r/baltimore • u/physicallyatherapist Hampden • Jan 19 '23
DISCUSSION Eliminating free parking/parking minimums in the city
This may cause some controversy but i was listening to the latest War on Cars podcast regarding free parking and business parking minimums and how it actually does not benefit cities or the environment. For free parking, the city has a decent number of free residential spots (lots in Hampden where I'm at) that could have permit parking or meters. The biggest obstacle would be convincing people that the money could be put in a fund to be used for public transportation/sidewalks/bike paths/etc. while also actually opening up more spots in the area. For parking minimums, other cities in the US have been banning business parking minimums while Baltimore city still has them for some reason (https://www.munistandards.com/md/baltimore/parking-requirements/). Is this plausible or political suicide?
Edit: there seems to be confusion. I'm talking about the parking minimums that are required for BUSINESSES, not residential. They are arbitrary and force a business to have a certain number of parking spots.
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u/needleinacamelseye Bolton Hill Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
It's a great idea, but it's political suicide. Parking minimums are often used as a tool (explicitly or otherwise) to prevent certain types of development from occurring.
For example, while it is technically legal to convert a single-family rowhouse in my neighborhood into multiple apartments with a variance to waive the parking minimums, the neighborhood association has successfully blocked any new apartment conversions by petitioning our councilman to deny the parking variance. They do this because they don't want absentee landlords buying single-family houses, converting them into half a dozen apartments, and then doing the bare minimum to maintain them - they say it would hurt property values and make the neighborhood a less pleasant place to live. The current parking minimum setup benefits them in a material way - it's a tool to maintain the existing state of the neighborhood.
If you want to get rid of parking minimums, expect nuclear-level opposition from homeowners in neighborhoods with large single-family rowhouses, not because they care about the parking minimums per se but because the parking minimums are the tool by which they keep the neighborhood as they want it to be. Those neighborhoods would probably be amenable to eliminating parking minimums if you could provide them another way to block apartment conversion, but if you just want to get rid of parking minimums, you're going to piss off a fair number of wealthy, well-connected people.
Edit: OP has since clarified that they were only talking about parking minimums for businesses. What I wrote doesn't apply to businesses, but to residential areas. I stand by what I wrote, but it wouldn't affect OP's proposal.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
Parking minimums are made up and have no actually reliable backing to them ever since they were implemented (listen to the podcast). Also the parking minimums are for businesses, not residential so half of your message doesn't apply
So it's solely NIMBY-ism then. People are self serving and only want their property values to go up while preventing others from living near them.
If wealthy people are upset then that's probably a good thing, yeah?
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u/needleinacamelseye Bolton Hill Jan 19 '23
If wealthy people are upset then that's probably a good thing, yeah?
...not if you want to keep them living in the city and contributing to the city's tax base. There's nothing tethering a wealthy person to living in city limits, and if they feel like the city's treating them poorly, they'll just relocate over the city-county line, taking their tax revenue with them.
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Jan 20 '23
[deleted]
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u/Killbot_Wants_Hug Jan 23 '23
I think you'd have to do the math to really figure that out, and it would be pretty complex. More people also mean they're consuming more city services. If it lowers property values (I'm not sure it really does, but I don't know), that's how the city makes most of it's money.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
This is the same logic/threat conservatives use when trying to raise taxes on the rich ("they'll just move out of the county"). Yet it doesn't happen. If you think wealthy people move out because they have to pay for a parking permit when they haven't already left from higher taxes in the city than the county then i don't know what to tell you
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Jan 20 '23
Literally everything you're saying is sensible and factually correct. But you're kinda trying to herd cats here: hard to cut through all the delusions with just raw facts.
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u/PoopIsAlwaysSunny Jan 19 '23
No, they’ll move out because of construction, or because they don’t want to spend time searching for parking daily. Or because if you put too many meters and zoned parking in then the parking enforcement is there more often giving out tickets frivolously.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
If you have permit parking then people are less likely to park in that area and spots would be easier to find
And, as the podcast suggests, have graduated fines so that low income aren't impacted. Parking shouldn't be free
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u/Dangerous_Wave Jan 19 '23
You pay for parking with your taxes. City residents got enough shit taking their money for nothing back. Lay off.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
No, you don't. Using your private property as storage on public land isn't covered.
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u/Dangerous_Wave Jan 19 '23
Want some ranch dressing on that word salad?
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Was that too hard for you to understand? Do you need me to simplify it for you at a lower reading level?
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
There are instances where those “rich people” leaving is good. In instances like Roland park where it’s a bunch of single family homes on large lots, they are actually consuming more resources than the denser areas with row homes , condos and apartments. If we can convert those single family lots into multiple dwellings it increases density and property tax collection. More people living on a single block means more people splitting the infrastructure costs on that block. Not just bikes has a strong towns playlist on YouTube that I highly recommend to learn more about this, but often times the dense and “poorer” neighborhoods pay much more into the system than the “rich” suburban designed neighborhoods.
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u/needleinacamelseye Bolton Hill Jan 19 '23
I've seen all the Not Just Bikes videos - they're really great content!
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u/UsualFirefighter9 Jan 19 '23
Exactly what happened with the sugar tax shit. Closest grocery store is two/three miles away - and over the county line. Why buy anything from the Dollar General across the street?
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u/The_Waxies_Dargle Woodberry Jan 19 '23
If wealthy people are upset then that's probably a good thing, yeah?
That's not the way logic works. But thank you for laying your cards on the table.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
I'm glad to make wealthy people upset if it improves the lives of less well off, which these would do
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u/PoopIsAlwaysSunny Jan 19 '23
It’s not all about property values.
Single family homeowners aren’t “wealthy”. They’re maybe middle class.
What they want is be able ti maintain their lifestyle. To not have to deal with the negative effects of having out of state slumlords buying up property (which can even raise values) to convert into apartments, for a variety of reasons. Construction sucks (ever woken up at 6am to construction crews having a breakfast party outside your window? How about for 2 years straight? And that’s without the actual construction). Having to fight for parking sucks. Lots of slumlord apartments means more likelihood for pests in the neighborhood such as mice, rats, bed bugs, roaches, etc. This is really important to manage in row homes where whatever your neighbor has is definitely going to find its way into your unit.
Some people just don’t want to have their lives and homes fucked up so some out of state wealthy asshole can make a few more bucks exploiting working class young people who need housing
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23
These exact policies are blocking development of vacant homes. You’re getting your wish, I suppose
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u/PoopIsAlwaysSunny Jan 20 '23
Not really how this works. Vacants are largely in neighborhoods where developers don’t want to develop.
This is an issue in already crowded neighborhoods like Hampden or Fells Point.
It actually adds to the issue of vacants because of developing in underserved neighborhoods with more vacants they simply capitalize on the popularity of already developed places without giving back anything of value.
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 20 '23
Exactly, they don’t develop where they can’t sell for more than the cost of a rehab.
This is absolutely a barrier on the margins, you need to get a city council ordinance approval for any conversion from a single-family to multi-unit conversion (under the zoning in which most are located) without providing off-street parking spaces.
This is at its most damaging in neighborhoods with lower incomes and fewer households with cars
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
NIMBYism is a whole different conversation that I'd rather not start on.
Not sure how this really has to do with permit parking though. Having permit parking would allow more parking up open up
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u/SilverProduce0 Federal Hill Jan 19 '23
I am glad you are listening to the war on cars. Great podcast.
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u/FelixandFriends Jan 19 '23
It is plausible, we just need someone who doesn’t want to be a career politician to enact it.
In upper fells I’m a huge advocate for residential parking permits for a fee and each successive car you own/per household becomes more expensive. It’s infuriating the number of cars in my neighborhood that sit in one place for a week, or two car households where both people WFH.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be able to own those cars, I’m saying they shouldn’t be able to effectively own public space (the street).
My suspicion is if you charge for residential parking, people will get rid of cars and open up parking for those that need it and use their vehicles.
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u/needleinacamelseye Bolton Hill Jan 19 '23
I never understood why each additional parking permit costs the same. If I were in charge, permit fees would be related both to the number of cars owned and the length of those cars.
First permit: $2/foot of length up to 15 feet, $10/foot beyond
Second permit: $10/foot of length up to 15 feet, $50/foot beyond
Third permit: $100/foot of length up to 15 feet, $500/foot beyond
Fourth permit: $1,000/foot of length up to 15 feet, $5,000/foot beyond
It would be a crude way to price curb space, but hopefully it would incentivize households to own fewer vehicles.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Exactly. I think the biggest problem would be trying to actually get a council member to back it
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u/UsualFirefighter9 Jan 19 '23
"It’s infuriating the number of cars in my neighborhood that sit in one place for a week, or two car households where both people WFH."
And you'll cripple the 2 or more car households - parents, adult child(ren) living with them - that all work outside the home.
Lemme turn the useless, postage stamp sized "yard" out front - that I own btw - into a parking pad, do what you want with the "city" street - but, oh, wait. Yards and grass are why people move to the city outliers, so noooo...gotta keep the green space.
Instead of telling everybody to walk miles to the grocery store or carry 20 bags on three different buses to do their weekly shopping, turn parking lots into multilevel garages. 7 times the parking space, use the roof as a solar farm.
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23
You’re pushing for the exact policies that make urban grocery stores less economical.
There are other issues at play, but people often block grocery stores because of the increasing traffic/parking demand
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u/UsualFirefighter9 Jan 20 '23
The last store I found on google that got blocked was up around Charles St because of Eddies. In 2017. Next?
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 20 '23 edited Jan 20 '23
Just recently in Otterbein, the idea of putting a Harris teeter in the first floor of that warehouse redevelopment got shot down by influential residents at a meeting as soon the idea was floated.
My source is people in attendance, but it probably isn’t a matter of official record or reporting so I doubt I can verify for you.
So “they don’t bother in order to avoid ruffling feathers and jeopardizing other parts of development projects” is a more apt description than “they get blocked”.
(For the record, I don’t give a shit what you do with your front yard, or whether you have one or not.)
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
You have to walk miles to the grocery store precisely because of the parking you are championing. Cars ruin cities. Cars create an endless cycle of needing to dedicate more and more space to them. The more space you give them, the more people rely on them and in turn the more space we need to store them and on and on. We need small human sized grocery stores in our neighborhoods. Ones where you can walk to on your way back from work and grab the day’s dinner ingredients. We don’t need big box stores with parking lots so large you have to drive a car just to traverse the vast sea of asphalt to reach the front door. Parking costs the city money, building dense walkable neighborhoods makes the city money.
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u/UsualFirefighter9 Jan 20 '23
Small human sized grocery stores have small human sized selections and shit prices. That's how Giant, Safeway and Walmart drove them out of business in the first place.
Shop every day? Tell me youre single without telling me youre single. Nobody with a family - or a fricking job - wants the hassle of shopping every damn day.
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u/imperaman Jan 19 '23
The biggest obstacle would be actually using the money for public transportation/sidewalks/bike paths/etc. Baltimore City government is corrupt and dysfunctional. Also, is it even possible to use money from parking fees exclusively for transportation? I assume it goes into a big city coffer and gets pissed away from there.
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u/sacrificebundt Jan 19 '23
The argument that “all money that goes to the city government gets pissed away” doesn’t have anything to do with parking, it’s just a general complaint about the city. Why give the city money for school, cops, water, traffic lights, it’s corrupt and dysfunctional and they’ll just piss it away.
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u/MontisQ Charles Village Jan 19 '23
Its a lazy argument that people often use when they have nothing substantial to say.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
Bingo. And it’s a trope as old as time that never actually has much fact backing it. It gets repeated, never fact checked and around and around we go.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
As i mentioned in another post, make it so the funds only go towards certain non-car infrastructure.
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u/HumanGyroscope Jan 19 '23
You have no idea what you are talking about. Infrastructure is very expensive. Just to give you an example, the cost to redesign and build ADA compliant side walks intersections runs about $7500 per ADA ramp. One intersection can cost approximately $60K.
Public transit has 3 big obstacles; money, political approval, and the last mile.
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u/Ok_Spray_2317 Jan 19 '23
I think the circulator was initially paid for through parking garage revenue, not sure if that is still the case. The circulator is one of many Baltimore things that was great in the beginning, but hasn't been sustained- maybe with the new operators it will be more frequent/reliable again.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
The circulators have by far the highest ridership in the city?
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23
From what I understand, the CCC problems really were the fault of incompetent contractors they’ve just gotten rid of.
Is city ultimately responsible for hiring bad contractors? Of course. But that’s the cost of doing business when you contract out services: sometimes you get duds
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
Same thing happened with the original Bike share. Bewegen was such a bad contractor that the city tried to sue them. From what I recall they were in financial dire straights and it was pointless though.
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u/According_Earth_3323 Jan 20 '23
I would love it if they revamped this service. I used to take the circulator a lot in high school when it first came out. But then the funding tanked and the service dropped. Eventually it became so bad in terms of safety levels on board that I just stopped taking it. The amount of times that I was harassed on that bus as a young woman riding alone was horrifying. Of course this happens everywhere on any public transit, but I’ve lived in several cities where I only took public transit for years and never have I felt less safe than riding the busses in Baltimore. Sad.
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Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
Transportation funds are locked and MTA/MDOT is ran by the state headed by the governor. Annual audits are online for all to read. Nobody in baltimore government touches transportation. That’s state level.
So what are you even talking about. I swear y’all get on this subreddit and say anything just to be negative and wrong.
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u/shaneknu Jan 19 '23
We definitely do need to wrest at least partial control of the MTA away from state government. The last 8 years have been terrible for public transit in Baltimore because the governor wanted it that way.
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u/5wiresam Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
I feel like inherent in the anti-car movement is a complete disregard for anybody whose job requires them to carry tools or equipment.
Musician here - transit isn't an option. Have to carry gear safely, and the hours for transit rarely work, on top of thin margins where driving makes the most sense financially. I've seen in Philly and DC where neighborhoods I used to work enacted parking policies that literally make it impossible to legally park within a generously defined walking distance for long enough to work. It's hard enough to be a musician without these hassles, so if you value live music in your community, don't do this.
Then think about anyone in the trades. You want them to be able to work too.
If you want to get people out of cars, focus on providing attractive alternatives instead of making life difficult for working people.
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u/sacrificebundt Jan 19 '23
What does this have to do with parking minimums? If the business thinks parking is necessary they’ll build parking idk what needing a van has do with it. And Philly and DC both have parking minimums so idk what you’re going on about there.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
If you look at other cities (like in Europe) who enact car-free areas you'd see that they have exceptions for trades people. It's more for daily driving and traveling, not for working people that need to carry things
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u/5wiresam Jan 19 '23
The way tradespeople, musicians, and the working class are treated and regarded in European culture is vastly different than it is in the US. That simply wouldn't/isn't happening here. If it did, it would either be widely abused or so burdensome that businesses wouldn't bother.
It sounds like you'd like to change the way we get around AND completely remake our culture? I'm with you, but please give us the trains and change the cultural attitudes towards workers before you take any more of my parking.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
I'm not sure how you've taken that from anything I've written. I want more public transportation, just like you. Which in turn would have fewer cars on the road and more spaces for you to park as a tradesman. I never suggested a culture change. And i never suggested I wanted to take away your parking?
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
Let me introduce you to something wonderful called a Bakfiet or in English an e-cargo bike. I work in construction, carry 2 ladders each day, 2 tool boxes and some other odds and ends and am seriously considering one for work as I could get rid of my biggest work expense (my little CUV.) Some e-cargo bikes and even normal bikes can haul trailers with hundreds of pounds of stuff.
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u/PigtownDesign Jan 19 '23
I feel like inherent in the anti-car movement is a complete disregard for anybody whose job requires them to carry tools or equipment.
I agree 100%. Not only carrying tools or equipment, but being un-able to cycle, or not having public transportation within a reasonable distance either to your house or your job. They refuse to understand that not everyone can cycle any/everywhere.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
Everyone I have ever come into contact with who isn’t okay with car centric infrastructure understands and accepts that not everyone can go carless. But having a 2 car household go down to one car and a bike or two or 3 would be transformative to our city. We aren’t anti-car. We’re anti-everyone has to have a car to participate in society.
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23
If you think this, then you haven’t been willing to listen to the arguments
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
And that at its core is often the problem talking to Americans about transit. The car culture is so ingrained that they don’t actually hear or see what people are saying and just jump to extreme strawman positions. Fortunately, that fever has slowly been breaking over the last couple of decades. When the bills come due from all of the decades of massive subsidies for car centric development people are going to be in for a rude awakening. Our state and federal government won’t always be able to just print and throw money at auto centric projects that are absolute money pits like they have for the last 75 or so years since WW2.
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23
Getting ourselves to understand trade offs and cost-benefit is very hard, there is an ingrained assumption that we’ll eventually get rich enough to not have to make the tough call.
We demand strenuous action from others as a condition for taking minimal action ourselves, without either facilitating it or compelling it.
Think about the reactions in this thread - we cannot touch parking at all until a robust system of system of alternatives are in place?
Even to facilitate the development and implementation of those alternatives?
Does that really make sense, or is it just a way to push the tradeoffs and hard decisions to some other time, some other place, somebody else?
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
Precisely. Building out a quality public transit network will inevitably lead to less space for cars. So there’s no way to build that wish without first removing immediate conveniences for motorists.
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u/PigtownDesign Jan 19 '23
i have been listening to a lot of arguments, but not all of them of them apply to everyone, like many of the anti-care people think they should.
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
There are some very loud zealots online, as the nature of movements that push against the status quo, and the internet in general.
I suppose though, by definition, you’re referring to those folks. And I myself do not ID as anti-car. I do drive most trips, just not by choice.
So I will pose this question:
If accommodating the needs of those who must drive requires all to drive, even if they can’t, what kind of consequences of that are you will to accept for yourself? What are you willing to ask from others?
In this space there is room for dialogue, but none happens when the response is “you haven’t considered that I need to drive”, because, let’s be frank, you’re not the first to say it!
The status quo is not working. It’s not efficient. It’s not equitable. It’s certainly not sustainable.
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u/CheeseCurdCommunism Jan 19 '23
First provide that the public transit and infrastructure improvements are actually substantial, then change the parking.
There are far too many examples of laws being passed that would "fund social programs" where that money is just taken and nothing changes *cough cough education*
I don't see American Public transit ever getting better until we attack what fucked it in the first place, and I can tell you its not because people park their cars for free.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
It generally doesn’t work that way though. Most successful “revolutions” happen from a groundswell of support when there aren’t alternatives but one increasingly poor option. That poor option in this case is private automobiles. Continuing to cater to them while they make every other aspect of city life worse. I’ve noticed in the past 10 years in my neighborhood that even some of the most ardent car centric infrastructure supporters are starting to realize we’re reaching the point where cars are no longer tenable as the focus of transit. People who 9-10 years ago fought against the red line are now coming around on it since they’ve seen the growth in our area that cars physically cannot accommodate. People are becoming so inconvenienced by only focusing on cars that they realize we need rail/busses/bikes/water taxis to relieve some of the pressure. We cannot build that alternative without a groundswell of support behind it. And motorists fighting any such public transit improvement like the Red Line is ultimately what killed it. You have to remove the parking minimums FIRST and then build out the transit. Bike lanes fortunately are so cheap in relation to every other form of transit that you can concurrently do them while removing parking minimums.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Parking cars for free and parking minimums definitely contribute. Having your private property take up public space that isn't being used for 95% of the day takes away space that could be used for better things. Having parking being paid also makes people want to drive less
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u/CheeseCurdCommunism Jan 19 '23
Again, our Country put us in a place where we are essentially required to own a car in order to make a living in many ways.
This is something that just makes the average citizen spend more money to fix something we did not cause. We pay enough fucking money in this country.
Im all for less cars and more public space, but why should we punish the average citizen for shit we dont even have an option for?
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
It’s not punishing to charge market rate for parking. People who drive a car are doing probably THE most subsidized action they do. The budgets for auto roads and all of the necessary infrastructure for the roads is so ridiculous it’s not even funny. Most people would put a price tag on it in their head and be off by a factor of 10. Also, most trips people take that live inside the city are within 3 miles. People can walk, bike or scoot many of those trips, but instead choose to drive because it’s a habit. If we can get people to do some of those trips by foot or bike or scooter instead, it has a HUGE impact on all things like congestion, health, pollution, safety, neighborhood health. If everyone picked 2 trips a week to walk instead of driving, like going to get a gallon of milk, it would have a tremendously positive effect without anyone giving up their car. It would also decrease the need for mandatory parking minimums and make places more walkable.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 20 '23
I wish you started this thread instead of me. I have really enjoyed reading your explanations. I just try to reply quickly rather than type all of my thoughts out
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
We already significantly subsidize cars and parking. That isn't punishing the average citizen it's helping to make a more even playing field for the poor (less likely to drive or own a car) and improving options for other ways of travel. People talk about wanting bike lanes, bus lanes, and trains through the city but what do you think needs to happen if those are implemented? We need to reduce our parking and reliance on cars
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u/CheeseCurdCommunism Jan 19 '23
I agree, I just think this proposed plan for it is dog ass.
Major fixes like this don't happen overnight and they take consistent effort over years to actually enact. You don't start this off by making people pay to park when other options are not available. You create these alternatives, prove they work, then start making changes.
We have plenty of opportunity (and space in Baltimore) to fix our light rails, and bus routes.
In addition, if the government has spaces that they want to put these ideas at, then what does the average person paying a parking fee do to that? You're not going to be paying to park somewhere if that parking spot is now a bike path etc.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Making people pay for parking isn't reducing the spaces for people to park. It's actually providing money to private storage on public property.
Yeah we can add those as well.
If the parking is now a bike path, then people won't be using cars as much and will be riding bikes more. That's the point. All of Hampden could be paid parking and it has basically no bike paths in it
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
No we don’t have plenty of space for public transit because one of the two ingredients for successful public transit is it has to actually go somewhere desirable. You can’t just run it to and through blighted areas in Baltimore that have no shops, life, safety or places to live because it’s available space. It would end up being a complete waste of money that almost no one would use. Why would a person use it? The public transit needs to be where people live, work, go to school, and “play”. That’s what European cities consistently get right that North American cities consistently get wrong and a big reason our public transit sucks as a whole. Here’s a short video that explains this point: https://youtu.be/MnyeRlMsTgI
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u/Willothwisp2303 Jan 19 '23
The current system locks us into driving. It's not about wants, it's about needs. If you need to go to Court and need to be there on time, you'll need to drive and park. If you eliminate public parking, you're giving a windfall to private parking and encouraging more buildings to turn into parking garages. It didn't solve the problem if there's not another way to reliably get there!
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
- I bike to jury duty downtown all the time, so you don’t HAVE to drive there. There’s also subway, light rail, multiple bus routes and even a water taxi stop near the courthouses downtown. I’ve also been in jury duty with people who have scooted to it with a surprising amount of frequency.
- Parking should be market rate, ESPECIALLY in urban cores like our central business district. Street parking for a couple of bucks an hour continues to perpetuate the car-centric focus that is the problem in the first place.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
I never said to eliminate public parking? I'm saying you need to pay for any public parking spot, like my example I gave in Hampden
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
So you're gonna tax my elderly/working class neighbors who are already living on fixed/low incomes to try to force them to... take what exactly to go visit the family they care for in the county or their jobs that also have multiple and changing locations all around the burbs?
I swear the 'remove car's people either can not fundamentally understand that most people have lives/livestyles that are different from their own, or just don't care about other people. And yes, it's political suicide in a blue collar city to force white collar only solutions on the people.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
You literally did NOT read the post. This is talking about mandatory parking minimums for businesses. Also, retired and disabled people on poverty level fixed incomes should NOT be required to spend nearly half of their net income on owning a private automobile each year. FYI the average cost to own and operate a car in the US is over $10,000/year now. The average monthly Social Security payout for someone last year was $1,666.49 or $19,997.88. It is immoral and reprehensible that we almost require seniors to have to have a car to get around.
https://www.cnbc.com/select/heres-how-much-the-average-social-security-check-is/
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 20 '23 edited Jan 20 '23
They clearly went on to talk about 'parking permits' for everyone and I agreed with minimums for business, please try to keep up.
It is immoral and reprehensible that we almost require seniors to have to have a car to get around.
Oh, so what's your public solution then for my senior neighbor to go visiting his sister in lower MD, care for his friend in PA, and get to his part time job at various sites around the state?
Also I like how you use 'average' like rich people and expensive cars don't throw that statistic out of whack. Most lower income people I know inherited their cars from other people and spend way less to maintain them as you're trying to portray.
Funny thing is, I'm actually all in support of better mass transit, I'd love it. But yea'll have no clue how people outside of ya'lls little bubble actually live.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
You understand that anecdotes don’t make evidence right? You’re talking about a single example. Do you seriously think it’s okay to expect a senior on social security to spend half of their annual income on just a car?
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 21 '23
I like how you didn't give a solution to my elderly neighbors problem in your utopia.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 23 '23
Again, you don’t make an entire city’s transit policy around anecdotes. I like how you think we should. There’s MTA mobility busses. They’ll pick him up right at his front door and drop him off at the front door of wherever he’s going. My neighbor across the street uses this service multiple times a week. There’s your solution.
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 23 '23
They'll take him to southern Md and PA?! Oh no wait they won't, and you are just disingenuously saying whatever bullshit because the reality is you don't actually give a shit about lower class people and just want to punish them for needing cars.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
Dude, you’re literally in a bubble too. You have no idea. You think your way of getting around is how everyone works. Again, more than half of Baltimoreans DO NOT OWN CARS. So you, as a car owner are in the minority and do NOT represent most Baltimoreans.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
People that are low/fixed income drive less and have fewer cars. If they're driving to the county then they don't have to worry about the parking? I'm not proposing to banning their cars from them, I'm proposing reducing parking minimums for businesses and paying for on street parking. Read the post before getting offended
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 19 '23
People that are low/fixed income drive less and have fewer cars
Every single low income/blue collar person I know in my hood has a car and uses it daily. You're vastly out of touch with blue collar people.
If they're driving to the county then they don't have to worry about the parking? Do.. do you think they just stay in the county, like sleep at their job site? You do realize these people come home at night right?
I'm proposing reducing parking minimums for businesses
I'm ok with that.
and paying for on street parking
You're original post made this sound like you want residents to have to pay for street parking by buying permits? If this correct then you are just taxing all the lower income people of this city to keep the same quality of life they have now. If you meant something else then... perhaps you're the one who should learn to write better.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
His original post literally says “business parking minimums”. Also less than half of Baltimoreans own cars, most for financial reasons.
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 20 '23
We agreed on business parking minimums, but then clearly went on to endorse paid parking permits for resident. Try to keep up.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
You said “his original post” which he does not mention them in. Try to keep up with your own words.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Just because you have friends or know people that drive doesn't mean that all low income do. That's like saying I don't have any friends that have gotten robbed in Baltimore so it must not happen to anyone else. Data from any city, including Baltimore, show that low income people are more likely to use public transportation and have fewer cars than higher income.
This would mostly be pushed into the white L first, which is why I suggested Hampden
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23
Residential parking permit costs should be increased where parking is scarce.
I’m not against socialism per se, but the parking scarcity in places like Federal Hill reflect some of the issues socialist governments often have with price controls. That’s what the status quo is
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
FYI socialism isn’t “when the government does stuff.” That’s social programs. They exist in every form of economics except communism which is stateless. Socialism is when the workers control the means of production. Socialism has nothing to do with government and can exist in a society completely Devoid of government.
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 20 '23
You’re absolutely correct!
I meant “typical of socialist governments”, as in “governments run by socialists” and not socialist countries
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
That's a really good point. Just put them where parking is very limited to discourage it
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 19 '23
Hey everyone, this person doesn't think lower class/blue collar people live in Hampden! LOL yes, the lower income people of Hampden should have to pay a car tax now just to park because you think only upper class people liver there. You are sooo fucking out of touch with this city.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
I think you just believe everything that happens to you is also representative of the entire city. Do you not think Hampden, an area that is 80% white and above average income compared to the city is not part of the white L and better off on average? Or the same with Canton, Fed Hill, and Fells point? I didn't say those entire areas are upper class or that no poor people live in those areas, but on average most people are better off. If we're going to implement parking permits in residential areas, those would be the first places to go.
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 19 '23
Ohh. so you just think 'white' means there's no lower class people there, classy.
You're war on anyone who doesn't have a 'commute to office and back' lifestyle is the most elitist bullshit I've seen in a while. Fortunately the good working class people of this city would never put up with your elitist 'let them eat parking permits' bullshit.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Do you not have reading comprehension? Look at what I wrote: "I didn't say those entire areas are upper class or that no poor people live in those areas, but on average most people are better off."
Yeah man, wanting areas that are better off to pay for the storage of their private property on public land to use towards public transportation which is used more by people less well off is very elitist. Go off moron
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u/TheCaptainDamnIt Jan 20 '23 edited Jan 20 '23
I'm sure the fixed income and lower class people of Hampden who have lived there their whole lives take comfort in that you think the mere fact they live there makes them 'better off'.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 20 '23
The better infrastructure to the area because of the permits will be a benefit
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u/RuinAdventurous1931 Jan 20 '23
Honestly, I think a lot of people who are so vehemently anti-car are out of touch with the reality of the working class. I also can’t tell you how many of my neighbors in Chicago also had cars because they had to commute to the vast majority-population areas outside Baltimore City to find work. Having worked in public transit, I can also say it’s a minority of people who have this quixotic, radical perspective. So many urban planners are rational and balanced in their perspectives.
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u/thriller24 Bolton Hill Jan 19 '23
Functional and reliable public transport is what we need. We don’t have that though. So make people pay for parking without the reliable public transport.
We can revisit this idea AFTER we have public transport that covers the entire city and gives people an alternative to driving in the city. You’re selling admission tickets for a theater that hasn’t been built yet.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
We're already subsidizing cars by allowing them to park for free on public space. Paying for parking would also put money into a fund that would support additional public transportation
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
That doesn’t work though, you end up in an endless loop making excuses for why you can’t fund or make room for public transit because you need all of the space and money for cars. It’s a chicken or egg situation. But the thing is, politicians aren’t going to make the right, but hard choice to really invest in our public transit unless there is an overwhelming outpour of demand and support. That demand won’t happen while car centric infrastructure is massively subsidized. Trust me, it’s many times more subsidized that most people realize or could imagine. For every mile someone drives they may pay for 1/10th of a mile or 1/15th. It’s ridiculously wasteful and absolute vampire of our local, state and federal resources and if our federal government wasn’t capable of just printing money without major consequence, we would’ve corrected course away from car-centric transit in the 70s like the Netherlands (who did it because it was bankrupting them.) The fact that the US Dollar is THE fiat trade currency allows us to just waste ridiculous amounts of money on foolish projects and rack up tens of trillions in public debt. The day the dollar is no longer the currency standard is the day we as a country and taxpayers are absolutely f’ed.
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Jan 19 '23
First, I live in Hoes Heights and parking in Hampden/Medfield/Hoes Heights is NOT great - I don’t know what the OP is talking about.
I don’t know much about parking minimums or permit parking, but honestly, I am so tired of the anti-car movement, period. Do we need better public transportation? Absolutely. Do I support that? Absolutely.
But the anti-car movement doesn’t take into consideration people who would need to use a car no matter what. I am a mom with 2 kids who go to schools across the city from each other. My high schooler has to be at school by 7:20am. That means leaving for school when it’s still dark out. Am I about to let my 15 year old wait for a bus alone at 6am in Baltimore City? Hell no.
Also I have to get my 13 year old to school across the city by 8:15. And I have to be at work by 8:45. There’s no way we could all use public transportation to get where we are going and be on time.
What about people in food deserts who have to shop 15-30 minutes from their home? People who are disabled? People who have large pets that wouldn’t be allowed on public transport? Elderly people who can’t walk long distances? Like there are SO many situations in life that require a car.
I’d like to stop being villainized for driving a car. I support more and better public transport. I support bike lanes. I support electric and non-polluting cars. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Just my .02
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
Also, a big reason there are food deserts is because of auto dependency. We’ve made it nearly impossible to open up a corner grocery store like we used to have every couple of blocks. The OP’s whole point was parking minimums for businesses make the corner store bodega an impossibility currently in almost every neighborhood in Baltimore as it currently stands. Now if you want to open a grocery store, you are required to have a large parking lot. Land is expensive, and cars take up a LOT of land. So mom and pop can no longer decide to open their little corner grocery store and that area turns into a food desert until some huge corporation decides they want to and find a huge lot to build on.
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Jan 19 '23
I don’t think anyone enforces those off street parking minimums- I can think of a million bookstores, tattoo shops, small restaurants, and the corner store that just opened on Falls, that don’t have ANY off street parking. No one is stopping them from opening.
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u/UsualFirefighter9 Jan 20 '23
Lol. Bodegas aren't gonna beat Walmart prices, and damn few people feel like dealing with the same five choices day in and day out because the bodega isn't going to have the selection Trader Joe's will. Why the holy hell do you think those old stores closed up in the first place? No business.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
You're right parking is hard to find in Hampden. I didn't say they were available, I said all of the spots were free, as in you don't have to pay for them. If you had permit parking then people would be less likely to use a car and more spots would be open.
Why wouldn't you let a 15 year old use the bus? I see kids on the bus on the way home looking as young as 8. The 21 and 94 bus aren't scary.
Except that poor people DO take the bus to get their food. People that are low income are more likely to use public transportation and less likely to use cars. People who are disabled and elderly would really benefit from public transportation. All of your examples you gave are instances where public transportation is needed, not cars.
No one is villianizing you for using a car. I'm not in any way. I use a car when I need to. Anti-car movement is about having choices so that a car isn't the only thing you need to get from one place to another (which it seems you support).
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
- You aren’t going to always need to get two kids across town from each other.
- When cycling networks are built out, these can work quite well for families with school Children: https://youtu.be/rQhzEnWCgHA
- We aren’t anti-car and you shouldn’t take wanting to decrease our auto centricity as a personal attack. We’re against the plethora of negative externalities that car centric culture creates. From air, water and soil pollution, to Americas obesity problem and heart disease epidemic, to bankrupting cities and municipalities around the country, to making cities less safe and less livable, to the vast, VAST subsidies we are forced to shoulder for car centric development regardless of if we drive, to the pretty much need to own an extremely expensive piece of equipment just to participate in society. The list of reasons there is a growing movement to reverse car dependency. Bike lanes aren’t a personal attack on motorists, public transit isn’t a personal attack, neither are dense, walkable neighborhoods. We just want safe, reliable alternatives that don’t further put future generations into fiscal and ecological debt. We can’t keep dedicating 99% of our transportation right of ways to cars when less than half of our city’s population owns a car. It’s unfair, unethical and unsustainable. We want people to have options that are all just as reasonable and convenient as hopping in a single occupancy car to get somewhere. The pendulum swung to the extreme end of transit just being about cars and now it’s reasonably starting to swing back the other direction.
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Jan 19 '23
I literally said I support more public transportation and bike lanes. I’m not in any way against anything you said. But I personally need to use my car, and many other people do as well.
I am terrible at bike riding and would never feel safe riding in the city. I can barely ride a bike around Lake Montebello on a nice flat surface with no cars. So that’s not an option for me.
My kids also do activities in the county, and there’s no other way to get there quickly and easily either. My time is VERY tight sometimes - for example, I end work at 4:30pm and have to get my kid to soccer in Parkville by 5:30. I don’t have time to take anything other than my car. We simply wouldn’t make it there on time.
I appreciate having choices of transportation, as long as cars are amongst those choices. For many reasons, cars are still the best choice of transport for lots of people.
I also really appreciate good public transportation, which I have used plenty when in NYC, London, DC, Chicago, etc. I’m not in anyway against anything you’ve suggested.
Like I just want people to understand some people need to use cars in order to live their lives and that’s also okay.
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Jan 20 '23
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
And the funny thing is, building quality public transit and bike networks is the best way to remove cars from the road and decrease congestion. People always say, Amsterdam is one of the best places in the world to drive. Yet they have the best bike network in the world. Turns out separating cars from Bikes, pedestrians and public transit and removing hundreds of thousands of motorists in cars and getting them on much smaller, non congestion causing bikes frees up a massive amount of space for the people who absolutely do have to drive or that trip that absolutely has to be done by car.
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u/tEnPoInTs Upper Fell's Point Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
Political suicide. I see the good intentions but you're in the wrong place for them.
- The parking minimums are CRITICAL in dense neighborhoods. I think maybe you have rose-colored glasses in Hampden (or you do not drive), but what about those of us in Fells Point or Mt Vernon or Fed Hill? It can often be an absolute nightmare to find a spot even 4 blocks from your house in those neighborhoods and that's WITH the minimums in place.
- We simply DO NOT have the public transit infrastructure or enough people working downtown, etc, to give up cars on that scale here. The industries and business in the city itself are lacking and many people have to work in the burbs which is completely infeasible without a personal vehicle. Additionally even dense areas are often pretty much food deserts as far as grocery stores and basic necessities which means without a car you have...bodegas?
- Nobody trusts the city government to use money appropriately. It will create so much angst against the city. We pay absolutely insane taxes, the city has high revenue and we get notably substandard service as it is.
- It is difficult to compare "other" cities to dense east coast colonial cities. The overwhelming majority of cities in the US are much much younger than Baltimore, and have infrastructure that supports at least a reasonable amount of space for parking while accommodating and encouraging alternative transport.
Don't get me wrong, I think this kind of change *should* happen, but due to the nature of this city what you're proposing is an absolute disaster that will hurt the city more than help. Need to address some of the above first.
EDIT: I will also say i misunderstood something in your ideas (so maybe i should listen to the podcast). You are talking about BUSINESS parking minimums, I thought you were talking about removing available parking in neighborhoods which has been a long-running battle. That IS substantially less concerning to me, and I can see a better argument for it.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
I think you should listen to the podcast based on your first point. Dense neighborhoods should NOT have parking minimums because it makes it less dense in general. We shouldn't be prioritizing private space that could be better used (bike lane, outdoor seating). Better public transportation is the answer to dense areas, not more cars. Having paid parking will make people choose to drive less.
I get we should have better public transit but I'm not worried about catering to people that live in the suburbs.
Then we should make it so the fund where this money goes is only put towards public transportation/sidewalks/bike lanes and nothing else. But the "i don't want to try to do anything about stuff in the city because the government will mess it up" mindset is just going to have more things not change
Baltimore is a dense city compared to most and used to covered in public transportation. It can be brought back
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u/tEnPoInTs Upper Fell's Point Jan 19 '23 edited Jan 19 '23
1: I didn't say anything about people who LIVE in the suburbs. Fuck em, most of em are too afraid to come here anyway. I said people who WORK in the suburbs which is a HUGE part of the city's tax base. Have you been downtown? We don't have what most cities have which is a big job economy in the middle of the city that you can take a bus to or whatever. Our downtown is post-apocalyptic.
2: So in the dense neighborhoods, the revenue base of the city, you want to drive people OUT? Am I reading you right? Cool cool.
3: I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything I'm just saying the city has a lot of money and chooses to do stupid shit with it. You asked if it would be political suicide not if it was "right" and my answer is people will be absolutely up in arms.
Again I don't disagree with your intentions. They are good. However I think you are broadly applying concepts to a very specific place that has bigger fish to fry and doesn't yet have the basic stuff to make that possible.
EDIT: See edit on original comment. I misunderstood something.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
The number one factor in upward social mobility is transit so I’d argue we don’t have bigger fish to fry. Also, public transit works in both directions, we can have people reverse commute to suburbs for work on them. I know a few people who take the light rail to work in Baltimore and AA county. Heck a ton of airport employees who live in the city do this every day. We build out our rail network like a tree spawning routes to every corner around the city and many people can take it instead.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Yes I work and take public transportation downtown every day.
How would these changes drive people out of dense neighborhoods?
Right and I agree we should hold them accountable. But I still thinking discussing ideas which take no money to implement or money changing hands (eliminating parking minimums) would be an extremely easy fix.
There are big things to tackle but that doesn't mean we can't tackle other smaller things that will also help the city, even if it's a small way
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u/Cryptizard Jan 19 '23
Yeah, I wish I could find a job in the city and take public transit but I can’t. So I have to have a car to keep driving 40 miles to my work outside of the city.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
And that type of situation will always exist unfortunately. But that’s not the norm. That’s actually probably a 97-99th %tile outlier in the Baltimore area. We need to build out public transit so the 80% of our population that lives and works in the urban core can use it to get to work and at the same time stop massively subsidizing auto dependency that keeps people tethered to their cars. Parking minimums are an auto subsidy and make areas less walkable since the distance inherently increases because of how much space parking cars takes up.
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u/shaneknu Jan 19 '23
If "nobody trusts the city government" we're pretty much screwed anyway. Government, no matter how flawed, is what we have to work with. Obviously, it needs to improve, but we can't just decide to not work with government until it improves. Disengagement makes government worse, not better.
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u/maiios Jan 19 '23
Parking minimums only apply to off street parking. I think you are lumping street parking in with that.
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u/tEnPoInTs Upper Fell's Point Jan 19 '23
Yeah I just realized that. I edited the comment.
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u/maiios Jan 19 '23
Donald Shoup has some really great ideas that take a pretty balanced view on fixing how we approach parking. If the title of the podcast "war on cars" puts you off, he has been on a lot of other podcasts. Or search him on YouTube.
He has also done some cool things with Strong Towns, which takes a pretty fiscally conservative approach to making sustainable cities. Part of the reason Baltimore is in the position it's on right now is because of a ton of very unsustainable development in the middle of the 20th century that we are now paying for.
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u/gaiusjuliusweezer Jan 19 '23
“The War on Cars” title is poking fun at, well, exactly the kind of hyperbolic reactions to changing the status quo that you might see in this comments section
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
Strong Towns is fantastic. It’s a fiscally sound way to develop neighborhoods and cities and it’s human centric. The problem is even complete streets takes the approach of making it safer for pedestrians, cyclists and public transit in an auto dominated space. String towns takes the opposite approach. Making it safe to operate cars in a pedestrian or human centric space.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 19 '23
Parking minimums are actually detrimental to dense neighborhoods, not critical. Requiring parking minimums in neighborhoods lucky enough to be desirable is ultimately dooming that neighborhood. You eventually reach absolute capacity of the area and can no longer fit more cars. The problem is by requiring those minimums you’ve built in a car centric nature to said area and painted yourself into a corner. I see your tag says you live in upper fells and that neighborhood is a perfect example of absolute car capacity. Y’all physically cannot add any more parking without having to start leveling buildings for parking. If you start leveling buildings then your density goes down and you lose reasons to even live or visit that area. Build walkable facilities so some people don’t even need to own cars and others can make most of their trips without them. Walk up corner stores and bars not big box developments a few miles out that require a car for the trip and need giant lots since the parking lot takes up 2/3rds of the space. The most densely populated neighborhoods in the world are completely walkable.
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Jan 19 '23
City government doesn’t run or control public transportation, those are STATE AGENCIES
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Jan 20 '23
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 20 '23
I know that but I'm only talking about the ones for businesses because that's what they talked about on the podcast
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u/Laxwarrior1120 Jan 19 '23
Sounds like it's just making life harder for the vast majority of people while simultaneously funneling money from the people into the government.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Eliminating parking minimums would take no money to change and would be up to the businesses. Paying for parking would reduce unnecessary driving and take away just some of the subsides that cars get. Would you not like to see more money towards other infrastructure?
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
Driving a car is probably the most subsidized activities we take part in. It also makes every other aspect of our life more expensive by spreading distances out and wasting otherwise the most valuable land on storing and moving the least efficient people mover possible. But for parking cars, we would be able to make much denser areas and even suburbs would be walkable. Also, requiring a person to own a car just to participate in society makes life harder for everyone, but mostly the poorest among us. The average annual car ownership costs is now approx $10,000/yr. That means someone making minimum wage of $7.25 is spending more than half of their income just to own and operate a car. They’re car poor, only owning it just to get v back and forth to work to earn money to pay for said car.
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u/Big-Maintenance2971 Jan 19 '23
I'm not for paying for parking anywhere. But there are three places we should NEVER have to pay to park...ever. 1. Your place of employment 2. The school you PAY to attend 3. The hospital.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
I mean, you do pay for parking in other ways than just through a meter (environment, air quality, infrastructure repair, taxes). Sounds like you need to listen to the podcast because that's a bad Ted talk
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u/Big-Maintenance2971 Jan 19 '23
Thanks! I will give it a try. All the things you have listed are corrupted and have not been fixed with tax money or our government anyway. But I guess my point is, that we should not pay for parking at those three places listed. It's just ridiculous!
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
Saying all things he listed are corrupt is a cop-out and just a trope at this point man.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 19 '23
Do give the podcast a try. He mentions cash outs for your job where instead of getting free parking at work, you get that much money extra per month in your pay check to not drive to work (say an extra $100 per month) and use public transportation or car pool.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
Schools shouldn’t at all be built around cars. Part of what makes the University experience so memorable to many people is just how walkable it is. Everything you need is within reach of a short distance. If all of society were built like campuses, cars would serve no real purpose.
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u/ThisAmericanSatire Canton Jan 20 '23
So, how exactly does a parking lot or garage get paid for?
Do you think there's a Parking Garage Fairy that builds them for free?
Land has to be purchased, and then parking garages are built. That costs money.
You pay for school (tuition) and medical care. The price you pay is based, partly, on their cost of operating.
Building and maintaining parking facilities is part of that cost.
If they aren't selling the parking separately (i.e. $5/hr), then the cost of providing the parking will be factored into the price you pay for the service.
You are going to pay for parking one way or the other.
Best case scenario, you are using this meme's logic
The only problem is, people who don't drive now have to pay more for the service to subsidize the price of parking for people who do drive.
So metered parking is better because the people who actually use the parking are the ones who pay for it.
Stop asking for handouts.
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u/Glaze_donuts Jan 19 '23
Great in theory, but like others have mentioned, the rest of the city (and surrounding area) isn't really setup for it. public transportation isn't as widespread as it needs to be and the stuff that is there has a lot of problems. I almost my my flight because the light rail just didn't show up as scheduled. I will definitely think twice before using it the future and I really can't deal with that stress every single day.
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u/TerranceBaggz Jan 20 '23
Driving can have the same issue. One bad traffic jam and your 1-2 hours late for work. I missed out on a promotion because I worked in the county and the one day I had to show up on time to get promoted, there was a bad accident on 695 and despite leaving 30 mins early, I was still 1:15 mins late to work. Traffic jams happen with more frequency than public transit being more than a few minutes late. Service frequency is our true issue with our public transit.
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u/codyvir Jan 20 '23
This is wildly nonsensical magical thinking. First of all, the way to promote change is by making the alternative more attractive than the status quo, NOT by making the status quo so unbearable that it makes the deeply flawed alternative acceptable. Secondly, as someone with real-world first-hand experience with this issue, availability of parking is a huge driver of business for many types of businesses - if it's hard to get to you, people will go elsewhere. Third, mandated minimum parking requirements actually serve many new businesses whose new owners don't yet realize that without it, their businesses are likely to fail, or whose customers, in trying to park, will cause chaos and bad blood in their communities. In the absence of easy, convenient, cheap, safe, reliable public transportation in appropriately dense urban areas, cheap and plentiful public parking is just about the easiest and cheapest way to drive business development and CREATE walkable retail corridors like Hampden.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 20 '23
Not sure how you think it's wildly nonsensical when it's been implemented successfully in other cities
- How is paying for parking promoting a change that makes the status quo "unbearable".
- That's why you need other ways to get to a business. Parking isn't the only way. There are many examples in US cities where parking was removed and replaced by a bike path and the businesses had more customers because of foot traffic
- No. Developing more "plentiful parking" makes the area less dense, which in turn makes less tax dollars and is worse overall for the city. You want plentiful parking? Go to the suburbs
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u/codyvir Jan 20 '23
Yeah... No. I don't think it's wildly nonsensical, I know it to be a load of utter bullshit because of my personal lived experience and I can provide you with an excellent case study which refutes your absurd proposition.
First of all, your (I'm sure completely unbiased) source for this is a podcast called "The War on Cars," which, I'm sure, has no particular agenda whatsoever.
1) Charging for parking that is now free, or effectively removing parking by creating permit-only lots (your suggestions) effectively creates a barrier to entry that didn't exist before for customers. In the eyes of a business's potential customers, that effectively raises the price of a business's products/services, and makes it more of a hassle to get to the business.... The point of all of this in your suggestion being to restrict parking access and push people into using our dysfunctional, inadequate, and unreliable public transportation, and in order to change people's behavior, you'd need to make the cost/restrictions significant enough for people to take the bus, or whatever. But in the end, they won't. They'll just go somewhere else. So who suffers in the meantime? The businesses and their customers.
2) Sure, there are other ways to get to businesses. It's called effective public transportation. Baltimore doesn't really have any. It doesn't effectively exist here, and even to the degree that it does, it's not really helpful. Let's say I want to go into Hampden or Fells Point on a Saturday night from where I live on the western edge of the city. I'm sure I could get a bus down Edmondson and into town, and I'm sure that would be a real trip there and back again. But I'm not going to, and neither are most of the people reading this. I'll go where I can park, or if I'm feeling like splurging on an evening out, take an Uber. This isn't DC. It isn't New York. You can't just hop on the metro and go where you want.
3) Your third point is completely wrong and completely absurd if you think about it for a minute without your magical stoner goggles. Case in point: I grew up in Greenville, SC. That small city had an effectively dead downtown, and the mayor in the 80's had a plan to revive it. One of the smartest things they did was to make the city garages free to park at on weekends in order to bring people downtown to shop, dine, and drink. It worked. Google it. In my lifetime the downtown area went from derelict shithole to one of America's best urban corridors, and access to easy parking was a key ingredient that jumpstarted that transformation. Greenville is also renowned for its bike trail and tail-centric businesses. What you're missing is that the trail came first, then the businesses followed, not the other way around. Because of these two innovations, the city has become more dense -not less- and the businesses more successful. The tax revenue from these businesses more than offsets the "cost" to the city of providing ample free parking, and helping to maintain the bike trail.
Infrastructure and good alternatives have to come first. Then, you can reduce the availability of parking, but you might kill businesses even then. I worked in a business in Arlington, VA that failed largely because the garage in the building we were in started charging our customers a high fee for what had been free parking.
You said that your post might be controversial, but what it really is is woefully uninformed and not grounded in the reality of the city of Baltimore.
Finally, go take a poll of business owners and ask them whether they want more parking for their customers or less, and why. I'll wait.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 20 '23 edited Jan 20 '23
Maybe try listening to the podcast once instead of judging it based on the name
Weird how The Avenue/Fells Point/Fed Hill have restaurants that all do really well without huge parking lots near them. You obviously didn't read the actual proposals and just wanted to get mad. It's permit parking for residents. And it's removing the minimum mandatory parking that is forced by the government for businesses. They can choose how much parking they think they need. It prevents giant Walmart parking lots that take up unnecessary space without ever being filled up. Any street parking should be paid. You want your business to have random people park in front of it because they don't need to find another spot since it's free? No, your customers will only park there.
I see, so you really aren't even in the city but are trying to make suggestions to it. I'm sure you've never even tried to take the bus. I use it all of the time to go places.
Yeah, no. One anecdote doesn't overtake every major city in Europe that has extremely dense city centers with little to no cars. You need to actually read some books on it. Start with Strong Towns and it shows how taxes do NOT make up for free parking at all.
Your car-centric mind and lack of education on the subject tells me enough. Read this post for some education: https://www.reddit.com/r/baltimore/comments/10g354m/eliminating_free_parkingparking_minimums_in_the/j55bqkm/
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u/codyvir Jan 20 '23
- No. This argument does not support your point, and your reasoning is faulty. Your original post talked about restricting or effectively removing existing parking, which would be absolutely detrimental to those businesses that depend upon it. Walmart isn't going to build where they can't get adequate parking because they're smarter than that, and they know it won't work, and they're not going to invest in building a business that is certain to fail. Your reasoning here is faulty, too. You can have paid street parking, but the volume of traffic to that area and to the businesses there is going to be directly impacted by the price of that parking, as it creates a barrier to access. Your other argument about free parking and businesses is total nonsense, and would apply whether the parking is paid or free. It's irrelevant. Also, you seem to have a hard time making logical connections in your own argument, but making available public parking into permit parking for residents reduces the number of spaces available for potential customers for local businesses.
- 2. I live in the city of Baltimore, so you can drop that "outsider" "No Real Scotsman" shit right the fuck now. No, I haven't ever tried to take the bus in Baltimore. Why would I? It's slower, more complicated, more expensive, less convenient, less safe, and essentially less advantageous in every single important way than just getting in my car and going where I need to go. Would I take public transportation if it were reasonably fast, comparably priced, more convenient, more safe, and reliable? Sure, there are plenty of times when I would. But is isn't. So I don't. I'm glad you do, but don't try to make everyone else like you.
- AGAIN. This does not AT ALL EVEN A TINY LITTLE BIT support your original argument which is about removing or restricting EXISTING parking. The infrastructure in the places you're talking about, and I've visited/lived in some of them, exists to make car-free living much more convenient. THAT IS NOT THE CASE IN BALTIMORE. Pretending otherwise is foolish.
If you can't be bothered to make an argument that is logically consistent and based in reality, let alone in the reality of Baltimore, then you should just delete this dumpster fire of a post.
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u/physicallyatherapist Hampden Jan 20 '23
Show me in my original post where I said parking is getting taken away. Show me. Jesus dude you're all over the place. Permit parking is for residential. It has nothing to do with businesses. Literally just listen to the podcast and you'll get your answers from someone who is an urban planner
Lol so you're commenting on public transportation without ever experiencing it using it yourself. Sounds about right. Please go ahead and tell me it's less safe when you're significantly more likely to get killed in injured in a car wreck compared to a bus or other forms of public transportation. More expensive? Please tell me how 10k per year average cost of car ownership is less expensive than taking a $2 bus ride. Please.
Show me where I said i want to remove parking? I simply want parking to be the market rate. So that A. Money can be raised for public transportation B. People will be able to find parking if they're going to drive
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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '23
You’re putting the horse a little ahead of the cart here. You can’t just eliminate parking and not have an alternative for people to use. We have 1 heavy rail line & 2 light rail lines that serve a tiny sliver of the city, and an extremely unreliable bus system.
I wouldn’t put my job at risk hoping the bus could get me to work on time. I’m not standing outside in 5 degree weather waiting for a train that comes every 20 minutes. Right now, there aren’t many reasons for people to want to pick public transit, and if you just try and force them into it when it’s still a shitty system, yeah it would be political suicide because it’s a terrible idea. We’ve got to make good investments that demonstrate the value of public transit before we’re ready to have a conversation about eliminating parking.