to this city then one of the above to the restaurant. Only people from rural areas need to drive and they should be driving to a park and ride on the edge of the city.
The only exception to this should be people who can't walk well enough to use public transport, and even then most of it is wheelchair accessible. Taxis are always an option and they don't need parking.
@ This is conventional wisdom, but I find it to be bs. There are already so many parking spots that I seriously doubt that building additional ones induce any demand. For example many customers, businesses, and cities have loved the switch from street parking to outdoor dining due to coronavirus, and have kept it indefinitely. Under car propaganda logic, those lost parking spots should have cost the businesses customers rather than attract more!
@@adrianthoroughgood1191 This is quite common misconception, I'll probably repeat what I've wrote in a few other places. Public transportation is not really about distance, it's about density. You need certain amount of people in the area to justify the expense. Otherwise it is simply too expensive to run. People from rural villages often have better connection that people on far suburbs. In rural areas you will often find small village where quite a lot of people are within walking distance to the bus stop. In suburbs you have lots of people spread so far apart, each stop would barely serve someone. It's not maintainable. The whole point of having individual car is to be able to drive on rarely used routes. If you can drive your car to some gathering point and then switch to public transport - that's great. But it has to be designed this way.
Taxis are not a solution neither. They provide better "on demand" transportation that does not have to be maintained when not used but they still have to cover additional distance to get somewhere and the lower density you have, the more distance you have to travel between customers. This means that you will often have to drive twice the distance which is not better than building underground garage.
@@imacds Whatever you say has no value if you don't refer to particular place. The same way I can say that there is so little parking space, I often had to walk 10-15 minutes from parking to a restaurant, barber or other place simply because they did not have enough parking spots for their customers. We can just throw examples at each other, it's a futile discussion. If everyone thinks "hey, I'll just use parking spots from others", then there will be no parking spot at all.
Its striking how many friends and family from the countryside both simultaneously love and hate urban areas because of parking lots and similar things. Their vision of America is one where they can drive into town on well-maintained roads and then quickly find adequate parking. They love the convenience while also recognizing that it just makes towns so unlovable and ugly. Unfortunately they often just dismiss the issue by saying "I couldn't live in a place like this. How could anyone?"
Yea when we create assumptions about what society needs we often do it in a selfish way by wanting what makes our specific situation the easiest.
But then we suck at realizing that everyone else is doing the same exact thing. So when you stack all those selfish decisions on top of each other you get these horribly car centric cities.
there is still this ridiculous stigma in america that if your using public transport your poor and you've failed, it's extremely prevalent inn the suburbs and it's toxic as all hell.
As someone that grew up in the suburban sprawl of Southern California and now lives in rural ass, middle of nowhere Maine, I 100% do not miss urban areas. Having been lucky enough to travel outside the continent has furthered my urge to leave the US for better shores. (Along with countless other reasons like political divides, occurrence of mass shootings, lobbyists and such)
*AS A EUROPEAN* I am often struck by the thought that America literally built the worst of al possible futures for its self - literally AND metaphorically
Seriously in every single way they fucked it up
The darkest timeline if you will.
Still better than your nations history. Addressing the problem is a good step.
They somehow managed to do city planning even worse than it was done in soviet union and other commie states. Which is impressive achievement, actually. There's not a lot things which you can screw up more than commies did.
My small downtown isn't bad in this regard...but outside downtown are the large box stores with massive parking lots
There's a failed Mormon church in my town with a vast sea of empty asphalt around it. My friend wanted to build a small law office and was told that he needed 15 parking spaces ... when his business rarely uses more than 2!
I hate car-based cities. And sadly more cities in the world are becoming more and more car-dependent. Thanks for this vid, really shows how scary and dystopian our lives already are
Agreed.
Laughs in European
@@digitalbrentabledon't laugh, Europe ain't safe. Stay vigilant
@@Daedalus117many cities in Europe are eliminating cars from accessing city centers entirely
@@jaroslavsvaha6065 many isn't all of em. It's definitely good though.
Fun fact: back in the 20’s, it was illegal to own a private motor vehicle in nyc unless you paid for a private garage to park it in, off the street.
There are still examples of these garages in the outer boroughs. There’s one on ovington ave in bay ridge, if it hasn’t been redeveloped yet.
Could probly rent it out for $8,500 a month, unfurnished.
15:25 Actually this makes sense. The more employees you have at the store, the less space there is for customers. At some point, there is no space for customers at all anymore, so you won't need any parking space 👍
I think there’s also honestly a point at which effective service in a store reduced the amount of time a customer needs to spend there. If everything is clean, well stocked, organized, with available help for finding what you need and cashiers to keep people from waiting…well yeah I can see why parking wouldn’t really build up. It’s not like people NEED To spend a long time in a retail environment, most of the time.
@@PeachNEPTRthat was my thoughts exactly. more employees reduce the time people will spent in the store, so you would need less parking lots.
One thing I worry about is the implications of less parking. I know in San Diego they took some parking out and built bike lanes but they are hardly used. The other unintended consequence is that when parking is too expensive. The side effect is that parking fees are going through the roof because they are letting companies like Ace Parking, Central Parking, ParkMobile, and others take over and they jack up the parking prices anytime there is an event to levels that are rediciolous.
As to building housing with less parking, the problem is that there is not enough public transit infastructure. There are many areas of town including those in high income neighborhoods, suburban areas, and rural areas that have no public transit. I think before raising parking prices and tearing up the parking, they need to start by building electric trolley lines with a stop in every neighborhood where no one has to walk more than a mile to gain access to a trolley line. They should also add bus stops to more rural areas.
I think we are putting the parking bulldozers before the trolleys here. In my opinion, I would wait till the trolley lines are built and the bus systems are built up enough that people can get to most areas of a city before bulldozing the parking.
train and trolley stops need to be located:
* At least one trolley stop In each residential neighborhood or within one mile of a residential subdivision.
* In each major shopping district or shopping mall
* In each business park district, tech center, or other high-rise or corporate office-type areas
* Near All Colleges and Universities
* Near Hospitals and Health Care Facilities
* Near Nursing homes and elder care facilities
* Near Stadiums, Concert Halls, Entertainment districts, performing arts venues, dining districts, convention centers, amusement parks, tourist attractions, conference centers, hotels, or other facilities that involve large group crowds.
We need to build in residential neighborhoods shuttle buses that transport people to and from the trolley station to stops in the neighborhood (such as by your nearest park, nearest K-12 school, nearest church, or other community places within walking distance from suburban housing.
* Some people may need free un-metered parking. These should include those with disabilities who are unable to walk long distances, in wheelchairs, those with caregivers, ambulances, police, fire, and others.
* Free or low cost Unlimited time parking may be needed in some areas such as for those commuting from rural areas and those areas with very limited or no public transit infrastructure and that bike, trolley, scooter, and bus are not viable options.
San Diego definitely does not have an underutilized parking problem
Especially in Downtown. In fact there is not enough of it.
As a low income person who cannot afford a car, I look forward to better city transit with buses that accommodate people who cannot easily hop up the bus stairs.
I know you made this comment a while back, its got a lot of good ideas! It hits the chicken and egg problem though. Why build transit if we don't have the density? And, we can't build density if we don't have the transit. So TOD is a big part of correcting that, build them together where you can. But Infill developments can be a win too. A lot of these big struggling Malls are converting to Lifestyle centers. Well those extra parking areas can become low rise apartments.
Building tram lines require land. The more logical approach would be to use some of the parking lot area for that - wherever possible, hence this has to be a planned and coordinated process.
Trams, subways, local trains. Which concept is chosen or whatever it's called is not important, but building public transportation is key to solve a lot of these issues. Many places, using feeder buses that bring you to the main train line is also a feasible solution.
Whether the dwellers will be able to change their mindset from using a car for everything into using public transportation is a different matter.
This is quite possibly the only video giving Fayetteville credit for being the first town to remove minimum parking requirements.
the video strong towns has on them also gives them credit IIRC
Also probably the first time, anything good has been said about Fayetteville
@@blastermanr6359 Also one of the only times anything has been said about Fayetteville, period.
In Czechia we're also getting lots of parking lots like this in cities. A huge difference is that we don't actually build parking lots, but rather just repurpose pavements that aren't strong enough to support the weight of the cars so our city streets are slowly falling apart.
Another good song about parking lots taking over cities is My City Was Gone by The Pretenders. It’s an Ohio native telling how when they returned to their hometown buildings were destroyed and replaced by parking leaving their childhood memories unrecognizable.
Forty one years old and still as relevant.
Malaysian here, we are car centric too, most of our parkings, apart from on street parking owned by the government, are multistorey parking complexes.
Why does American business dont build those, instead they use such a large plot of land inefficiently
Don’t forget how stressful parking lots can be! I’ve been replacing a lot of my car travel with my e bike recently which includes my grocery trips.
This has allowed me to avoid the absolutely clusterf**k that is the Trader Joe’s parking lot. It’s amazing how stress free grocery shopping can be when it doesn’t start and end with you wondering if you’re about to run over a small child!
Hi!
Cool if you can find a place to safely park a bike.
That's my problem too. Evehicle Parking for bikes, onewheels, eucs is sketchy enough a lot of people just end up taking their car or taking their device inside with them
@@abandoninplace2751 I’m actually planning to eventually make a video on bike parking in the future!
What I’ve found with this particular store is that it’s not an issue because they have several “U racks” by the grocery cart storage and the front entrance. So they’re both high traffic enough areas that I feel safe locking my bike there for the 20-30 minutes that I’m gone.
I don’t have a cargo bike yet so I’m unsure how much that will change things when I ultimately get one. Currently, panniers which are special built for groceries have been letting me carry two full bags which covers about half a week’s worth of groceries.
In the event that we want to get a whole week’s worth then my wife brings her bike and we bring another set of panniers.
So yea, my situation works super well for me but obviously your mileage may vary depending on your own factors. Luckily, my city is actively pushing businesses to reduce the amount of car parking that they offer while increasing the amount of bike parking so maybe I’ll avoid this ever becoming an issue!
100%!! I replaced my car this year with an ebike. I'm saving my money, my time, and my sanity by biking instead of driving everywhere. Its amazing how stress free it is to pull right up next to the entrance, whip out my bike lock and waltz right into any store. BTW my commute is 11 miles, and none of that is bike lanes.
I do really like how you sprinkle humor into the script! It's absurd, high-effort, and effective.
its the only way to effectively deal with the absurdity of life
I don't know who you are, why this was in my feed, or really why I even clicked it and sat through it all. But I am glad I did. You made what would otherwise be an incredibly boring subject interesting and informative. I'll give you a thumbs up for keeping me engaged for 30 minutes.
And hopefully now a little disgusted when you see these seas of asphalt. Ignorance kept me so happy.
Give your editor a raise, this was spectacularly well done!
I was surprised to learn that parking rules factor in employees. At my old work we were actually required to park essentially as far away as possible in the very back of the parking lot. We would then have to walk across the large, empty parking lot to the side door (unless security happened to be doing their rounds, then we could hitch a ride on the golf cart).
Why didn't you band together with colleagues and say "no"? Just make sure you also band together with other similar companies so they cannot fire you least they run out of personel. Just combine your forces together and say that you now run the company until they fulfill your demand.
@@pulli23 Lack of class consciousness on the part of us and union busing on the part of ABM. Best we could do was take home small amounts of toilet paper.
@@pulli23
You're thinking like a union member. How un-American of you! 😂
it seems insane that at the very least they wouldn't have let buisnesses pool their parking spots- like even if you think it's neccessary for parking lots to be required surely you'd recognise that a bakery and a bar have very different hours?!
some places do have agreements for this, it's called simply "shared parking"!
The minimum requirements are certainly off for the big box stores. My local Walmart lot is at most half full 364 days a year, only reaching "full" once a year. Even that didn't happen last year (and might not in the future as black Friday dies). Bed, Bath, and Beyond was the worst culprit in my area. Never had more that 10% of their lot occupied at any given time.
It's even more ridiculous now that most stores stretch out stuff like black friday and boxing day sales to a whole week to avoid the gong show of having crazy sales for just one day.
But you'll still hear people bitch about 'not finding a good parking spot' when half the lot is empty, because they don't want to walk through the very thing they are asking for more of.
As black friday dies and as more and more shopping is done online.
@@DomenBremecXCVIBlack Friday also makes businesses lose money. Giving discounts should be done after Christmas, not before. However businesses are forced to give discounts because otherwise the customer will simply shop at another store that gives them
I'm surprised that business owners in the US haven't complained more about these crazy minimum parking requirements because it's a major business cost for them. And a giant parking lot that is only 20% full doesn't send a good signal either.
But if there wasn't all that empty space in the parking lot, where would the RV's and travel trailers park? Where would walmart store their collection of 20 sea cans of seasonal crap that sits out there for months before they bring it inside? Where would all the homeless people coalesce??
There’s another relevant Michael Caine quote, from “The Holcroft Covenant.” I can’t remember the exact line, but it goes something like: “These homes are being advertised as being only 90 minutes from 42nd Street. This is a lie. The only thing that’s 90 minutes from 42nd Street is 43rd Street.”
It would be great if there was PARK minimums. Developers should have to create green space next to their high density buildings.
This is genius. Have you contacted your city yet with our playbook linked in the description? If not, you have to include this idea! It's funny, attention-grabbing, and so true.
Grew up in rural areas and ever since moving to the city I've felt like a park withing walking distance should be mandatory for all residences in a city for people's mental health.
we have this in ireland, for housing developments above a certain amount are required to have public green spaces, pedestrian access and paths, and lighting etc, and a similar requirement with shopping developments
Constantly ruining charm & livability of city for profit with the blessing of greedy politicians who want more tax $ rather than maintain quality of life in city.
I love this channel. Y'all scientifically explain how corporations bought policy/politicians and ruined the planet.
I HATE PARKING LOTS. I HATE PARKING. I HATE CARS AND DRIVING. ALL OF IT. Thank you for making me mad for half an hour. thumbs up.
I love my car. And globalwarmingclimatechange is fake science.
Those giant mall parking lots are also really scary to navigate if you have a visual impairment. I spent a while with only useable eye, and trying to keep that one eye on 360 degrees around me from which cars could be coming was both very difficult and super stressful. Worse than any other situation I faced when it came to getting around. Streets, bike lanes, transit? All way easier.
I think big parking lots (in the U.S.) are one of the many reasons why there is a housing crisis. In lots of cities, there just isn’t enough space to fit more housing due to huge parking lots taking up space.
Definitely. My city is actually building some dense housing right across the street from a train station right now which won’t have parking since Los Angeles recently changed this requirement.
The NIMBY’s are immediately coming out and saying “but where will the people park?” Luckily I’m not the only citizens who’s very sarcastically replying, “lucky that they’re so close to the train station isn’t it?”
That, single family zoning, minimum lot size requirements, highways that destroyed entire neighborhoods etc
Imagine all that parking space converted for housing. Yet just like wider freeways don't solve congestion, more housing will not help. At some point we will see that population control was needed.
not to mention how it slam dunks the environment too
Or the parking lots causing sprawl. Imagine if all the shops were the size of Walmart Neighborhood stores. Built so the stores were touching side walls. The shopping district would be so much more compact and walkable. You could plop a dozen stores near neighborhoods and with proper walking and biking infrastructure, people could go shopping without their car. Of course the folks that buy a year's worth of paper towels at a time wouldn't be happy but I don't care. This country has catered to them long enough.
My city ditched her minimum parking completely in 2019 and I am SO proud of her
Just wait. When my city did that, it added over million dollars in revenue from all the tickets and cars towed and from forcing people get permits to park in certain neighborhoods. People paying more then double for those permits from what they were paying.
Just wait until you park in a towaway zone where there is no signs. That's a really big issue in my city. That's why I find you people so funny.
She's a smart city, she is a keeper
Love your work. My college stopped offering masters in climate engineering and broke my heart, but you're doing the work I wish I could.
You could've always hopped in your car and drove to another college that did
@@gorak9000 yep, baught me a 1995 F-350 diesel just to commute
@@Michael-uj2fb I still drive a 1995 GM 1500 diesel - but on average less than once a week, so it's probably more environmentally friendly than the carbon footprint of producing a new car
This guy is probably self employed. You can just start today quit making excuses.
@@Dante02000 Cool, help me role play
"Honey, I know we have a newborn and 3 kids, and you're a stay at home mom, but I'm going to quit my job, go back to school putting us in more debt to be a youtuber climatologist."
The aerial views of those parking acres is horrific. Think of the trees and farms that were replaced by flat asphalt. Think of the heat, of the massive water run off. Joni Mitchell got it years ago.
If we replace cars with cushioncraft from 1963, we will need highways no more, and getting rid of Stroads and highways.
"They spread through America like smoke from Canadian wildfires" made me laugh my ass off.
It's funny (and sad) because it's true
I know eh. I wish we didn't have so many forest fires 😢
@@TheSkystrider y'all have a lot of forest to work with.
We send our toxic culture up there, it's only fair you fuck us up for a bit. No worries my friend. I hope everyone effected is doing well
@@SgtVeritas thx for the positive vibes. Take care too.
@@TheSkystrider stay safe my friend. Much love
People thinking "why would I go there on foot and walk 20m when I could be there in 5m in my car" miss the entire point.
I used to walk to therapy because I was depressed after a break up, and the office was a 45m walk away. I walked 1h30m every week to therapy and back.
I started feeling better and assumed the therapy was working, until someone asked me what I did there and made me realise my therapist happened to be full of shit and gave garbage advice.
It was the walking doing all the work.
I stopped therapy and started walking everywhere instead. It really does improve your mood as well as your health.
Even if walking doesn't solve all your problems and I should probably look for a better therapist, I picked up a good habit from this.
Therapy, much like the auto industry, is a positive feedback loop of bullshit designed to perpetuate itself for money. Like everything else in capitalism, it is not interested in actually improving your life, only making money. You were correct to escape.
When I have overwhelming feelings I made it a habit, to walk through the woods and shit, until I feel better or like my feet are dying.
It always helps a little at least and has stopped me from stupid conversations and mistakes.
@@shoveI It's not about banning cars everywhere, it's about giving people options to reduce car traffic. Walking is impossible in areas with massive parking lots due to extreme distances or areas that have zero sidewalks. As you make parking lots more sensibly sized and have stuff closer together, fewer people will drive and more will walk or bike. Currently almost everywhere in the US is accessible by car, but many areas are absolutely unsuitable for walking or biking. Cars should not be the top priority because when it's not walkable and public transit gets stuck in traffic, each individual is better off driving which makes things worse for everyone else (traffic and pollution). The goal is to get the situation to flip so it's a better choice to take transit, walk, or bike so that there's less traffic which also improves the situation for drivers (but not as much as for other modes of transit).
Claiming that giving people better options is ableist is nonsense because there's a large number of people in the US who are unable to get anywhere because they are unable to drive or unable to afford to drive. Do you not care about them?
Barely any sidewalks or them being poorly maintained is an argument for better infrastructure, not against walking. If roads were not plowed, that wouldn't be an argument that cars are useless. Your local government needs to do a better job of providing services for pedestrians.
Also if you could function without a car on the 364 days you don't need to bring home a water heater, that would significantly reduce traffic. It's about choosing the right tool for the job not about coming up with some insane once a year scenario to discredit every other option. My car could break down, I should never use it! My house could burn down so I should just not stay indoors ever. I walk, bike, take public transit, and drive when appropriate. More than 90% of trips I can make without driving and I prefer to do so.
@@shoveI right. I forgot buying a water heater was an everyday occurrence for the average American.
@@shoveI Ever heard of public transit? "Just drive" is just as ableist since many disabled persons are not fit to drive at all.
As a Fayetteville resident I am super stoked to get a shout-out for the elimination of minimum parking. Our pride parade this year also had record-breaking attendance. Arkansas isn't all bad. Just mostly bad
In cities in most other places than North America, it's quite usual to be able to walk from your apartment to the next grocery store within 2 minutes.
Just thinking about how long it takes to cross those huge parking spaces in front of a Walmart.
Great video. What I find pathetic is that the malls in my area have HUGE parking lots but are only one-quarter full at any given time. The only time they are packed is right before Christmas. It is such a waste of space.
It’s the same dumb reasoning people have on HGTV when they’re buying a house. They always go, “this house is great and all, but I don’t think I’ll be able to host thanksgiving dinner in it so I need something bigger.”
These comments always make me want to throw something at my TV. These people are seriously willing to pay significantly more every month of the year just because of a dinner one day a year that they want to host! It’s such a waste of space and money.
the economy has changed a lot in the past decade, which partly explains why so many malls (many of which are dying) have excess parking. Our failure to predict how much parking we need at the cost of everything else, is exactly why we need to do away with parking minimum requirements, and allow developers to choose how much to build
Coming from the Fayetteville area I always wondered why it seemed like our little town became a gem of the ozarks in these last couple years it’s good to know it’s not because Walmart was created there but for actually helpful laws
I still remember the estimate from the High Cost of Free Parking book regarding parking. In the US parking costs around 4% of GDP.
There must be something wrong with me - RUclips suggested this video (which I've already watched) so I watched it again. Still worth the time, thanks for making it!